BODH GAYA

The Site of Enlightenment

On the western bank of the Niranjana River in what is now the Gaya district of Bihar, a young man named Siddhartha Gautama sat beneath a fig tree one night some 2,500 years ago and attained complete awakening. That tree — or more precisely, a direct descendant of it, preserved through a continuous tradition of care — still grows in the same location. The temple complex that has grown around it, the Mahabodhi Temple, is among the most significant surviving Buddhist structures in the world. For Buddhists of every tradition, Bodh Gaya is the centre of the earth.

The Mahabodhi Temple

The Mahabodhi Temple is a tall, tapering spire rising approximately 52 metres above the ground, built in a style that combines early Indian temple architecture with later accretions and restorations. Its core is generally dated to the Gupta period (4th to 6th century CE), though the site it occupies has been sacred since at least the time of Ashoka.

The interior of the temple contains a gilded image of Buddha in the earth-touching posture (bhumisparsha mudra) — the gesture associated with the moment of enlightenment, when he called the earth to witness his awakening. The image faces east. Around the main spire, smaller votive stupas and shrines fill the complex, many bearing inscriptions by pilgrims from Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and China from as early as the 7th and 10th centuries CE.

The Bodhi Tree

To the west of the main temple, within a railed enclosure, stands the Bodhi tree — a large sacred fig (Ficus religiosa) accepted by tradition as a direct descendant of the tree under which Buddha attained enlightenment. The original tree was reportedly sent by Emperor Ashoka's daughter Sanghamitra to Sri Lanka in the 3rd century BCE, where it was planted at Anuradhapura, a cutting from the Sri Lankan tree was later returned to Bodh Gaya. Whatever its precise botanical lineage, the tree at Bodh Gaya has been venerated continuously for centuries. Pilgrims sit beneath it in meditation at all hours.

Under this tree, Siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment, changing the course of human history.