FREDERIK ASHER
IF in the third century BCE, the date of the earliest
remains at the place we now call Bodhgaya, the builders of monuments accurately
identified the very spot where Siddhartha achieved enlightenment and became the
Buddha, then we need to ask why the Bodhisattva chose this location. It was
idyllic, of course, as it still is, despite what is too often described as
encroachment. With the Phalgu flowing nearby, we can imagine a tirtha, a
ford, a spiritual crossing appropriate to the BodhisattvaÕs crossing to Buddhahood.
It is the sort of place where the gods liked to sport and so appropriate to one
who has achieved a sort of divinity. It was doubtless a garden, one with many
lovely trees but one in particular.
The tree that stands on the west side of the Mahabodhi
temple, in English called the Bodhi tree (plate 1), is popularly taken
to be a direct descendent of the tree beneath which the Buddha sat during the
course of his meditation leading to Enlightenment, much as śraddha
at nearby Gaya concludes under a tree, the Aksyavata.1 An
ancestor of this tree at Bodhgaya apparently was the initial object of
veneration, for we see it, as represented in reliefs of the second and first
centuries BCE enshrined in a temple (plate 2). Is that tree at Bodhgaya,
today on the west side of the temple, literally a descendent of the tree
beneath which the Buddha sat in the course of his meditation leading to
enlightenment? We donÕt even know if the tree depicted in the reliefs produced
some 300 years after the BuddhaÕs enlightenment was the very tree beneath which
he sat. But does it matter? I think we have two truths with which we have to
contend, the truth of the devout and the truth of the historian who tries to
recover the past but has to acknowledge a great deal of ambiguity in the record
and its interpretation.
The many sculptural images at Bodhgaya suggest that figures
of the Buddha – Buddha pratima, as inscriptions describe them
– at some point took precedence over veneration of the tree, though both
should probably be understood as representing the BuddhaÕs presence, a link
between the pilgrim to Bodhgaya and the transformation of Siddhartha to the
Buddha. When the Chinese pilgrim Faxianwas at Bodhgaya in the
fifth century, he reported on several monuments, none of them however, a
monumental temple. By the sixth century, there was almost certainly a
large temple was at Bodhgaya. At that time, a community of Sinhalese monks
seems to have settled there and asserted considerable authority over the site,
in a sense anticipating an early twentieth-century
development, that is the role that Anagarika Dharmapala played in revitalizing
Bodhgaya and claiming it for Buddhists as opposed to the Śaiva Mahant, who
then largely controlled the site. One piece of evidence for the Sinhalese presence
is an inscription of the Sri Lankan monk Mahanaman dated 588/89 recording the
establishment of a beautiful mansion of the Teacher in the Bodhimanda, that is,
the Place of enlightenment.2 That may refer to the Mahabodhi
temple, however it then appeared, as probably does a slightly later inscription
that refers to the provision of new plaster and paint for the temple that there
is described as the great dwelling place of the Buddha enshrining the vajrasana,
that is, the BuddhaÕs adamantine throne.3
That change from a focus on the Bodhi tree to the throne as
the templeÕs primary focus of veneration may not have resulted from an
ideological shift but rather from a political event, for the tree bore a long
reputation of intentional desecration. The famed emperor Aśoka, before his
conversion, is said to have cut through the treeÕs roots, then
cut the trunk, branches and leaves, heaping them a short distance away.4 So
allegedly did the Saiva king of Gauda, Śaśanka,5
though the tree was revived after both acts of desecration.6
With the rise of the Pala dynasty in
the eighth century, the region experienced a stability that it had not known
for several centuries. The Palas were, moreover, Buddhists and sponsored at
least two Buddhist monasteries, Vikramaśila and Somapura Vihara, better
known as Paharpur. But there is no evidence of support for Bodhgaya, even
though a great many sculptures dating from the eighth through eleventh
centuries may be found at the site. In fact, there is evidence for very little
royal support for any of the sites associated with the life of the Buddha.
