Expecting to get the night train to Kolkata at 8 pm, we had a day to spend in Bodh Gaya and decided to go back to the Mahabodhi temple to have another look at the Bodhi Tree and the Vajrasana. Yet again we had to deposit our phones because the authorities don’t want us taking pictures of a mass of bamboo scaffolding. Huge numbers of people were waiting patiently to do so while two jobsworths were writing things on bits of paper. Eventually a policeman pulled us out of the queue and took us to a locker where we left our phones. We then joined another huge queue to get into the temple and, as we passed the statue of the Buddha a monk gave me a packet of biscuits which a pilgrim had left as an offering. I asked him where the Bodhi Tree was and he took us round the back of the temple where an impressive peepul tree is, he tells us, 145 years old and is the 4th generation tree to be there since the Buddha sat under it. The Vajrasana is apparently behind the tree but we couldn’t see it because the site is enclosed by corrugated iron sheeting.
We then went to the museum, which the internet (bollox alert) says is “beside the temple”. It is actually over one km away, but was extremely interesting with many of the statues of the Buddha and the 10th century stone railings of the temple discovered when it was excavated and restored in the 19th century.
Carving on the stone railings
Buddha 10th century
Padmapani with her hear cut off by the Moghals
4-sided pillar, 9th centuryhe Demi-Goddess Yakshi, 1st century
Yakshi
The Bodhi Tree, 11th century
Centaur on the railings
Carving of a lotus
Buddha at stages of his life
Bhumisparsa Mudra, 9th century
Buddha 9th century
