Bodhgaya & the Mahabodhi Temple

Of all the places the Buddhist world holds sacred, none stands above Bodhgaya. Here, after six years of searching and forty-nine days beneath a single tree, Siddhartha Gautama saw things as they are and became the Buddha, the awakened one. Every circuit we walk begins and ends here.

The Mahabodhi Temple

The temple that marks the spot was first raised by the emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE and rebuilt in brick in the Gupta period; its soaring 55-metre spire has watched over pilgrims for some fifteen hundred years. At its heart, behind the great gilded Buddha, is the Vajrasana — the diamond throne, a slab of polished sandstone that tradition places at the exact seat of the awakening.

Around the temple lie the seven spots where the Buddha is said to have spent the seven weeks after his awakening: the Animesh Lochana stupa, where he gazed unblinking at the bodhi tree in gratitude; the Ratnachakrama, the jewel walk, its lotus carvings marking his walking meditation; and the tank where the serpent king Muchalinda sheltered him from a storm.

Walking it well

Bodhgaya rewards slowness. Pilgrims arrive before sunrise, when the grounds belong to prostrating monks and the recitation of a dozen languages rises together under the tree. We base every Indian circuit here for three nights so there is time to sit, not only to see — mornings under the bodhi tree, afternoons among the international monasteries and the Great Buddha statue.

It is a place that changes with the light and with the pilgrim. Many who walk our circuit find that the same courtyard feels wholly different on the final morning than it did on the first.