Bodhgaya
Both spellings, Bodh Gaya as well as Bodhgaya, are used almost equally extensively. However, an analysis of sign-boards in the holy town indicated that the government as well as the Buddhist establishment spelled the name as one word. Bodh Gaya was more popular with the private sector.
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'Buddh' Gaya, 1908
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
(Bodh Gaya). — Village in the head-quarters sub- division of (laya District, Bengal, situated in 24° 42' N. and 85° o' E., about 7 miles south of Gaya town, on the west bank of the Phalgu or Lilajan river. Population (1901), 502. The name signifies either the Gaya of Buddha or the Gaya of the bodhi ('enlightenment'). The place is sometimes, however, called Mahabodhi, or ' the great enlighten- ment,' a name which is also given to the bodhi-druma or sacred plpal- tree at Buddh Gaya.
It was under this tree that Sakyamuni, after many years of search after truth, conquered Mara and attained to Buddhahood, i. e. became freed from the circle of rebirths ; and worship consequently centred around the bodhi-\jee from the earliest period of Buddhism. King Asoka (third century B.C.) is said to have erected a temple near this holy tree, and one of the bas-reliefs of the Bharhut s/upa (second century B. c.) gives a representation of the tree and its surroundings as they then were. It shows a/J/a/-tree, with a vedi or stone platform in front, adorned with umbrellas and garlands, and surrounded by some building with arched windows resting on pillars ; while close to it stood a single pillar with a Persepolitan capital crowned with the figure of an elephant.
When the stone pavement of the present temple was dug up during its restoration, foundations of an older building were discovered beneath it, which, in the opinion of General Cunningham, represent the remains of the original temple built by Asoka. The ancient stone railing which now surrounds the temple certainly belongs for the greater part to about the same time as Asoka's reign ; and this railing and the bases of some columns which mark the place where Buddha used to take exercise form the only remains now extant of so early a period.
The railing is adorned with various sculptures, among which the larger reliefs generally represent events in Buddha's life or his former births. On one of these pillars, which has been removed from the temple pre- cincts to the math of the mahant of Buddh Gaya, there is a figure of the Sun-god standing on his chariot drawn by four horses. The holy tree stands west of the temple. The present one is certainly not of very great age, but it is evidently an offshoot of an older tree ; and General Cunningham even found portions of the trunk and roots of a plpal-ix&Q very deep down below the surface.
Under its shadow is the ancient Vajrdsana or adamantine throne of Buddha, which may belong to about the same time as the railing, though it contains a muti- lated inscription of later date. Its outer faces are covered with Brah- mani geese, alternating with the usual honeysuckle ornament, and its upper surface has a geometrical pattern carved upon it. Except for these earlier remains, all the Buddhist sculptures, which have been found in great numbers around the temple, belong to the latest phase of Buddhism in India (a. d. 800 to 1200), and afford a striking illustra- tion of what that religion had become before its final overthrow by the Muhammadans.
The present temple was restored in 1881 by the Bengal Government, and in its main features represents the structure as it must have existed as early as a.d. 635, when the Chinese pilgrim, Hiuen Tsiang, saw it. It consists of a main tower rising to the height of 180 feet in the form of a slender pyramid, which springs from a square platform on the four corners of which are similar towers of smaller size. The outside walls have niches for the reception of statues, and access to the temple is obtained through an eastern gate supported by pillars, which opens on to an anteroom in front of the sanctum. At the western wall of the sanctuary is a vedi or altar upon which is placed the principal image, a large mediaeval statue representing Buddha seated under the bodhi- tree with various other images on each side. The main figure has been gilded over, and the Hindu custodians of the shrine have marked its forehead with the sectarian mark of the Vaishnavas, in order to repre- sent it as the Buddha incarnation of Vishnu. The worship of this image by Hindus is comparatively recent, and apparently does not date farther back than the restoration of the temple in 1881.
