Bodh Gaya
(2001 est. pop. 31,000). A small town in central Bihar state, northeastern India, west of the Phalgu River, Bodh Gaya (also spelled Buddh Gaya) is one of the holiest Buddhist sites. Here, under the bodhi (bo) tree, Prince Siddhartha Gautama(c. 566–486 BCE) attained enlightenment after years of penance and became the Buddha. A sapling from the original tree was carried to Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka; that tree flourishes there, and a cutting from it was returned to Bodh Gaya when the original tree died. Adjacent to this descendent tree is the Mahabodhi Temple, a place of pilgrimage for all Buddhists, also sacred to Hindus, who see the Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu. It is on the site of a temple erected by Asoka in the third century BCE; the current temple (restored in the eleventh century and again in 1882) houses a large gilded image of Buddha.
Bodh Gaya also includes the Shankaracharya Math (a Hindu temple), a Japanese temple, and Burmese, Chinese, Sri Lankan, Bhutanese, Vietnamese, Nepalese, Korean, Taiwanese, and Bangladeshi monasteries. A twenty-five-meter Great Buddha statue in the Japanese Kamakura style was unveiled by the Dalai Lama in 1989. Various monasteries and institutes offer Hinayana and Mahayana meditation courses and retreats.
Siddhartha Gautama
Further Reading
Banerjee, Naresh. (1994) Glimpses of Gaya and Bodh Gaya. Bodh Gaya, India: Melwani Peace Foundation.
This is the complete article, containing 221 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page).