Moreover, under the Palas, a huge number of Hindu sculptures also were made,
again none of them with direct sponsorship of the royal house. But clearly
there was an environment that supported the production of sculptures, probably
much more so than the construction of large-scale temples.7
It is to that very time, the
beginning of the Pala period, that we can attribute the construction of the
Mahabodhi temple, the precursor of the present temple, one intended to place
primary focus on a large Buddha image enshrined within it, as there is in
todayÕs Mahabodhi temple (plate 3). The evidence is largely the form of
the lower mouldings of the templeÕs plinth, which follow a form common in the
eighth century across northern India.
What transpired about the eighth
century to bring about a sudden and prolific production of stone images is not
entirely clear. It may have been the availability of raw materials, that is,
the stone that sculptors could use. Natural resources such as stone likely were
controlled by the state, as they are today. With a stable ruling house such as
the Pala dynasty extending its authority over a huge area, quarrying the raw
materials and shipping them along the river routes of their empire would have
been a great deal easier than it had been in previous times.8
Copper, too, the primary component of bronze, would have been much more readily
available and safely transported from the mines in the area around Ghatshila,
which also fell within the Pala realm, although no bronze images have been
found at Bodhgaya or other sites associated with the BuddhaÕs life. Many,
however, were found as close to Bodhgaya as Kurkihar, just 35 kilometers to the
east.
The presence of a stable ruling house
also would have facilitated pilgrimage. It was safe to move over long
distances. And with the pilgrims likely came donations of images. There may
have been other motivation for gifts, for example, a major refurbishing of the
temple or the construction of a new structure, both of which might be
appropriate occasions for new donations.
Bodhgaya, like Buddhism in north
India more generally, entered a period of significant decline after the Pala
period. Indeed, Buddhism virtually disappeared from India. The customary
explanation for the demise of Bodhgaya is that the site was
sacked by Bakhtiyar Khajli, a military commander of DelhiÕs ruler, Qutbuddin
Aibak. That is, however, by no means certain. In fact, we do not even
know if he passed through Bodhgaya. All we know is the report in a work by
Minhaj al-Siraj. There he notes that in 1198, Bakhtiyar Khalji organized an
attack on the fortified city of Bihar, probably present-day Bihar Sharif, about
70 km away from Bodhgaya. He reports that most of the inhabitants were Brahmans
whose heads were shaven, and all of them were killed.9
From this report, which Minhaj said
he learned from two persons who participated in the attack, a great deal has
been extrapolated. Generally writers assert that the
passage refers to BakhtiyarÕs sack of Odantapuri, the Buddhist monastery
founded by the Pala dynasty monarch, Dharmapala (c. 770-810) and usually
assumed to be located at Bihar Sharif or on its outskirts. In fact, however,
this monastery, has never been located with any degree
of certainty.10
Even though no such claim is made by Muslim chroniclers,
it is generally assumed that Bakhtiyar went on to sack Nalanda, just ten
kilometers away, and even Bodhgaya, much farther away. The discourse is one of
marauding Muslims more intent on iconoclastic rampage than on a military
engaged in a battle for the control of territory and booty that invaders of any
faith routinely collected.
Does that mean that control of Bihar
by Bakhtiyar KhaljiÕs armies and their successors had no impact on Bodhgaya?
Doubtless it did impact pilgrimage to the site and perhaps even stimulated a
profound concern on the part of the monks resident there that they were no
longer safe, as they had been under the Buddhist Pala
dynasty. It may have been so profound, in fact, that they left, seeking refuge
in Nepal and Tibet, as usually reported. Or they may have converted to Islam.11
The report of the Tibetan monk
Dharmasvamin, who visited Bodhgaya in 1234, gives a sense of the dismal state
of the site at that time. Some six centuries earlier, when Xuanzang came to
Bodhgaya, he reported 1,000 monks at Bodhgaya. By the time of DharmasvaminÕs
visit, however, only four monks remained, he reports. The others, he says, had
fled Ôfor fear of the Turushka soldieryÕ. They had, moreover, protected the
temple from non-Buddhists by drawing an image of Maheśvara (Śiva) on
the templeÕs plastered entranceway,12 an act, if reported correctly, that
seems to conflate the Turushka, that is, Afghan, army with that of others
hostile to Bodhgaya, for example, the seventh-century king of Gauda,
Śaśanka.