The ground floor is about 20 feet below the modern surface level. Scarcely more than one quarter of the old site has been excavated ; but, as far as can be judged from the present state of the ruins, the entire area of the main enclosure of the temple has been laid open. It was filled with an enormous amount of smaller shrines, chaitvas, votive sfupas, and the like, the foundations of which are still extant. South of the temple is an old tank, called Buddhpokhar ; and north-west, at a place now called Amar Singh's Fort, remains of the ancient monastery of Buddh Gaya have been discovered. Very little of these remains can, however, be seen at present, and here as in other places further excavation on a systematic scale may yield valuable results.
Apart from the temple and its surroundings, the remains near Buddh Gaya are scanty. There are none to be found at the spot where, according to tradition, Buddha was sheltered by the serpent-Jcing Muchilinsa, and where Hiuen Tsiang saw a statue representing the scene ; but at Bakraur, where some of the pillars of the Buddh Gaya railing have been placed inside a small Hindu math, are the remains of a stupa which marked the site where Buddha once appeared in the shape of an elephant. The so-called Pragbodhi cave, where Buddha spent some time before he went down to Uruvilva, the present Buddh Gaya, is situated on the western slope of the ISIora hills, midway between Buddh Gaya and Gaya town ; and the brick foundations of ancient stupas may be observed from the cave on the hills.
Buddh Gaya is now a place of Hindu as well as of Buddhist worship ; and the Hindu pilgrims who offer pindas to their ancestors at the holy shrines of Gaya visit it on the fourth day of their pilgrimage and per- form the usual propitiatory ceremonies, the principal vedi being another pipal tree north of the temple. It cannot now be determined to what age this adoption by the Hindus of a Buddhist site goes back, but it is certainly several centuries old ; and it is not improbable that Hindu worship at the place began before the final overthrow of Buddhism, during the syncretistic period which preceded that event.
[L. S. S. O'Malley, District Gazetteer of Gaya (Calcutta, 1906); Sir A. Cunningham, J/rt/;c7/^<?^//i/ (1892) ; Dr. Rajendralala Mitra, Buddh 6^rtvJ (Calcutta, 1878).]
Mahabodhi Temple
The Times of India 2013/07/08
It was at the Mahabodhi Temple that Prince Siddhartha Gautama attained nirvana after fasting under the peepal tree for 49 days at the young age of 35
Leaving Kapilavastu, the palace home of his father Suddhodana in the Nepal Terai, Siddhartha, wandering in search of answers to the world’s truths, reached Bodh Gaya via Rajagriha
Emperor Asoka visited Bodh Gaya 250 years after Buddha’s nirvana. He is considered by many to be the founder of the original Mahabodhi temple
Sir Alexander Cunningham restored the temple in the 19th century
Today, the nine-member Mahabodhi Temple Management Committee headed by the district magistrate manages the complex spread over 1km
The Bodhi tree
Under the Bodhi tree, near the Niranjana river, Prince Siddhartha Gautama practised mediation
Spending seven weeks at seven spots in the vicinity, he recounted his experiences with his first disciples
After seven weeks, Buddha travelled to Sarnath, where he gave his first sermon
Controversies through the ages
Abdul Qadir, Temple & controversy, July 30, 2006: The Times of India
The alleged felling of a branch of the sacred Mahabodhi tree, the symbol of Buddha's enlightenment, has made one more addition to the long list of controversies surrounding the shrine visited by thousands of pilgrims and tourists from India and abroad.
The shrine is a UNESCO world heritage site. At least one controversy is as old as the shrine itself. Though Buddha was born as Prince Siddhartha in Lumbini, the shrine associated with his name and regarded as the seat of enlightenment was built much later.
According to Buddhist scholar P C Roy, formerly head of Ancient History and Buddhist Studies Department of Magadh University, researchers look to Fa Hein and Huien Tsang's (now Xuanzang) diary to arrive at the exact age of the temple. Fa Hein travelled in India between 399 AD and 414 AD and also visited Bodh Gaya.
But his diary does not make any reference to the Buddha shrine which means that then the shrine did not exist, argues Roy. Xuanzang visited India between 629 AD and 644 AD. He refers to the shrine in his diary and as such, according to Roy, the temple must have been built sometime between 414 AD and 629 AD.
Another controversial point in the shrine's long history is who vandalised the shrine about 600 years after its existence? One school of thought blames the Muslim rulers for vandalising the Buddhist shrine.
