HistoriCity | Gaya: Corridors of religion, power, and history
Today, Gaya and Buddha Gaya- both are visited by millions of Buddhist and Hindu pilgrims, many of them unaware of past conflicts
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced the comprehensive development of the Vishnupad Temple corridor in Gaya and Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya in Bihar. Supported by the government to transform them into ‘world-class pilgrim and tourist destinations’, Sitharaman said that these would be modelled on the successful Kashi Vishwanath Temple Corridor, in an attempt to bolster tourism. The political-economic reasons behind selecting these sites, however, can only be understood through a deep dive into their religious histories.
Matters of the Soul
The word Bihar comes from Vihar which means a monastery, typically Buddhist. Bihar along with the rest of the Gangetic plains has been the cradle of religion and culture for at least four millennia. At least two major religions: Buddhism and Jainism took birth in Bihar and adjoining areas of Uttar Pradesh, and in opposition to Brahminism.
The fundamental and most critical difference between Buddhism and Hindu beliefs is their respective conception of the soul. Hindus believe in metempsychosis, or the transmigration of the soul after death, whereas Buddhism denies the existence of an indestructible and unchanging soul.
The Buddha was born Siddhartha (563–483 BCE), in a royal family of the Shakya clan around 6th BCE; this was an age when animal sacrifices and extravagant ceremonies were the norm, and like today, salvation or moksha was coveted by commoner and king alike. Among the various sects like the Ajeevikas and Lokayats (an early version of Jain religion), it was Buddha who proffered that salvation could be achieved through an eight-fold path based on optimality of thought, words and actions. This formulation was revolutionary and path-breaking; it democratised salvation and, made it accessible to both elite and plebian who began to embrace Buddhism or Buddha’s way.
The Construction of the Mahabodhi Temple
It was in Gaya, that Buddha spent his early days as a hermit, meditated and gained enlightenment under a Pipal tree ( later known as the Bodhi tree). In 260 BCE, the Mauryan emperor Ashoka (304 – 232 BCE), arguably the biggest patron of Buddhism, constructed a stupa at the spot which later came to be known as the Mahabodhi temple, and a monastery. Ashoka also gifted a diamond- encrusted throne known as Vajrasena. This was perhaps the golden age of Buddhism and Brahminical Hinduism while very much alive, remained in its shadow.
Ashoka’s daughter Sanghamitra, took a root of this tree to Sri Lanka at the request of its king Devapiya Tissa. Presently, a Bodhi tree born of this root thrives in the town of Anuradhapura in the island nation.
As anthropologist David Geary states, it was under Ashoka’s patronage that Buddhist ‘words and praxis have crossed vast distances, enlarging the global scope of Buddhism and reinforcing its sacred ties to the Indian subcontinent”. He further asserts that the Mahabodhi Temple became an ‘important material signifier of India’s Buddhist civilisation’.
During the reign of the Sunga empire (187-73 BCE) Gaya was showered with royal attention in the form of sculptural elements like columns with post-shaped bases, sandstone posts, railings and medallions.
The present structure of the Mahabodhi temple is a restored version of a 55-metre tall pyramidal temple built in the 5th-6th BCE during the Gupta empire. The temple’s fine brickwork, a hallmark of the Gupta period and its architectural style of a pagoda was later adopted by other religions and countries. The tree itself is seen as a living witness to Budhha and is revered most deeply by Buddhists.
By the time, however, Fa Hien, the Chinese traveller and Buddhist monk, visited Gaya in the 5th century, Buddhism had waned there, forcing him to write in 404 CE, “all within the city was desolate and desert”.
By the end of the 1st millennium of the common era, Buddhism had virtually faded out from the Gangetic plains and mainland India. In the 15th century Sariputra, the last Buddhist abbot (Mahant) at Mahabodhi left for Nepal. After that control of the temple went into the hands of the area's dominant landowners and the temple and other Buddhist sites were Hinduised.
However, Buddhism continued to flourish elsewhere and is today the official religion in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bhutan and Myanmar, and the majority religion in over a dozen countries.
The rise of the Vishnupad temple
The Gaya Mahatmya section of the Vayu Purana is dated to around the 15th century. The Mahatmyas are texts written in praise of sacred sites, and explain the origins of holy spots within the country. The Gaya Mahatmya relates that the Vishnnupad (‘feet of god Vishnu’) temple marks the spot where Vishnu and other gods buried the demon Gayasura in the ground.
This is a poignant myth that relates how Gayasura, a Vaishnavite demon (implying he shunned blood sacrifice and consumption of meat), was granting salvation through mere touch and sight, and had therefore caused resentment among Brahminical gods like Brahma.
