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Bodhgaya, India January 18, 2002 At four o'clock in the morning the crowds are already lined up in front of the gate to the Mahabodhi Temple. Most of the hundred or more beggars camped out along the outer wall of the temple complex are still wrapped up in their rags and asleep on pieces of cardboard but a few of their bare-footed children draped in shawls are already up and importuning the early arrivals. Older children from the town of Bodhgaya hawk lotus flowers, incense, prayer scarves, and candles, while teenagers sell bags of ninety one-rupee coins for 100 rupees in bills for those who wish earn merit for themselves by appeasing the beggars. Sturdy Tibetan women who have monopolized the area just outside the gate sell flats and twists of Tibetan bread made just that night and still hot in cloth-covered wicker baskets. Indian men pump up kerosene stoves and heat pots of milk tea which they sell in small glasses, three rupees (6.3 cents) for a whole glass and a rupee and a half for half a glass. A few minutes after four the gate
opens and the crowd of several hundred, mostly Tibetans from India
and people from the Buddhist countries of the Himalayas, surges into
the outer courtyard. Off the right, looming up in the early morning
winter fog which almost always blankets Bodhgaya, is the immense elongated
pyramid of the Mahabodhi Temple, built on the spot where Siddhartha
Gautama finally attained Enlightenment and became the Buddha. Most
of the early arrivals start circumambulating the outer walkway around
the temple. Present are all ages from babes at the breast to old tottering
men held at the elbows by relatives and ancient bent-over crones with
canes. Red-robed monks and nuns of all ages, muscular, stocky men
in cowboy hats, middle-aged matrons in colorful Tibetan aprons, teenagers
in designer jeans and nylon windbreakers, wild-looking mendicants
in traditional Tibetan dress with huge coils of hair wrapped around
their heads-all join the procession. Most are fingering malas-strings
of 108 prayer beads-and a steady drone of mantras reverberates in
the damp morning air.
The outer walkway is a square about 525 feet long one each side and about 10 feet wide. When it is not too crowded and I can walk at my regular meditative pace it takes me exactly eight minutes to make one circuit. Coincidentally, this is also the exact amount of time it takes to repeat one mala-108 recitations-of the basic Buddhist mantra Om muni muni maha muniye svaha. By the time I begin my second circuit several hundred more people have joined the procession. The ten-foot wide pathway is now almost shoulder-to-shoulder with people and the pace begins to slow. The outer circuit begins and ends in the middle of the east side of the temple complex, where a stone staircase leads down to the inner courtyard and the Mahabodhi Temple itself. Right at the end of the walk, just to the right, is a small white temple known as the Animisa Chaitya, or the Unblinking Shrine. This marks the spot where the Buddha spent the second week after his Enlightenment staring unblinkingly at the Bodhi Tree, which is now just behind the Mahabodhi Temple to the west. Some modern commentators have questioned this, suggesting instead that the true Animisa Chaitya is to the north of the Mahabodhi Temple, at a place now marked only by the foundation of a stupa which itself has long since disappeared. The White Temple is still considered the official Animisa Chaitya by the temple authorities, however, and is identified as such with a large signpost. At least a dozen people are now doing prostrations on the small concrete platform in front of the temple and others are placing hundreds of blazing candles on the low surrounding walls and dumping plastic bags of powered juniper on smoldering heaps of incense that emit clouds of thick, pungent smoke. By the time I start my third circumambulation hundreds more are gathered around the entrance to the outer walkway and are easing their way into the procession. Now the walkway is jammed solid with people, and there are bottlenecks where the crowd has to squeeze around prostrators. These individuals drop to their knees, stretch out full length on their stomachs with their arms fully extended in front of them, then get up, walk three paces forward to where their hands had reached, and then complete the process all over again. The real hard-core practitioners of this devotional exercise wear thick leather aprons and mittens to cushion their full-body extensions, and some have thick calluses on their foreheads from repeated contact with the concrete walkway. Most are middle-aged men, and they make circuit after circuit, all day