It is not very likely that an
invasion alone could end Buddhism in India. Other factors, some of them
resulting from the invasion, must have contributed to its decline. The invasion
certainly did unseat royal houses that had provided funds for monasteries and
unsettled long-distance trade that had brought mercantile support for them as
well. Thus one easily can imagine that the monastic basis of Buddhism was
significantly diminished, probably almost obliterated. But the process would
have been gradual, not an immediate result of large-scale desecration and a
resulting exodus from India of every Buddhist there.
Nevertheless, the Mahabodhi temple
certainly was damaged at some point during or following Bhaktiyar KhaljiÕs
incursion into the region. That we know because repairs to the temple were
necessary by the end of the 13th century. We do not know, however, whether the
damage was inflicted by wanton desecration or simply by neglect or even routine
damage as any building would suffer over time. In any
event, no one resident at Bodhgaya apparently was able to undertake the repairs
or provide the resources to support them, so a Burmese delegation was sent to
do so, anticipating a Burmese delegation sent for repair some five centuries
later. Their work is recorded in an inscription of 1295, which in keeping with
tradition, credits Aśoka with the foundation of the structure. It also
notes several previous occasions on which the temple had fallen into disrepair
and needed restoration. Their work, the long inscription indicates, was
completed in 1298, and the following year, the temple Ôwas consecrated with
splendid ceremonies and offerings of food, perfumes, banners and lampsÉÕ13
With all that ceremony, there must have been faithful around to share the
festivities and to use a reconstructed temple.
But perhaps not many among the
faithful were able to share the festivities at Bodhgaya. While I cannot put a
precise date on it, we begin to see replicas of the Mahabodhi temple about the
tenth or eleventh century, at first miniature ones such as two in the British
Museum, London,14
(plate 4) and subsequently large-scale ones such as the
Mahabodhi temple at Bagan in Myanmar (plate 5). One writer has proposed
that the small replicas were souvenirs of pilgrims much like the many souvenirs
that the soon-to-be displaced shopkeepers near the temple offer today.15 But
I think that unlikely, and that certainly would not explain the full-size
temples modeled on the Mahabodhi temple that we find in Myanmar, Thailand, and
China. I would suggest, instead, that as pilgrimage to Bodhgaya became
increasingly difficult, while the desire, even the need, to go to Bodhgaya
remained unabated, there developed a need for surrogates. Thus viewing the
miniature model or visiting one of the large-scale replicas was likely treated
as tantamount to pilgrimage to Bodhgaya itself. Why the need for pilgrimage to
Bodhgaya? I would suggest that funerary rites were a significant part of the
reason, something that Bodhgaya shared in common with Gaya, where shraddha
rites are performed. A couple of things suggest this. One is a Chinese
inscription from Bodhgaya that records the erection of a stupa by the monk Hui
Wen in memory of the deceased Song dynasty emperor Taizong.16 And
the patron of the 1477 replica of the Mahabodhi temple at Wat Chedi Yot in
Chiang Mai, Thailand (plate 6), King Tilokarat, had his ashes placed in
a shrine at the temple site.
Despite occasional visits to
Bodhgaya by Burmese who sought to repair the temple and perhaps a very few
others, the place was likely deserted when about 1590 a wandering ascetic
worshiper of Śiva, Gosain Ghamandi Giri, came to Bodhgaya and established
a monastery there, becoming the first Bodhgaya Mahant.17 The
Mahants, who trace their lineage to the teachings of the eighth-century
philosopher Śankaracharya, probably settled in Bodhgaya, because of the
sanctity of the site, even if its Buddhist affiliation was buried under debris
and erased from the memory of any living person.
