The Great Awakening Temple of Bodh Gaya

Bodh Gaya, Bihar

I sit on a bench to catch my breath. It is a hot afternoon, and I gulp water from my bottle. A couple of leaves from the Tree above drift down and settle close to me. I lazily pick them up and stare at them. Both are dried and withered, and one of them also has a long tear. And then it dawns on me these are no ordinary leaves, and the Tree from which they fell is the most revered in the world, the Bodhi Tree.

I am at the Mahabodhi Temple complex, right next to the spot where Buddha attained enlightenment while meditating on the weighty matters he was, well, meditating on. The jury is still out on what exactly constituted this enlightenment. The Tree to my left as I sat and the massive, symmetrical Mahabodhi Temple looming right behind that.

Ashoka the Great, the famous Maurya dynasty emperor, famously became a Buddhist after seeing the carnage the Kalinga war had caused. He built a temple at the site where Buddha attained enlightenment in the 3rd century BC

 As if on cue, a Buddhist monk strides up to me.

"You are a lucky man. The Holy Leaves have presented themselves to you on their own."

I do not quite know how to respond; I just nod.

"Why don't you hold the leaves between your palms and make a namaste gesture?"

He demonstrates that to me, which makes me feel a bit silly.

"Repeat after me," he says, reciting some Buddhist mantras.

The eagle-eyed monk discerns boredom on my face and quickly reaches the point.

"I am collecting funds for an orphanage; I hope you would not mind contributing a little".

I fish out a twenty rupee note which he gladly accepts and blesses me profusely. A small price to pay to get rid of him and meditate on my own in the proximity of the Bodhi Tree.

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Ashoka the Great, the famous Maurya dynasty emperor, famously became a Buddhist after seeing the carnage the Kalinga war had caused. He built a temple at the site where Buddha attained enlightenment in the 3rd century BC. Over the ages, the Temple got damaged. In the 6th century AD, the kings of the Gupta dynasty of Magadh rebuilt the Temple.

The current structure is what the Guptas made, though the Temple has been extensively restored over the past hundred years or so. What still exists from the Ashoka era is the Vajrasana — the stone placed on a raised platform attached to the Temple and under the Bodhi Tree. It marks the exact spot where Buddha sat and meditated.

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A little bit of the backstory here. Buddha, born as a prince in the Shakya Clan of Kapilvastu, was shielded from human sufferings by his father. When Buddha went on the famous outing from the palace with his charioteer one day, he saw successively; an old man bent with age, a sick person, a dead body and an ascetic. Buddha was troubled by these sights — evidently for the first time — and began thinking about the root of human suffering. One night, he quietly left his wife and newborn son and started wandering in search of the answers.

He met ascetics along the way, meditated, and subjected himself to untold sufferings, but the answer was still elusive. He travelled to Rajgir from Kapilvastu (now in Nepal) — where his father's kingdom was.

At Rajgir, he nearly starved himself to death for six years meditating in the Dungeshwari Cave atop a hill. A village woman saw him in the state and offered him some kheer and told him not to be severe on himself. Thus energised, Buddha walked to Bodh Gaya and took his place under that now famous Bodhi Tree.

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The Mahabodhi Temple is the foremost among the four major pilgrimage sites for Buddhists. The other three are Lumbini, his birthplace; Sarnath, where he delivered his first sermon; and Kushinagar, where he attained Maha Parinirvana. Buddhists from all over the world visit this Temple to pay their respects and pray to Buddha.

And there I was, standing in a patient but short queue of devotees from Thailand, Korea, Japan and a few other indeterminate countries waiting patiently to enter the Temple's sanctum sanctorum.

I must say the atmosphere inside is very calm and soothing. A monk is pottering about in front of Buddha's image. I pay my respects to the Buddha. I spy a stack of packaged drinking water bottles on one side of the altar, Bailley no less! I am thirsty, and I request the monk for a bottle which he cheerfully hands me.

On the other side of the Buddha idol, I spy upon a few fruits the devotees would have offered. Emboldened at the water bottle's success, I request the monk for some fruit. Soon enough, I have a ripe mango in my hands! I am freeloading and feel guilty; I have not brought any offerings to Buddha.

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Buddha spent several weeks in the area around the Bodhi Tree. Seven weeks, some believe. While the first week was under the Bodhi tree, the following six weeks he spent at different locations. I was particularly fascinated by the area — north of the main temple where he spent his third week. He paced to and fro here; carved stone lotuses mark this on a raised platform. Devotees place their offerings on the platform and reverently retrace the paths taken by Buddha.

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An array of votive stupas — offerings made to Buddha by the devotees for wishes fulfilled — lines the pathway to the main Temple. A startling discovery for me was a cluster of graves (samadhis) of Hindu ascetics in the Temple complex.

The story goes that sometime towards the end of the sixteenth century, a Shiva-worshipping sadhu Ghamanda Giri visited the dilapidated site and camped there. He established a math (monastery) there, and the generations following Sadhus continued the tradition. They worshipped Buddha as a Hindu god incarnate. The sadhus who passed away were buried – Hindu sadhus are buried and not cremated in many Hindu traditions — near the Temple, with a Shivalinga marking each samadhi.

 Sometime towards the end of the 19th century, a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk visited the Temple, which the British government in India was restoring after centuries of neglect. The Sri Lankan monk was astonished that Hindu ascetics controlled the Temple and even worshipped Buddha as a Hindu God, an avatar of Vishnu.

He fought for the control of the shrine to Buddhists. The case went on for decades, and eventually, a formula was worked out where Buddhists and Hindus were co opted into the management committee. It is now under the control of a temple management committee appointed by the Bihar government.

The Temple became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2002. In 2013, the monarch of Thailand, King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Also called Rama IX), donated 289 kilograms of gold to the Temple. This gold was used to cover the upper portion of the Temple.

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 The sun is getting harsher, and I look for a shaded place to sit. I spot two monks seated at a distant corner in the Temple compound and chanting Buddhist mantras. I park myself on a bench. With a combination of rest, sips of Bailley water from the sanctum and the melodious chants from the monk duo, I drift to sleep. In my dreams, I see myself super-charged and yet, at the same time, super-peaceful in the proximity of The Buddha!

Santosh Ojha has worked 28 years in senior corporate roles. He retired early to chase his twin passions of travel and travel writing. Ojha is based in Bengaluru, Karnataka.

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