Mahabodhi Temple
- UNESCO World Heritage
Interesting facts
- The 2013 gilding of the tower used roughly 280–290 kg of gold donated by the Thai king and Thai devotees, yet covered only its topmost section.
- A terracotta plaque found at Kumrahar in Patna, dated to about 150–200 AD, shows an earlier version of the temple with a similar tower.
- In 1033 a Chinese monk named Huaiwen left an inscription at the temple on behalf of the Song emperor Zhenzong.
- The Chinese pilgrim Faxian, visiting in the 5th century, recorded three monasteries standing around the temple.
- The Tibetan monk Dharmasvamin visited in 1234 and left a rare eyewitness account of the site after the invasions of the late 12th century.
- The temple is among the oldest brick buildings still standing in eastern India.
- Edwin Arnold, author of the poem The Light of Asia, visited in 1886 and his articles helped launch the campaign for Buddhist control.
- Copies of the temple were built across Asia, including the 13th-century Mahabodhi Temple in Bagan, Wat Chet Yot in Chiang Mai and Zhenjue Temple in Beijing.
- Under the 1949 act the management committee has four Buddhist and four Hindu members, and until a 2013 amendment its chairman had to be Hindu.
- A large Pala-period image of the Buddha was reinstated in the sanctum during the British restoration, in 1884.
Why it is worth it
The Mahabodhi Temple marks the place where, in Buddhist tradition, Siddhartha Gautama sat beneath a fig tree and attained enlightenment, and for Buddhists it is the holiest site on earth. The tree growing on the west side of the temple today is venerated as a descendant of that original Bodhi tree, and at its foot lies the Vajrasana, the Diamond Throne, a stone seat thought to have been placed by the emperor Ashoka around 250 BC. Pilgrims from across the Buddhist world come to meditate and pray around it.
Ashoka's own shrine has vanished, and the building you see is essentially of the Gupta period, the 5th to 6th century, though parts may be older still. It is a rare survival: a brick temple faced with stucco, a far less durable material than stone. Its main tower, over 55 m high, is a straight-sided pyramid of stepped niches crowned by a small stupa, a design that influenced the shape of later Hindu temples in India and Buddhist towers across Asia. Around it runs a sandstone railing begun around 150 BC and carved with medallions and scenes; most of the original posts are now in museums, including the site museum beside the temple, and have been replaced with copies.
Several spots in the enclosure recall the seven weeks the Buddha is said to have spent here after his enlightenment: the Animeshlocha shrine, where he stood gazing at the tree; the Jewel Walk, where he is said to have paced in meditation as lotuses sprang up beneath his feet; and the Lotus Pond. The temple's history is also one of repeated restoration. Burmese missions repaired it in the 11th to 14th centuries and again in the 19th, and Alexander Cunningham and Joseph Beglar carried out a major British restoration in the 1880s. For centuries the site was held by a Hindu mahant, and Anagarika Dharmapala's Maha Bodhi Society campaigned from 1891 for its return to Buddhist care; since the Bodh Gaya Temple Act of 1949 it has been run by a joint committee of Buddhist and Hindu members.
UNESCO inscribed the temple complex in 2002. In 2013 a Thai-funded project gilded the upper part of the tower.
Getting there
The temple stands in the centre of Bodh Gaya in the state of Bihar. Gaya Airport (GAY) is only about 7 km away. The nearest mainline railway station is Gaya Junction, roughly 15 km away, with direct trains from Delhi, Kolkata, Varanasi and Patna; auto-rickshaws, taxis and buses cover the road to Bodh Gaya.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Mahabodhi Temple or the Mahābodhi Mahāvihāra, is a restored Buddhist temple in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India, marking the location where the Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment, according to the Buddhist faith. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the site contains a tree believed to be a descendant of the Bodhi Tree under which the Buddha gained enlightenment and which has been a major pilgrimage destination of Buddhists for over two thousand years. The Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya is the holiest and most revered pilgrimage site for Buddhists worldwide.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
24.69600, 84.99136per Wikidata