So there was no forced take-over of
the temple by the Śaivas. More likely, it long had been abandoned by the
late sixteenth century; very few, if any, Indian Buddhists would have then
remained, and few foreign pilgrims came to the site of the BuddhaÕs
enlightenment. After all, conflicts over religious space often have roots not
so much in forceful appropriation of the monuments of another faith but rather
in the reuse of a site with longstanding sanctity, even if it was sanctity for
another faith.
Thus when the Mahant claimed
Bodhgaya, he also claimed the Mahabodhi temple, a claim that was supported by a
Mughal firman issued by Shah Alam (r. 1759-1806) granting to the Mahant
the village of Taradih, which included the Mahabodhi temple.18
The nature of Mughal land tenure, however, was not consistent with the British
concept of land ownership. Mughal land tenure granted rights but not full legal
ownership; and as subsequent firmans suggest, Mughal grants were not
made in perpetuity but needed to be reaffirmed by Shah AlamÕs successors.19 The
British also assumed that ownership implied obligations for the maintenance of
property, a significant basis for questioning the MahantÕs proper exercise of
his authority. Thus Europeans visiting the site invariably described it in
terms of ruin, indirectly and perhaps unintentionally a charge against the
MahantÕs role in maintaining the site but also a trope consistent with artistic
admiration for ruin. Francis Buchanan-Hamilton, who visited Bodhgaya in 1811,
describes the site as Ônow mostly reduced to irregular heaps of bricks and
stonesÉÕ The Mahabodhi temple, he says, Ôis rapidly hastening to decayÕ.20 And
in order to justify the Governor-General of BengalÕs appointment of J.D. Beglar
to repair the entire building, Cunningham quotes at length a report in the Calcutta
Englishman that describes the templeÕs ruinous state, its Ôplinth and lower
mouldings buried under accumulations of rubbishÉ.Õ21
Still earlier, European, artists had shown the place in ruin, for example,
William Daniel, who published his engraving in 1835, and Charles DÕOyly, whose
1830 lithograph showing prostrate worshipers before listing sculptures on
makeshift altars. These verbal and visual descriptions of Bodhgaya played
effectively into the British sense of India as a land of ruin and decadence
requiring rescue by a European colonizer. The British also claimed scientific
concern with IndiaÕs past, a concern that made Buddhist monuments a matter of
particular interest.
Whose authority, then, was it to
permit repairs to the temple? The Mahants themselves had modified the temple
for Śiva worship, allegedly removing a large Buddha image from the sanctum
and placing a large Śiva lingajust in front of the pedestal. Thus in 1876,
when the king of Burma deputed three men to supervise repairs to the temple, it
was with the permission of the Mahant that they did this work.22 The
British, then, intervened, first to ensure that the Burmese delegation would do
nothing that British authorities might consider inappropriate and finally to
assume the actual work of the templeÕs restoration, perhaps even without a
clear mandate from the Mahant. The argument of the British
authorities is articulated by the Secretary of the Government of Bengal, noting
that the Burmese are Ôbuilding [antiquities] into walls, and sticking foolish
heads on to ancient torsosÉ.Õ He then wrote Rajendralala Mitra, asking
him Ôto inspect the work and the remains collected, and to give advice as their
value and to their dispositionÉ and generally to advise
the Government in regard to the manner in which the operations of the Burmese
excavators should be controlled.Õ The Secretary added, ÔIt is not desired to
interfere with the Burmese gentlemen beyond giving them such guidance as may
prevent any serious injury being done to the templeÉ and to arrange for such of
the antiquities as are worth preserving being properly taken care of.Õ23
This inspection resulted in Rajendralala MitraÕs careful account of Bodhgaya,
the first detailed account of the site to be published. Curiously, though, it
was not Rajendralala but rather J.D. Beglar who in 1880 was commissioned by Sir
Ashley Eden, the Lt. Governor of Bengal, to make a thorough repair of the great
temple.