long, day after day, some, reportedly, for months at a time. By now also the western side of the walkway is lined with monks and wandering yogis who sit and recite scriptures either from long loose-sheeted Tibetan books or from memory. These are the pilgrims who rely on other pilgrims for their daily sustenance. The faithful throw rupee coins into the laps of the reciters' robes as they walk by, thereby adding to the merit they are accumulating by circumambulating the Mahabodhi Temple. At the end of my third circuit of the outer walkway I turn right and descend the stone stairs into the large sunken courtyard which contains the Mahabodhi Temple itself. At the bottom of the stairs is a stone pillar and signpost which marks the original location of the so-called Ajapala Nigrodha Tree, a banyan tree under which the Buddha meditated during the fifth week after his Enlightenment. Just past the pillar is the entrance to the middle walkway, which is on the level of the Mahabodhi Temple, about ten feet lower than the outer walkway, and separated from it by a grassy sloping bank. This middle walkway, about 500 feet long on each side, is less crowded in the mornings than the outer walkway, and I am able to quickly complete my first circumambulations. On the southern side of the middle circuit a wide passageway leads underneath the outer walkway to a small courtyard containing a section of one of the famous pillars which were erected at numerous places around India by the Emperor Ashoka, an early patron of Buddhist. Crowned in 270 BC, Asoka himself came here to Bodhgaya on a pilgrimage in 260 BC. This pillar, however, was probably placed originally in Gaya, twelve miles from here, and was only moved to its present location in 1956. About three feet in diameter and perhaps fifteen feet high (it is just a section of the original), it is the object of its own special form of veneration. Three people are now circumambulating the pillar with their backs to it, their shoulder blades pressed tightly against the stone while they step sideways in a clockwise direction. A dozen other people are waiting their turn. Beyond the small courtyard with the pillar is a large
gateway leading to a pond known as the Muchhalinda Tank. According to
a signpost this is where the Buddha meditated during the sixth week
after his Enlightenment, although as with the Animisa Chaitya many scholars
believe that the actual location was elsewhere, in this case at a small
pond about a mile further south from here. At the end of my third circuit around the middle walkway I turn right and enter the inner courtyard of the Mahabodhi Temple, but not before taking off my shoes and placing them in my shoulder bag. There has recently been a major set-to about people, in particular Tibetans, who have worn their shoes within the inner precincts of the temple, in flagrant violation of the rules and to the intense irritation of the committee who oversees the temple. There is now a fine imposed for wearing shoes within the inner temple grounds. Directly in front of me rises up the immense pile of the Mahabodhi Temple, surely one of the most imposing religious monuments in the world, and arguable the most sacred to Buddhists. Made almost entirely of brick, it consists of a base perhaps twenty feet high topped by a elongated pyramid rising 170 feet. At the top of each of the four corners of the base are smaller pyramids. The huge doors to the temple have not yet been opened for the day, but several hundred people are gathered out front. Some are praying or reciting mantras while fingering malas, some are doing full length prostrations, some hold big lotus flowers, others candles, prayer scarves, thick bundles of burning incense, baskets of fruit, and bowls of uncooked rice.
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The Outer Vajrasana, or Diamond Seat  The Outer Vajrasana  The Ratnachankrama Chaitya, or Jewel Walk Shrine. This marks the place where Buddha paced back and forth during the third week of his Enlightenment.  Statue of the ever-popular Tara to the left of the main entrance  Sign indicating the Animisa Chaitya, or the Unblinking Shrine.  Animisa Chaitya, or the Unblinking Shrine. This marks the spot where the Buddha supposedly spent the second week after his Enlightenment staring unblinkingly at the Bodhi Tree, which is now just behind the Mahabodhi Temple to the west.  Stone pillar and signpost which marks the original location of the so-called Ajapala Nigrodha Tree, a banyan tree under which the Buddha meditated during the fifth week after his Enlightenment.  Sign marking the location of the Rajyatna Tree, where Buddha meditated during the fifth week after his Enlightenment.  Stupas  Stupas |
