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Bodh Gaya
This is where the Buddha's enlightment is celebrated by pilgrims from around the world. The Buddha lived and taught in India about 500 years BCE. He died there too.
He recommended four special places to his disciples just before his death : Lumbini in Nepal, where he was born, Bodh Gaya where he achieved enlightenment, Sarnath where he first preached his message and Kushinagar where he died and passed into parinirvana.
In December 2007 Graham, Robert and myself flew into to
Bodh Gaya, Bihar, in Northern India intending to visit the sacred sites. Hiring a car with a sympathetic driver was well worth it. We only missed one of the Big Four, and he took us to other places as well. (The photos follow the order of the places mentioned in bold and there are more images in the video.)
The Buddha was born in the open air. I went to
Lumbini in 1970. I have a photograph I took of a field with a stone wall and a cow sto prove it. We didn’t go there this time. Nor did we attempt to visit Kapilavastu, where he grew up, a prince in the lap of luxury. How could we? There are two contested sites, one in Nepal, the other in India.
Lumbini
My 1970 photograph of Lumbini garden, where the Buddha was born. We just tried to follow the main events of the Buddha’s adult life. I read that now there are temples, guest houses and hotels in Lumbini, built by pilgrims and entrepreneurs from Buddhist countries. This is certainly the case at the pilgrimage sites in India. Overall, it is good to see Buddhism being brought back to the land of its birth after an absence of nearly 2000 years.
The royal prince deserted his protected, luxurious, and happy life to find salvation via the accepted route of the day. At the
Mahakala Caves in a barren escarpment, we saw where, it is believed, he tried to find enlightenment through fasting and privation. A group of Tibetan monks have built a temple there. The Buddha struggled with his own difficulties, but ours came from confronting two hundred plus of India’s beggars. Begging and giving to beggars gives rise to difficult feelings. It is a difficult situation; it felt appropriate that we should be uncomfortable. When he gave up his attempts at privation, the Buddha ate some food and walked to Bodh Gaya.
Bodh Gaya was the place where we spent the bulk of our time, mixing it with pilgrims from
The Mahakala Caves
Inside this cave is where the Buddha meditated without eating ... until he realised he would not find enlightenment through abusing his body. all over the Buddhist world and listening to the Karmapa (a Tibetan Lama second only in importance to the Dalai Lama) deliver his annual teachings. We meditated beneath a tree which is descended from the one the Buddha sat under when he attained enlightenment. Bodh Gaya hosts thousands of pilgrims every year, and an amazing consortium of modern temples built in the traditional styles of the major Buddhist countries has sprung up. It is a truly international centre.
After achieving enlightenment the Buddha walked to
Sarnath. We went there and read aloud the
First Turning of the Wheel Sutta, the words, in which he first pronounced his teachings. Groups of pilgrims sat and chanted in different languages. Tibetans flung coins at the recesses, hoping they would stick. One rebounded and fell straight into Graham’s pocket. He fished it out and returned it. It finally found its niche.
Many of the suttas that the Buddha pronounced are mentioned as being given in
Jetta’s Grove. We sat there read Sariputra’s
Sutta on Right View. When Sariputra died his remains were interred under a large stupa at
Nalanda. Part of it is still there, part of the ruins of one of
Bodh Gaya
Directly behind the main temple is descendant of the tree that he sat under to meditate and become enlightened. the world’s first universities. We saw student dormitories, tiered lecture theatres, monks’ cells in a dozen monasteries. Nalanda was the greatest centre of learning in its time. Hsuan Chwang walked there all the way from China, studied for many years and took sacred texts back to China loaded on twenty-four donkeys.
The Buddha spent many days meditating among the caves on the escarpment at Rajagaha. The best-known spot is
Vulture’s Peak. It is festooned with Tibetan prayer flags, and honoured with shrines that are looked after by Hindu guardians. On the top of the escarpment is a huge Japanese Peace Stupa, gloriously presented in pristine white. Buddhists who revere the Heart and Lotus Sutras believe they were first taught here at Vulture’s Peak. We sat in a small cave and intoned the
Heart Sutta. The
Mahaparinibbana Sutta describes the last three months of the Buddha’s life. He walked from Vulture’s Peak, spending time in
Vaishali, where we saw one site believed to contain his ashes, to
Kushinagar. There, we continued reading aloud about the final days, right beside the spot where he was released. There is no body here, only a beautiful huge reclining Buddha, and a tangible
Sarnath
This ancient stupa comemmorates the the site of his first sermon. sense of presence. The mausoleum was constructed at the command of India’s first Prime Minister, the Brahmin Hindu, Pandit Nehru. Ashoka was ancient India’s first Buddhist ruler and he managed to unite much of the country 2050 years ago. Images from his time were incorporated into the flag and the currency of modern India, probably through Nehru’s influence. We sat beneath one of Emperor Ashoka’s columns and read the final verses about the Buddha’s last days.
Then we visited the spot where the Buddha was cremated. Our pilgrimage was complete.
“Here the Tathagata passed away into the state of Nibbana in which no element of clinging remains!” (Mahaparinibbana Sutta) A pilgrimage completed, yet the ultimate mystery persists: what is history and what is myth? Regardless of the answer, I completed our pilgrimage with a deepened sense that the historical Buddha, lived, walked and taught in a particular neighbourhood - and that I had visited it.
video:
sharad singh
non-member comment
very nice