Clearly the tension was not just
between the Mahant and the Buddhists. It extended to the archaeologists working
on the site. Beside the strange replacement of Rajendralala Mitra by J.D.
Beglar, it appears that Beglar himself was moved to the side. In 1880-81,
Cunningham indicated his intention to write a monograph on the site together
with Beglar.24
When, however, Cunningham produced his book titled Mahabodhi, BeglarÕs
name was nowhere cited even as contributing author.
Not long after the templeÕs reconstruction in 1880, the site
was visited by a Sri Lankan who had adopted the name Anagarika Dharmapala. He
came to Bodhgaya in 1891 on pilgrimage and claimed horror at the condition of
the site and temple.25 He remained in Bodhgaya for some six weeks seeking
control of the Mahabodhi temple for the Buddhists but was told by the
Magistrate of Gaya District, G.A. Grierson, that the temple was government
property, that the Bodhgaya Mahant managed the temple, and that any transfer to
the Buddhists was possible Ôonly with the permission of the British Government
– that too on strict financial terms.Õ26 Anagarika Dharmapala then went to
Calcutta to raise funds and to Òraise the cry, – Buddha Gaya for the
Buddhists.Õ27
In Rangoon he continued his effort, and finally on 31 May 1891 formally
established the Buddha Gaya Maha Bodhi Society, today generally called simply
the Mahabodhi Society.
The Society formally sought authority over the temple, but
was opposed by the Mahant. When the SocietyÕs four resident monks were
assaulted, they blamed the Mahant and even suggested British complicity.28 At
other times as well, the Anagarika and his men were attacked, for example, when
trying to install a Japanese-made image in the temple. In this case, the
Anagarika sought legal redress, and the attackers, again alleged to be minions
of the Mahant, were fined and sentenced to imprisonment. On appeal, however,
the Calcutta High Court overturned the conviction because Ôthere could be no
disturbance in an area not recognized by law as Ôsacred.Õ29 The
court case attracted considerable attention, including attention from the poet
Sir Edwin Arnold, who argued in a letter published in the Times that
Britain could gain considerable moral ground by insuring that the temple would
be open to all Buddhists.
Other court cases followed, including one of 1904 in which
the Mahant argued – successfully, it turned out – for the ouster of
the Anagarika and his monks from the Burmese Rest House, where they had been
staying, and the removal of the Buddha image stored there. The Mahant was, he
argued, sole owner of the building, which was provided only temporarily for the
Burmese Buddhist pilgrims. Despite the ruling of the court, the Buddhists won
popular sympathy, even from Gandhi.30 Still more important, the Bihar
Provincial Congress Committee in 1922 passed a resolution recommending that the
All-India Congress Committee support the peaceful association of the Buddhists
with the temple. When at the end of that year, the All-India Congress Committee
met in Gaya, they appointed Rajendra Prasad to investigate a proposal to place
the Mahabodhi Temple in the hands of Buddhists.
PrasadÕs committee began to gather evidence in 1924. The
Buddhists, represented by the Mahabodhi Society, claimed the temple as locus of
the most holy site in all Buddhism, equivalent, they argued, to Mecca for the
Muslims and Jerusalem for Christians. They claimed both the antiquity of
Buddhist association with the site and abiding care for its maintenance as
represented by inscriptional evidence of repairs by Buddhists from many
different countries in the ancient past. The Mahant, on the other hand, argued
that the temple was a Hindu temple, that the Buddha is one of VishnuÕs
incarnations and that its sanctity to Hindus is evidenced by the number of
Hindu pilgrims who come to offer pinda to their ancestors as part of śraddha
rites.
The result of the conflicting claims was a compromise draft
legislative bill, initially to be called the Buddha Gaya Temple Act, 1935. It
did not, however, take final form until 1949, when it was passed by the Bihar
Legislative Assembly and signed by the Governor of Bihar on June 19, 1949.