Another school says that the shrine was vandalised by followers of Adi Shankaracharya following the perceived defeat of Buddhist religious scholars in a Shastrarth with the Shankaracharya. Again in the year 1891, Buddhist missionary Angarika Dhammapala joined issue with the Hindu mahant of Bodh Gaya on management rights over the temple.
Battle for control
Parthasarathi Biswas, April 2, 2025: The Indian Express
Over the past two months, large-scale demonstrations have erupted across India demanding that the control over the Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, be handed over to Buddhists.
These protests are the latest chapter in a decades-old dispute over who controls one of the holiest sites in Buddhism. Buddhists want the repeal of the Bodh Gaya Temple Act, 1949 (BGTA), under which the temple is currently governed.
The temple in Bodh Gaya
It is in Bodh Gaya, while meditating under the Bo tree, that Prince Siddhartha attained enlightenment to become the Buddha (literally, “the Enlightened One”) in 589 BCE.
A simple shrine was constructed to mark the site by Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE, of which only the Vajrasana (Diamond Throne), a stone slab under the Bodhi tree next to the temple, remains. Additional structures were built during the Shunga period (2nd to 1st century BCE).
Fifth-century Chinese traveller Faxian (also known as Fa Hien) wrote that there were three Buddhist monasteries around the temple in Gaya. But the current pyramidal structure can be dated to the reign of the Guptas in the 6th century CE.
The Palas (8th-12th century CE) were the last major royal patrons of the Mahabodhi temple. By the 11th-12th centuries, Buddhism was gradually declining in the subcontinent, and so were its many centres, including in Gaya.
Lengthy struggle for control
The shrine was in a state of disrepair when Alexander Cunningham, the founder of the Archaeological Survey of India, began restoration in the 1880s. According to the website of UNESCO, which granted the Mahabodhi temple the World Heritage Site tag in 2002, the shrine was largely abandoned between the 13th and 19th centuries.
Giri’s descendants continue to control the Mahabodhi temple, which they say is a Hindu site. “Our Math’s teachings treat Lord Buddha as the ninth reincarnation of Lord Vishnu and we consider Buddhists our brothers,” Swami Vivekananda Giri, the Hindu priest currently in charge of the Bodh Gaya Math, told Al Jazeera.
Calls for the temple to be handed over to the Buddhists can be traced to the late 19th century. These were initially led by the Sri Lankan monk Anagarika Dhammapala, who even took the Hindu priests controlling the Mahabodhi temple to court.
Dhammapala’s struggle culminated in the passage of the BGTA by the Bihar Assembly in 1949, 16 years after his death.
Why BGTA is controversial
The BGTA provided for the creation of a Committee to run the Mahabodhi temple. “The Committee shall consist of a Chairman and eight members nominated by the [State] Government… of whom four shall be Buddhists and four shall be Hindus including the Mahanth,” the Act says.
The Act says the District Magistrate of Gaya shall be the ex officio Chairman of the Committee, but adds that “the State Government shall nominate a Hindu as Chairman of the Committee for the period during which the district Magistrate of Gaya is non-Hindu”.
So while the BGTA gave Buddhists a stake in the management of the shrine, control effectively remained with Hindus. This is at the heart of the tensions today, with the Buddhist side claiming that Hindu rituals have gained predominance in the temple over the years.
“It is painful to see the Mahabodhi temple being made home to non-Buddhist rituals,” Dr Siddharth Dhende, former deputy mayor of Pune Municipal Corporation, told The Indian Express.
Legally speaking, the Buddhists’ case is complicated by the Places of Worship Act, 1991. Introduced in the wake of the Ayodhya movement, the Act provides for the maintenance of the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947.
“The Places of Worship Act… blocked any legal attempts by the Buddhists to regain control of the temple,” said Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi youth leader Rajendra Patode. The Act is currently under challenge in the Supreme Court.
In 2012, two monks filed a petition before the Supreme Court seeking a repeal of the BGTA, but 13 years on, the case is yet to be listed before the court.
The ongoing protests were triggered when a group of Buddhist monks, who were fasting against “non-Buddhist” rituals in the temple, were forcibly removed from the temple premises at midnight on February 27.
The protests are being led by the umbrella organisation All India Buddhist Forum (AIBF).
