Mahabodhi Temple
Mahabodhi Temple
The Mahabodhi Temple (literally: “Great Awakening Temple”) or the Mahabodhi Mahavihara, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is an ancient, but restored Buddhist temple in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India, marking the location where the Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment.
Traditional accounts say that, around 589 BCE, Siddhartha Gautama, a young prince who saw the suffering of the world and wanted to end it, reached the forested banks of the Phalgu river, near the city of Gaya, India. There he sat in meditation under a peepul tree (Ficus religiosa or Sacred Fig) which later became known as the Bodhi tree.
According to Buddhist mythology, if no Bodhi tree grows at the site, the ground around the Bodhi tree is devoid of all plants for a distance of one royal karisa. Through the ground around the Bodhi tree no being, not even an elephant, can travel.