Formally called the Bodh Gaya Temple Act (Bihar XVII of 1949), it remains today
the document providing the templeÕs governance. Seen as a compromise to the
conflicting claims, the Act states in its opening sentence that its purpose is
Ôto make provision for the better management of the Bodhgaya Temple and the
properties appertaining thereto.Õ Its primary provision established a committee
entrusted Ôwith the management and control of the temple, the temple land and
the properties appertaining thereto.Õ This Committee, formally called the Bodh
Gaya Temple Management Committee, operates under a set of by-laws adopted on 26
February 1957. It consists of a chairman and eight members, which in reality
tip the balance toward Hindu control. The Act specifies that all members of the
committee shall be Indians and that among the eight,
four shall be Buddhists and four Hindus (normally including the Mahant). ItÕs
the chairman, the ninth member, who tips the balance. That person will be the
Magistrate of Gaya District, so long as the District Magistrate is a Hindu;
whenever the District Magistrate of Gaya is a non-Hindu, Ôthe State Government
Shall nominate a HinduÕ to serve as Chairman of the Committee. Finally in 2013,
the government of Bihar very wisely amended the bill to permit a non-Hindu to
chair the committee.31 It may not have satisfied all the claimants, but it was
a move that I applaud.
In 2002, the Mahabodhi temple – just the temple, not
all of Bodhgaya – was inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List, the
only Indian monument on the List not managed by the Archaeological Survey of
India. The UNESCO inscription recognizes only the templeÕs Buddhist history
affiliation,32
a point that seems to have engendered little outrage on the part of
non-Buddhists, perhaps because the templeÕs addition to the World Heritage List
has a positive economic impact on the area. On the other hand, the inscription
required a multi-part buffer zone around the temple, one that restricts
commercial use and building height in the vicinity of the temple.33 In
2017, the Bodh Gaya Temple Management committee submitted a proposal to the
Bihar government for establishing a Bodh Gaya World Heritage Buffer Zone
Management Authority. Its membership would be representative of diverse
interests, not based on sectarian communities.34
The stakeholders in the temple and its environs go way
beyond any bureaucrat or devotee. At the time of XuanzangÕs visit in the
seventh century, there were about 1,000 monks at Bodhgaya, a round number that
should not be taken literally. But imagine the support community that would be
required to provide that many monks with their necessities. It would mean the
supply of about 500 kilos of food each day, clothing and all the other things
needed to maintain a large body of monks. We can translate that into a more
modern sense of balancing the support of BodhgayaÕs residents and visitors
today, on one hand, with the preservation of the temple precinct by the buffer
zone. With pilgrims and tourists numbering more than 1000 at any one time,
their economic impact extends way beyond a buffer zone.
1. I once
suggested that the Bodhisattva chose this site for his meditation leading to
Buddhahood because he drew inspiration from the śraddha rites
concluding at the Akshayavata. In an informal comment, Abhishekh Amar suggested
the possibility that, rather,the concluding śraddha
rites may have been modeled on the BodhisattvaÕs meditation under the Bodhi
tree.
2. John Faithful Fleet, Inscriptions of the Early Gupta Kings and
Their Successors. Corpus InscriptionumIndicarum, vol. III.
Superintendent Government Printing, Calcutta, 1888, pp. 274-278.
3. Theodor
Bloch, ÔNotes on Bodh GayaÕ, Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report,
1908-09, pp. 153-154.
4. Samuel Beal, trans., Si-Yu-Ki; Buddhist Records of the Western
World.
Reprint ed., Oriental Books, Delhi, 1969, vol. 2, p. 117.
5. Ibid., p. 118.
6. One possible scenario is suggested by Giovanni Verardi, who argues on
the basis of archaeological evidence that the Vaishnava Guptas persecuted
Buddhists and destroyed Buddhist sites. If his observation is correct, Bodhgaya may have been
among the sites that were desecrated. Mahanaman and other Sri Lankans, then,
would have stepped in to repair the damage and resurrect the site. See Giovanni
Verardi, Hardships and the Downfall of Buddhism in India. Manohar, New Delhi,
2011.