2017: ‘Not in a bad shape or leafless’--FRI
2,600-yr-old Bodhi tree shed leaves naturally: Experts, April 19, 2017: The Times of India
The Dehradun-based Forest Research Institute (FRI), which maintains heritage trees, some of the oldest with historical and religious significance, has said that the Mahabodhi tree in Bihar's Gaya “is not in a bad shape and leafless“ as widely reported.
The institute, which signed an MoU with Bodhgaya Temple Management Committee (BTMC) in 2007 to manage the 2,600-year-old tree under which Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment, said leaf shedding is a natural phenomenon. FRI also manages the banyan tree at Jyotisar in Kurukshetra that finds a mention in Mahabharata and is considered by many to be around 5,000 years old.
NSK Harsh, a scientist at FRI, told TOI, “There was a lot of talk about the Mahabodhi tree drying up. However, we clarified to members of the BTMC during their visit to Dehradun that the autumn period has prolonged due to which sprouting of leaves has somewhat delayed, which is a natural phenomenon.However, a few saplings in some branches have begun appearing on the tree, so there is nothing to worry about.“ Harsh said the re vered tree had to be given micro-nutrients since 2007 when the tree showed signs of drying up. The institute's scientists had given instructions to BTMC to ensure devotees do not water it on their own or light earthen lamps under it. After these measures, the tree regained good health.
Mahabodhi temple complex
2024: Satellite images signal architectural wealth under shrine
July 14, 2024: The Times of India
Patna : A geospatial analysis utilising satellite images and ground surveys has found evidence of the presence of “huge architectural wealth” buried in the Mahabodhi temple complex and its surroundings in Bihar’s Bodh Gaya, officials said.
The study has been carried out by Bihar Heritage Development Society, a wing of Art, Culture and Youth Department, in collaboration with Cardiff University in UK. The Mahabodhi temple complex, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is one of the four holy areas related to the life of Lord Gautam Buddha. Bodh Gaya is a place where Lord Buddha is believed to have attained enlightenment.
“The study has unearthed evidence of the presence of archaeological treasure beneath the soil of the UNESCO World Heritage site and its surrounding areas…It’s a huge architectural wealth that needs further excavation,” the Art, Culture and Youth department’s additional chief secretary Harjot Kaur Bamhrah told a news agency.
The UK-based varsity and BHDS are cooperating in the project, ‘Archaeology on the footsteps of the Chinese traveller Xuanzang’.
Bengaluru-based National Institute of Advanced Studies faculty M B Rajni, one of the project members, studied satellite images of Mahabodhi temple and its surroundings and tried to correlate the findings with the description of ‘Xuanzang’, she said.
“BHDS in association with Cardiff University has been working on the multidisciplinary project on the archaeological trail of the travel of 7th-century Chinese translator monk, Xuanzang, in Bihar. The satellite images from the last several years show an alignment of structures to the north of the temple, buried underground,” said Bamhrah. Significantly, the images show the shift of the river Niranjana from east to west.
“Let us remember that the Mahabodhi temple is west of the river, and the Sujata Stupa and several other archaeological remains are located east of the river. The monuments and other archaeological remains in the east of the river are now regarded to be independent of the Mahabodhi temple. But the latest finding shows that both the temple and the Sujata stupa along with other archaeological remains stood on the same river bank in the past,” she said.
Bamhrah said this is really “very significant”. “Thus, there is a strong possibility that the monuments and other archaeological remains, now east of the river, were a part of the Mahabodhi complex,” the official said. BHDS plans to start “research to delimit the boundaries of the Mahabodhi complex in the light of these findings”, Bamhrah said. “Fresh ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey, followed by excavations, will be undertaken to unravel the buried archaeological features shown by satellite images,” she added. PTI
Buddha Poornima
On Buddha Poornima each year, his birth, nirvana, and mahaparinirvana are celebrated and thousands of pilgrims from Japan, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, China, and other countries assemble here
Bodh Gaya was enlisted as the only UNESCO World Heritage site from Bihar in the year 2002
The area was at the heart of a Buddhist civilization for centuries, until it was overrun by Turkic armies in the 13th century