Despite many attempts to subjugate him by the gods remained unsuccessful until Vishnu struck him with his mace, threw the Dharmashila (rock of religion) on him and climbed on it along with other gods burying him underground. According to prevalent myth, Vishnu granted the banished Gayasura the promise of an eternal supply of food and it is therefore that offerings of funeral cakes (pind dan) are made at the Vishnupad temple. Devotees believe that they are offering these funeral cakes to their ancestors and earn good karma which would lead to salvation, or at least a decent next rebirth.
Rajendralal Mitra, a Bengali renaissance leader, and one of the finest cultural researchers of India interprets this myth as an allegory for the conflict between Buddhism and Brahmanism. He asserts in his book, Buddha Gaya: The Hermitage of Sakya Muni, that “Buddhists were pious, they were self-mortifying, they devoted themselves to penance and meditation but they did away with the sacrifices and ceremonies of the Brahmins, and Gaya therefore may safely be taken to a personification of Buddhism. The attempt of the gods to put down the head of the monster typifies the attempts of the Hindus to assail Buddhism at its inspiring centre, the head-quarters; and the thwack of Vishnu’s mace indicates the resort which had been made to force when religious preaching had failed to attain the end”.
Restoring Mahabodhi temple to Buddhists
Geary adds that with the beginning of British rule, the “discovery of the Mahabodhi temple” prompted politically sensitive questions on who it belonged to, and who its heirs were. While for at least a period of six hundred years, some historians speculate the Temple remained unvisited by Buddhist monks, it was undoubtedly central to the life of the Buddha. Among the Hindu pilgrims visiting the site, the Temple had taken on a Vaishnava character as a homage to “Buddha Dev”, or an avatar of Vishnu.
In fact, the Mahabodhi temple remained in the control of Hindu priests until almost the 20th century. It was restored to Buddhists through the efforts of Sri Lankan Buddhist priest Angarika Dharmapala, who went to court in the 1890s to regain control of the Mahabodhi temple site from the hands of Hindu priests. However, the protracted legal battle continued for sixteen years after Dharmapala’s death, and the Mahabodhi temple was restored to the Buddhist Maha Bodhi Society in 1949.
Today, Gaya and Buddha Gaya- both are visited by millions of Buddhist and Hindu pilgrims, many of them unaware of past conflicts. This is a site where the confluence of these two great religions exists peacefully, and hopefully this peace also pervades the souls of all those who visit this site of shared heritage, no matter their beliefs.
HistoriCity is a column by author Valay Singh that narrates the story of a city that is in the news, by going back to its documented history, mythology and archaeological digs. The views expressed are personal
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced the comprehensive development of the Vishnupad Temple corridor in Gaya and Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya in Bihar. Supported by the government to transform them into ‘world-class pilgrim and tourist destinations’, Sitharaman said that these would be modelled on the successful Kashi Vishwanath Temple Corridor, in an attempt to bolster tourism. The political-economic reasons behind selecting these sites, however, can only be understood through a deep dive into their religious histories.
Matters of the Soul
The word Bihar comes from Vihar which means a monastery, typically Buddhist. Bihar along with the rest of the Gangetic plains has been the cradle of religion and culture for at least four millennia. At least two major religions: Buddhism and Jainism took birth in Bihar and adjoining areas of Uttar Pradesh, and in opposition to Brahminism.
The fundamental and most critical difference between Buddhism and Hindu beliefs is their respective conception of the soul. Hindus believe in metempsychosis, or the transmigration of the soul after death, whereas Buddhism denies the existence of an indestructible and unchanging soul.
The Buddha was born Siddhartha (563–483 BCE), in a royal family of the Shakya clan around 6th BCE; this was an age when animal sacrifices and extravagant ceremonies were the norm, and like today, salvation or moksha was coveted by commoner and king alike. Among the various sects like the Ajeevikas and Lokayats (an early version of Jain religion), it was Buddha who proffered that salvation could be achieved through an eight-fold path based on optimality of thought, words and actions. This formulation was revolutionary and path-breaking; it democratised salvation and, made it accessible to both elite and plebian who began to embrace Buddhism or Buddha’s way.
The Construction of the Mahabodhi Temple
It was in Gaya, that Buddha spent his early days as a hermit, meditated and gained enlightenment under a Pipal tree ( later known as the Bodhi tree). In 260 BCE, the Mauryan emperor Ashoka (304 – 232 BCE), arguably the biggest patron of Buddhism, constructed a stupa at the spot which later came to be known as the Mahabodhi temple, and a monastery. Ashoka also gifted a diamond- encrusted throne known as Vajrasena. This was perhaps the golden age of Buddhism and Brahminical Hinduism while very much alive, remained in its shadow.
Ashoka’s daughter Sanghamitra, took a root of this tree to Sri Lanka at the request of its king Devapiya Tissa. Presently, a Bodhi tree born of this root thrives in the town of Anuradhapura in the island nation.
