India Part 7 : Bodhgaya

The Mahabodhi temple.

I'm actually hoping my train from Varanasi will run late, not an unreasonable expectation here, but no, it is pretty much on time, arriving at Gaya Junction around 6:30am.  Not feeling terribly rested, I walk through the rubbish strewn streets of Gaya and out into more or less open country, my destination being Bodhgaya, something like eight miles away.  Not a terribly long walk for all that I'm a little sleepy, only problem turns out to be my stomach is feeling a little rough, the food here does have consequences sometimes.  I grit my teeth and get almost the whole way, but succumb to the offer of a motorcycle ride for the last couple of miles - in this case, it is just a guy being friendly, so hard to tell them apart from the ones who want to sell you something.

Bodhgaya then.  My tour of India's spiritual highlights continues, after the Hindu sacred river, now we have the Buddhist holy of holies, this is where, according to the scripture, the Buddha meditated under a fig tree and obtained enlightenment - so, the birthplace of the religion pretty much.  Seems to be kind of the Buddhist equivalent of Jerusalem, there are monks and pilgrims here from all over the world, and it seems every country with a substantial Buddhist community has built a temple, monastery, or both here, each in their unique architectural style.  Makes for a lot of sightseeing, and also a hell of a lot of tourists, some of them just sightseeing, many seem to be relatives of monks paying a visit, and many more are on some kind of spiritual journey.  Indeed, there seem to be more than a few westerners who have pretty much gone native, more than once I stop for a coffee and listen to an American voice prattling on about 'prana' or whatever.  At least here I can stop for a coffee, the number of tourists mean that small though this place is it has a more international air than much of India, there are cafes, and even a 7-11, the first I have seen in the country.  Restaurants cater for many tastes, I enjoy Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese food over the course of my stay, though I don't get to have a beer with any of it - seems that not just this town, but the entire state of Bihar is an alcohol free zone, ah well I can cope.

One of the many other temples - in this case, Cambodian.

Centrepiece of town is the Mahabodhi temple, located on the site of the legendary fig tree, or Bodhi tree as it is known.  It towers over the area, surrounded by gardens, the nearest parts filled with chanting monks in robes of various colours.  Interesting to see that this whole institution, the nearby satellite temples and monasteries, have grown up over the last hundred years or so - before that, the Mahabodhi was a ruin, following centuries of neglect by Muslim and then Hindu authorities.  The temple was restored by the British, and then more recently a Buddhist council was given control of the area, turning into the place of pilgrimage it is now.  The massive stone base of the temple is slowly being covered by gold leaf by the hordes of pilgrims, and there is still a Bodhi tree here - again, planted in Victorian times, and claimed to be a descendant of the original.

In the Buddha cave.

To be honest though, for me the best part of Bodhgaya is that it is small enough that I can in pretty short order simply walk out of it into the countryside.  The town lies on the banks of what, on the map, is one of two river forks, each of them at least a hundred metres wide.  I walk across one on a road bridge, but don't see much water, rather a broad expanse of sand, and the other fork is the same, I simply walk across, finding an inch deep trickle to wade through near the centre.  In the distance I can see a small ridge, poking up from the otherwise flat landscape - a lot of India seems to be flat, as best as I can tell.  Heading towards it, I don't exactly get away from people, regularly passing through small villages of rough shacks, each with one substantial building - schools, all of them.  There are a lot of children here - the ones in the villages call out 'hello' to me, if I meet some on the road however they tend to follow along saying 'money, money'.  Good luck kids.  Up into the hills, and I find a small cave where, allegedly, the Buddha spent six years before the whole tree enlightenment thing.  Again there are a lot of tourists, and attracted by them, the path up the hill here has beggars at every turn.  There is at least a good view from the top... back to the river for some brief snatches of peace, and taking a slightly different route I find an impressive banyan tree, big enough that there is space to stand within the trunk.  A much closer experience to that of the Buddha, all those centuries ago than the temple in town I suspect, though I am not struck by any great enlightenment I'm afraid, other than that it would really be nice to get to some place where people hassle me a bit less.  Maybe at my next stop in Kolkata eh...

Underneath the Banyan tree...

Photos to go with this post can be found here.