| Temples & Legends Of Bihar |
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| Temples & Legends Of
India |
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MAHABODHI |
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| Both of them
have left accounts of the temples and other Buddhist relics that they saw. From the
account of Fa-Hien one cannot say that he had actually seen the Mahabodhi Vihara, but he
saw some temples and monasteries at that place. Hieun-Tsang has, however, given us a very
elaborate description and he appears to have actually seen the Mahabodhi Vihara. It was a
tragedy that the temple of Mahabodhi Vihara, raised at the actual site where Gautama had
become the Buddha, was lying neglected for centuries and the temple was almost in ruins. Here
also the Buddhist literature gives us ample references to Bodh Gaya, the exchange of
pilgrims, the sending of seedlings of the Bodhi tree to Celyon and other places, but in
the land of the origin of Buddhism there was no one to repair the Mahabodhi Vihara. When
Buchatian Hamilton visited Bodh Gaya in the first decade of the 19th century, he found the
place deserted and in ruins.
A sect of Saivite Girs, a Hindu monastic order, had
obtained possession of the Mahabodhi Vihara.In the last quarter of the 19th century, the
King of Burma had made a request to the Government of India for the restoration of the
temple. |
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