Bodh Gaya (or Buddha Gaya as it is called in Sri Lanka), is the place where the Buddha attained Enlightenment. It was a major international pilgrimage centre in ancient India when Buddhism was a thriving faith.
The Mahabodhi temple after
restoration by architect
David Beglar
But by the 12th or the 13th Century CE, the Mahabodhi temple complex there had fallen into disuse and become a heap of rubble, almost. It looked as if the decline of Buddhism in India at that time had sealed its fate.
However, the place had some stirrings of activity in the 16th century, when a Hindu mendicant occupied it and claimed ownership of it. He was using it as a Shiva temple and running a Hindu monastery too. In the 19th century, the British- Indian Government planned to renovate/rebuild the Mahabodhi temple as it was too important in history to be left to rot.
But the mendicant (called Mahant) stood in the way. The Government, nevertheless, had its way and the temple was redesigned and rebuilt in the second half of the 19th century.
Towards the end of the 19th century, another important development took place. The Sri Lankan Buddhist revivalist, Anagarika Dharmapala, and the British writer and journalist Sir Edwin Arnold (author of the hugely influential work on the Buddha called the Light of Asia) began a vigorous national and international campaign to regain the temple for the Buddhists.
The battle the duo waged in the courts and in British Indian officialdom was long and tortuous. Sadly, it was only in 1949, after India became independent, that the renovated Mahabodhi temple was handed over to an Indian government-appointed committee comprising Hindus and Buddhists with a mandate to run it as a Buddhist shrine. Today, the magnificent renovated Mahabodhi temple is back to being an international pilgrimage centre and also a major tourist attraction. It is celebrated world over as one of the prominent attractions in India.
The beginnings
According to Shashank Shekhar Sinha, author of ‘Casting the Buddha: The Monumental History of Buddhism in India’ (MacMillan, New Delhi, 2024) Bodh Gaya had become a place of pilgrimage soon after the Buddha’s death in 483 BCE. The Buddha, Sinha says, had asked his disciples to convey to all Buddhists that they must visit the four places associated with his life, namely, Lumbini, Bodh Gaya, Sarnath and Kushinagara.
The Mahabodhi temple in 1879
before renovation
In the 3rd century BCE, the Mauryan Emperor and an ardent Buddhist, Ashoka, visited all four places and was the first to build a temple in Bodh Gaya. However, the present temple dates from the 5th to the 6th centuries CE. It is one of the earliest Buddhist temples built entirely in brick, still standing. It is from the Gupta period (3rd century CE to mid-6th century CE). The temple is considered to have had significant influence in the development of brick architecture over the centuries.
Bhikkhus as well laymen from far and near made a beeline to Bodh Gaya and the Mahabodhi temple. Donations of images poured in. Stele plaques to mark the pilgrims’ presence were erected. A stone stele is a tall, upright stone slab or monument that was used in ancient cultures to commemorate people and events. A large number of these stone steles were later relocated in museums or simply destroyed in the process of reconstruction, Sinha says.
Inscriptions left by pilgrims from Bihar and Bengal carried the Gatha (verse) “Patticca Samuppada” or “Dependent Origination”. This is a central Buddhist concept, according to which, everything in existence arises in dependence upon other factors, meaning nothing exists independently and all phenomena are interconnected and conditioned by causes and conditions. The temple site also contains “Dharanis” which are mantras or incantations followed by a request to act, a supplication.
There is a 4 th century CE inscription which says that some Theravada bhikkhus who were teachers of Vinaya (rules for bhikkhus) had visited. There are also inscriptions from the later Pala period. The Palas ruled Bengal and Bihar for about 400 years from the 8th century until the end of the 11th century CE. They were great patrons of Buddhism. The inscriptions in Bodh Gaya could be attributed to Gopala III and Mahipala I (10 th.to the 11 th. Century CE), Sinha says.
Bhikkhus came from the Somapura Vihara in Paharpur in Bangladesh and also from Sindh in the far west of India, now in Pakistan. There is even a four-faced Siva lingam, kept to bless Bhikkhus and pilgrims. Sinha says that contrary to the popular impression, the Mahabodhi temple and complex had Hinduism also represented. A rigid distinction between Hinduism and Buddhism did not exist then.