7. This is
in contrast with Madhyadeśa, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Tamilnadu, where
large stone temples, often but not always royally sponsored, were the norm.
8. The
stone was quarried south of Munger, near the village Matadih. Frederick M.
Asher, ÔStone and the Production of ImagesÕ, East and West 48(3/4),
1998, pp. 313-328.
9. H.G. Raverty, trans., Tabaqat-i-Nasiri:
A General History of the Muhammadan Dynasties of Asia, Including Hindustan,
from A.H.194 (810 A.D.), to A.H. 658 (1260 A.D.), and the Irruption of the
Infidel Mughals into Islam. Gilbert & Rivington, London, 1881.
10. An
interesting argument for the location of Odantapuri is made by M.B. Rajani,
ÔWhere Was Odantapuri Located? Archaeological Evidence Using
Remote Sensing, GIS and PhotogrammetryÕ, Resonance, Journal of Science
Education, forthcoming.
11. I am
struck by the fact that areas once predominantly Buddhist – eastern India
and the northwest – are the areas of the subcontinent that became
predominantly Muslim.
12. George
Roerich, trans. Biography of Dharmasvāmin. K.P. Jayaswal Research
Institute, Patna, 1959, p. 64.
13. J.F.
Fleet, ÔThe Dates in the Burmese Inscription at Bodh-GayaÕ, Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1913, pp. 378-384.
14. These
are two among a great many housed in museums around the world, e.g. the Rubin
Museum, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art, and the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore, among other
institutions housing replicas of the Mahabodhi temple.
15. John
Guy, ÔThe Mahābodhi Temple: Pilgrim Souvenirs of Buddhist IndiaÕ, The
Burlington Magazine 133(1059), 1991, pp. 356-367.
16. Tsering
Gongkatsang and Michael Willis, ÔTibetan, Burmese and Chinese Inscriptions from
Bodhgayā in the British MuseumÕ, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
23(3), 2013, pp. 437-438.
17. Ram
Anugrah Narayan Singh, A Brief History of Bodh Gayá Math, District
Gayá. Bengal Secretariat Press, Calcutta, 1893.
See also Rajendralala Mitra, Buddha Gaya: the Hermitage of Sakya Muni.
Bengal Secretariat Press, Calcutta, 1878, pp. 4-6.
18. Ibid., p. 5.
19. B.R.
Grover, ÔNature of Land-Rights in Mughal IndiaÕ, The Indian Economic and
Social History Review 1(1), 1963, pp. 1-23.
20. V.H.
Jackson, (ed.), ???
21.
Alexander Cunningham, Mah‰bodhi: The Great Buddhist Temple Under the Bodhi
Tree at Buddha-Gaya. W.H. Allen, London, 1892, p. v.
22. Mitra,
p. iii.
23. Ibid.
24.
Alexander Cunningham, Archaeological Survey of India Reports. Vol. XVI.
Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta,1883,
p. iii.
25.
Ratnatunga, p. 6.
26. Ibid., p. 7.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid., p. 10.
29. Ibid., p. 12.
30. Ibid., p. 14
31. The
provision was made through the Bodh Gaya Temple (Amendment) Bill, 2013, as
reported in the Hindustan Times, among other papers. See
https://www.hindustantimes.com/patna/non-hindus-can-chair-bodh-gaya-temple-management-committee-now/story-4jPNCXLnACkOk4cu7IFQkM.html.
32.
https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1056/
33. David
Geary, The Rebirth of Bodhgaya: Buddhism and the Making of a World Heritage
Site. University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2017, chapter 5, writes with
considerable insight and sensitivity to the impact of the buffer zones.
34.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/new-body-to-manage-bodh-gaya-heritage-sites-proposed/story-lINvmWjggzAX6PHHcDfByI.html.