Photo: Rohit Sharma · CC BY-SA 4.0
Scenes
Meaning
Standing in the shade of the Bodhi tree, you feel the air fill with incense smoke and the low, steady murmur of chanting.
Buddhist tradition holds that here, around the sixth century BCE, Siddhartha Gautama attained awakening beneath the Bodhi tree and became the Buddha; of the four great places of pilgrimage, this is counted the most central. The present temple, whose form is held to date from the Gupta period, is among the oldest brick temples in India, and the tree beside it is said to descend from a branch carried to Sri Lanka in Ashoka's time and later returned. Around the temple, seven stations mark the weeks tradition says the Buddha spent near the tree after awakening, and pilgrims walk them in turn. Monasteries from across the Buddhist world gather nearby, making this a meeting place of every tradition.
Voices across time
“Where was I wandering while the Buddha attained the Way? Only now do I arrive — and sorrow overwhelms me.”
Roads through this light
The Buddha — Walking a Life
“As the morning star rose, a mind unbound like night giving way to dawn”
The Buddha Crosses the Sea — From the Place of Awakening to a Mountain of Stone
“Where the Buddha's mind awakened beneath a single bodhi tree — the source from which the teaching would spread across the southern seas”
Field notes
- Location
- Bodh Gaya · India · N24.7° · E85.0°
- Best time
- Early morning as the chanting begins, in the cool pilgrimage season from November to February
- Getting there
- A 30–40 minute drive to Bodh Gaya from Gaya's airport or railway station.
- Etiquette
- Within the grounds, quiet is kept and shoes are set aside.
Sources
- · UNESCO World Heritage
- · Encyclopaedia Britannica
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