The Mahabodhi Temple: Architecture and Heritage

Bodh Gaya is the place of the Buddha’s enlightenment. Ashoka was the first ruler to honour it with a building.

1. Where is Bodh Gaya, and why do Buddhists visit it?

Bodh Gaya is a town in Bihar. It lies about 15 km from Gaya and about 100 km south of Patna.

Enlightenment means a deep understanding of the truth. In Pali this is called bodhi. The Buddha is said to have reached it here, sitting under a tree.

On his deathbed at Kushinagar, the Buddha named four places for pilgrims. They are Lumbini, where he was born, and Sarnath, where he gave his first sermon. Bodh Gaya is the third, where he gained enlightenment. Kushinagar, where he died, is the fourth.

2. What did Ashoka build at Bodh Gaya?

Ashoka ruled the Mauryan empire from about 269 to 232 BCE. He built a shrine here in the 3rd century BCE.

That is about 250 years after the Buddha’s enlightenment. It was the first temple Ashoka ever built.

He also built a monastery nearby. No trace of that monastery survives today.

3. What is the Vajrasana?

Vajrasana means the diamond throne. It is a flat stone slab of polished grey sandstone. It lies at the foot of the Bodhi tree and marks where the Buddha sat to meditate.

Ashoka gave this slab as a gift. We know this from a carving at the Bharhut Stupa in Madhya Pradesh. A round panel on its railing shows the throne and the tree.

So the carving is early evidence that the spot was already honoured.

The temple standing now is not Ashoka’s. It is a later building, made of brick.

4. When was the present temple built?

The present temple dates to the Gupta period. The Guptas ruled roughly from 300 to 600 CE. Sources place the building in the 5th or 6th century CE.

Builders have repaired and rebuilt it many times since then.

It is one of the oldest brick temples still standing in India. It is also the most impressive surviving building of the Gupta age.

5. What is a shikhara, and how tall is this one?

A shikhara is the tall tapering tower on top of an Indian temple. The Mahabodhi shikhara has a pyramid shape.

Its height is given as 180 feet, which is about 55 metres. Some sources say about 50 metres. So treat the height as roughly 50 to 55 metres.

Four smaller towers of the same shape stand at the corners. They sit on one square base around the central tower.

6. What crowns the tower?

The top of the tower is called the finial. It has two parts. An amalaka is a large disc. A kalasha is a pot-shaped cap that sits on it.

The temple also has columns in the Gandharan style. Gandhara was an old art centre in the north-west.

7. What is the stone railing around the temple?

A vedika is a stone railing around a sacred spot. A two-metre-high vedika surrounds the Mahabodhi complex.

The early railing pieces are polished sandstone. The railing seen today is a copy of them.

No. The tree standing today is a descendant. This is a common exam trap.

8. Is this the tree the Buddha sat under?

No. The tree outside the temple is a direct descendant of the original. It grew from the old tree’s seeds or shoots.

A tree that dies is replaced by one of its own offspring or by one grown from its fruit.

9. How did the tree reach Sri Lanka?

Sanghamitra was Ashoka’s daughter. She took a cutting of the Bodhi tree to Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka. That tree is still alive there.

So there are two famous trees. One is at Bodh Gaya. The other is at Anuradhapura. Do not mix them up.

Another descendant, called Anandabodhi, grows at Shravasti.

10. When did the old tree die?

In 1862 Alexander Cunningham saw that the tree was dying. A great storm finally destroyed it in 1876.

Cunningham was a British officer who headed archaeology in India. In 1881 he planted the tree that stands today.

Buddhism faded in India for a time. The temple was neglected, then restored with help from Burma, Britain and Sri Lanka.

11. What happened after Buddhism declined?

The Senas ruled the region. Bakhtiyar Khilji defeated them. After that, the temple was abandoned. It escaped total destruction, but it was left to time.

The Burmese royal family repaired the temple in the 11th century CE.

12. Who restored the temple in the 19th century?

The Burmese royal family restored it again in the 19th century. The British government joined in, under Alexander Cunningham, in the 1880s.

In 1885 Edwin Arnold took up the cause of the temple. He was an English poet. His book The Light of Asia, from 1879, had made the Buddha’s story popular in the West.

13. Who was Anagarika Dharmapala?

Anagarika Dharmapala was a Sri Lankan Buddhist leader. With Arnold’s help, he founded the Maha Bodhi Society.

In 1891 Dharmapala visited Bodh Gaya. He found Shaivite priests in charge of the temple, and Buddhists could not worship there. The Society moved its office to Calcutta and went to court.

The legal fight lasted more than 50 years.

14. Who runs the temple now?

The Bodh Gaya Temple Act of 1949 handed control to a committee set up by the state of Bihar. Hindus and Buddhists share seats on it. The Gaya district magistrate is the chairperson.

Sources differ on the exact size of the committee. One says nine members. Another says eight, split evenly between Buddhists and Hindus. Check the latest law before quoting a number.

Many Buddhists still ask for full Buddhist control. In 2025 a group of monks held a long protest near the temple.

15. When did UNESCO list the Mahabodhi Temple?

UNESCO named the Mahabodhi Temple Complex a World Heritage Site in 2002. A World Heritage Site is a place the world agrees to protect. The Mahabodhi Temple is both a holy place and a rare Gupta-age brick building.