The Great Buddha statue

At the end of the temple road, a colossal Buddha sits in meditation, eyes lowered, hands in the earth-touching mudra — the same gesture with which, tradition says, the Buddha called the earth to witness his awakening.

A gift from Japan

The statue was commissioned by the Daijokyo Buddhist Society of Japan and consecrated in 1989 in the presence of the Dalai Lama. Built of some twelve thousand blocks of sandstone and red granite over seven years, it rises twenty-five metres above a lotus plinth, ringed by ten smaller statues of the Buddha's principal disciples. It is among the tallest Buddha statues in India, and a landmark of the modern, international Bodhgaya — a town rebuilt over the past century by the generosity of Buddhist communities worldwide.

A short stop, a still one

It is not an ancient site, and we do not pretend otherwise — but it is a serene one, and it says something true about Bodhgaya as it is today: a place cared for by the whole Buddhist world. We usually visit in the late afternoon, closing a day among the monasteries as the light warms the stone.