UNDER THE BODHI TREE

While I’m not religious, religion interests me. What I miss out on in spiritual understanding, I feel I gain from observing without prejudice, whether it is art, song or written expression being used to illuminate particular religions or philosophies like Buddhism. Throughout Asia, Buddhism is a major influence even in places where its significance has waned. The place where Prince Siddhartha Gautama (later known as Buddha) found enlightenment is far from Lumbini, Nepal where Buddha was born and spent the first part of his privileged life. After renouncing his position and status, he traveled south into India, where at a village now known as Bodhgaya, he found enlightenment while meditating for three days and three nights under a fig tree. This tree was later to be called the Bodhi tree, perhaps the most famous tree in the world. After enlightenment, he is said to have spent several weeks in the area, the first spent meditating under the tree, the second spent standing and staring at the Bodhi tree as a way of giving thanks for the shelter it gave him during the process of enlightenment. The tree and surrounding area now rank as the most important pilgrimage site for Buddhists.

Monks meditating in Bodhgaya

250 years later, Ashoka, the great Indian emperor, who was the first person to rule over most of latter-day India and a convert to Buddhism, visited the site and erected the Mahabodhi Temple, marking the spot of enlightenment. Ashoka’s patronage of Buddhism ensured that the followers of Buddha and important Buddhist sites were protected. The temple at the site now dates from the 5th-6th Century AD, although a great deal of reconstruction happened in the 19th Century after it fell into disrepair following the Muslim invasions and subsequent decline in Buddhism in India. After seeing some of the ornate Hindu and Jain temples of Rajasthan, or the Sikh’s Golden Temple at Amritsar or even the erotic temples of Khajuraho, Mahabodhi is distinctive for its basic design. The brazen sheets of gold that top temples in Thailand or Myanmar are not for it. It’s as if the significance of the site means that it can be understated, more notable for its sharp architectural lines than for over the top ornamentation so common to temples in the region.

The elegant Mahabodhi Temple.

Nowadays, Bodhgaya is a village of approximately 30,000 people that seems solely to exist to serve the pilgrims and other interested visitors. The people of Bhutan, China, Japan, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam have built other temples, statues and monasteries. These buildings reflect the architectural style and decoration of their respective countries, adding a dash of colour and exoticism to Bodhgaya. Similarly, there are a number of foreign restaurants, meaning you can try something other than Indian or the staid foreign food choices that seem to be shared by every budget hotel in India.

Gift from the Japanese people.

Shaved headed monks and nuns in saffron, maroon, brown. yellow, grey or black robes from Korea, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, as well as the occasional European monk, conspicuous in their rarity, walk slowly through the town, holding prayer beads and playing with prayers wheels. Many will visit their home countries temple but the big draw card remains the Mahabodhi temple and the Bodhi tree, a lightening rod for monks, many of whom sit in contemplation or lie prostrate on the ground, hoping that the location and their dedication will improve their piety. I’ve read that laying as low as possible before a sacred object is of great importance in Buddhism. There are boards beside the temple that are used by the monks to pray. Often, they say a mantra or say a pray with their arms raised towards the sky, before lunging down onto the board, arms in front of them like they are performing some sort of cosmic breaststroke before standing to repeat the process again and again and again.

Monk near the Mahabodhi temple.

Of course, with religion, comes disputes and the Mahabodhi Temple is no different. Hindus contend that a) because Buddha is said to be a reincarnation of Vishnu and b) because a pedestal that some say is actually a Shiva lingam, some Hindus believe that they should be allowed into the temple to pray. It is not impossible that the temple was made up of remnants from Hindu temples. The mosque in Ayodhya destroyed by an angry Hindu mob in 1992 was believed to have been built on the foundations of an old Hindu temple. Buddhists do argue that the pedestal is actually the base of a Buddha statue and that claims that Buddha was a reincarnation of Vishnu are Hindu attempts to express primacy of their religion over Buddhism.

No helping some people, no enlightenment here.

The history of the Bodhi tree is even more complex than that of the temple. Ashoka (remember him, the emperor) held a festival to honour the tree every year. Legend has it that one of his wives grew jealous of this inanimate object and ordered its destruction (using poisonous mandu thorns). Fortunately, seedlings or cuttings had been sent to Sravasti, India (done when Buddha was still alive) and to Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, where a cutting was planted in 288 BC by one of Ashoka’s daughters. The original at BodhGaya may have survived its prickly attack (or a tree may have been replanted using cuttings from either Sravasti or Anuradhapura

This tree at the Sri Mahabodhi temple in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, is grown
from a cutting of the original Bodhi tree at Bodhgaya.

The tree in Sri Lanka grows at the Sri Mahabodhi Temple in Anuradhapura, the ancient capital of the island country, where Buddhism is still the predominant religion. It is said to be the oldest angiosperm in the world and is definitely the oldest historically authenticated tree in the world. Grown from a branch of the original Bodhi tree, it looms large over the Sri Maha Bodhi temple, a white washed temple replete with prayer flags and written messages. Languid langur monkeys look over the temple walls as throngs of people move around the hot sand in bare feet. The temple but more so the tree, was looked after even during the Tamil occupation of Anuradhapura. Unlike in Bodhgaya, where people were prostrating themselves, the Sri Lankan counterpart had a more peaceful vibe. Here, families had gathered, some chilling in the sun, others taking advantage of the shade that the old tree offers. We certainly enjoyed the shade that it gave us from the hot Sri Lankan sun, heat exasperated by the hiring of bikes to get ourselves around the sprawling site. Cuttings and seedlings from this tree have found their way to many temples around the world, meaning that the original Bodhi tree will live on in some state for a long time to come. But just as these cuttings are slightly different from the original, no temple I have been to quite matches the intensity of feeling that Mahabodhi temple has. Here, voyeurs mingle with pilgrims, who stand in the spot their spiritual guide once stood around 3000 years previously, many hoping to undertake a similar thinking metamorphosis as Buddha himself did.