Mahābodhi Temple
Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia is now 14 years old
Our Encyclopedia recently received a wonderful opportunity for a major renewal on its 14th birthday . After many years of growing our Encyclopedia had become bit slow and sometimes even decided not to answer when people knocked on the door.
A very big thank you and blessings to Dmytro Rudiy (rudiy.nl) for his great work in upgrading the server, website and all of the infrastructure and helping make TBE fast and reliable again for everyone!
We kindly ask our readers to help us cover the cost of this important upgrade and also help with the ongoing costs of keeping the Encyclopedia alive and freely available.
or card
Every little donation helps and every one is deeply appreciated. 🙏🙏🙏
OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM 🙏🙏🙏
May blessings shower down on all of yous 🙏🙏🙏
The MahāBodhi Temple is the large building erected over the place where The Buddha attained Enlightenment at Bodh Gayā. Legend says that King Aśoka built the first temple at Bodh Gaya, a legend probably based on fact. Who built the present temple and when is not known, but the first record of it dates from the early 5th century CE. The temple is built in the classical fivefold plan (pañcāyatana) and consists of a rectangular base with an arched chamber (garbha) in it, a large inward-sloping spire (sikhara) rising from its centre and smaller spires at each of its four corners. The central spire is 52 meters high and is crowned with an āmalaka, a flattened, round and ribbed Form common to Indian temples. Other than the pillars on the portico, the floor and the door frames which are of stone, the whole temple is built out of brick. The Altar (āsana) inside the temple chamber, now with a large Buddha image on it, marks the ‘Diamond Throne’ (Vajrāsana), the ‘Navel of the Earth’ (Paṭhavīnābhi), the very place where The Buddha was sitting when he attained Enlightenment. The Bodhi Tree that now grows at the back of the temple is distantly related to the original one. The MahāBodhi Temple was remodeled and renovated many Times over the centuries. By the middle of the 19th century it was badly decayed and was completely repaired in 1880 by the British Indian government.
Navel of the Earth-The History and Significance of Bodh Gaya, S. Dhammika, 1996.