As anthropologist David Geary states, it was under Ashoka’s patronage that Buddhist ‘words and praxis have crossed vast distances, enlarging the global scope of Buddhism and reinforcing its sacred ties to the Indian subcontinent”. He further asserts that the Mahabodhi Temple became an ‘important material signifier of India’s Buddhist civilisation’.
During the reign of the Sunga empire (187-73 BCE) Gaya was showered with royal attention in the form of sculptural elements like columns with post-shaped bases, sandstone posts, railings and medallions.
The present structure of the Mahabodhi temple is a restored version of a 55-metre tall pyramidal temple built in the 5th-6th BCE during the Gupta empire. The temple’s fine brickwork, a hallmark of the Gupta period and its architectural style of a pagoda was later adopted by other religions and countries. The tree itself is seen as a living witness to Budhha and is revered most deeply by Buddhists.
By the time, however, Fa Hien, the Chinese traveller and Buddhist monk, visited Gaya in the 5th century, Buddhism had waned there, forcing him to write in 404 CE, “all within the city was desolate and desert”.
By the end of the 1st millennium of the common era, Buddhism had virtually faded out from the Gangetic plains and mainland India. In the 15th century Sariputra, the last Buddhist abbot (Mahant) at Mahabodhi left for Nepal. After that control of the temple went into the hands of the area's dominant landowners and the temple and other Buddhist sites were Hinduised.
However, Buddhism continued to flourish elsewhere and is today the official religion in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bhutan and Myanmar, and the majority religion in over a dozen countries.
The rise of the Vishnupad temple
The Gaya Mahatmya section of the Vayu Purana is dated to around the 15th century. The Mahatmyas are texts written in praise of sacred sites, and explain the origins of holy spots within the country. The Gaya Mahatmya relates that the Vishnnupad (‘feet of god Vishnu’) temple marks the spot where Vishnu and other gods buried the demon Gayasura in the ground.
This is a poignant myth that relates how Gayasura, a Vaishnavite demon (implying he shunned blood sacrifice and consumption of meat), was granting salvation through mere touch and sight, and had therefore caused resentment among Brahminical gods like Brahma.
Despite many attempts to subjugate him by the gods remained unsuccessful until Vishnu struck him with his mace, threw the Dharmashila (rock of religion) on him and climbed on it along with other gods burying him underground. According to prevalent myth, Vishnu granted the banished Gayasura the promise of an eternal supply of food and it is therefore that offerings of funeral cakes (pind dan) are made at the Vishnupad temple. Devotees believe that they are offering these funeral cakes to their ancestors and earn good karma which would lead to salvation, or at least a decent next rebirth.
Rajendralal Mitra, a Bengali renaissance leader, and one of the finest cultural researchers of India interprets this myth as an allegory for the conflict between Buddhism and Brahmanism. He asserts in his book, Buddha Gaya: The Hermitage of Sakya Muni, that “Buddhists were pious, they were self-mortifying, they devoted themselves to penance and meditation but they did away with the sacrifices and ceremonies of the Brahmins, and Gaya therefore may safely be taken to a personification of Buddhism. The attempt of the gods to put down the head of the monster typifies the attempts of the Hindus to assail Buddhism at its inspiring centre, the head-quarters; and the thwack of Vishnu’s mace indicates the resort which had been made to force when religious preaching had failed to attain the end”.
Restoring Mahabodhi temple to Buddhists
Geary adds that with the beginning of British rule, the “discovery of the Mahabodhi temple” prompted politically sensitive questions on who it belonged to, and who its heirs were. While for at least a period of six hundred years, some historians speculate the Temple remained unvisited by Buddhist monks, it was undoubtedly central to the life of the Buddha. Among the Hindu pilgrims visiting the site, the Temple had taken on a Vaishnava character as a homage to “Buddha Dev”, or an avatar of Vishnu.
In fact, the Mahabodhi temple remained in the control of Hindu priests until almost the 20th century. It was restored to Buddhists through the efforts of Sri Lankan Buddhist priest Angarika Dharmapala, who went to court in the 1890s to regain control of the Mahabodhi temple site from the hands of Hindu priests. However, the protracted legal battle continued for sixteen years after Dharmapala’s death, and the Mahabodhi temple was restored to the Buddhist Maha Bodhi Society in 1949.
Today, Gaya and Buddha Gaya- both are visited by millions of Buddhist and Hindu pilgrims, many of them unaware of past conflicts. This is a site where the confluence of these two great religions exists peacefully, and hopefully this peace also pervades the souls of all those who visit this site of shared heritage, no matter their beliefs.
HistoriCity is a column by author Valay Singh that narrates the story of a city that is in the news, by going back to its documented history, mythology and archaeological digs. The views expressed are personal