Sir Edwin Arnold
Anagarika Dharmapala
Mahanama, the 5th century King of Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, had built a monastery in Bodh Gaya. He also donated a shrine and an image of the Mahabodhi temple.
Between the 5th and 13th century CE there were many pilgrims from Myanmar, Tibet and China. Inscriptions are in Chinese, Burmese and Sinhalese. Chinese travellers came to Bodh Gaya in two phases, first from the 5th to the 8th century CE and then again from the 9th to the 13 th century CE.
The Chinese bhikkhu Yijing, who came in the 7th or the 8 th century CE had noted that there were many Chinese bhikkhus in Bodh Gaya. There were pilgrims and travellers from Japan and Korea also.
Wang Xuance, an envoy of the Tang dynasty of China had visited India and Bodh Gaya multiple times between 646 CE and 662 CE. Wang Xuance mentions how pilgrims erected stone steles considering them to be an act of great merit.
Many Chinese pilgrims were sent by the Song dynasty (960 CE to 1279 CE) to earn merit for the dynasty. These pilgrims took back ‘Chintamani pearls’ (wish-fulfilling pearls) and also leaves of the Bodhi tree. The Chintamani Stone is a legendary and mystical gem, often referred to as the ‘Wish-fulfilling Stone’.
It is considered a divine gift that has the power to fulfil desires and bring happiness, wealth and prosperity to its possessor.
Replicas of the Mahabodhi temple were made and taken abroad for the benefit of those who could not visit Bodh Gaya
Bodh Gaya had a funerary association also, Shashank Shekhar Sinha points out. There is a Chinese inscription which says that a bhikkhu named Hui Wen had built a stupa in memory of a Song dynasty Emperor Taizong. Likewise, the Thai king, Tilokarat, built a replica of the Mahabodhi temple at Wat Chet Yot in Cheng Mai and ordered that his ashes be placed in a shrine in the Bodh Gaya temple complex.
Decline of Bodh Gaya
It was the Tibetan bhikkhu Dharmaswamin who visited Bodh Gaya in 1234 CE who told the world about the decline of Bodh Gaya and the Mahabodhi temple. However, in the late 16th century, a Hindu ascetic and Shiva devotee, Gossain Ghamanda Giri, visited the abandoned site in Bodh Gaya and set up a monastery there dedicated to Lord Shiva. He did not forcibly take over the site, Shashanka Shekhar Sinha maintains.
By the 18th or 19th century, the Mahant had claimed Zamidari or ownership rights to the site, saying that the Moghul Emperor Shah Alam II (1759-1806), had given him a Farman or royal order to that effect. But the Mahant’s ownership right was challenged in the 19th Century by British archaeologists and the British Indian Government which wanted to renovate the Mahabodhi temple. In 1870, a Burmese delegation came to repair the temple as Theravada Buddhists believe that repairing temples was a meritorious deed.
Between 1869 and 1884, the Government had renovated the temple under the supervision of archaeologist Alexander Cunningham and Engineer, J.D.Beglar. It cost the Government Rs.200,000, Sinha says.
Anagarika Dharmapala
By the end of the 19th century, Edwin Arnold (author of Light of Asia) and Sri Lanka Buddhist revivalist Anagarika Dhamapala had formed the Bodh Gaya Mahabodhi Society to fight for the rights of Buddhists over Bodh Gaya. A case was filed in court. However, it was only in 1949 that an Act was passed by independent India to transform the Mahabodhi temple from a historical and art object to a religious icon.
The temple complex is now managed by the Government-appointed Bodh Gaya Temple Management Committee comprising four Hindus and four Buddhists. The District Magistrate is the ex-officio chair of the committee.
Even so, a struggle is on to secure exclusive rights for the Buddhists to manage the shrine. The followers of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar want control vested in the Buddhists only, partly because there is no other famous shrine for Buddhists in India.
