MAHABODHI TEMPLE IN BODHGAYA

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The Mahabodhi Temple (महाबोधि मंदिर) (Literally: "Great Awakening Temple") is a Buddhist temple in Bodh Gaya, the location where Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, attained enlightenment. Bodh Gaya is located about 96 km (60 mi) from Patna, Bihar state, India. Next to the temple, to its western side, is the holy Bodhi tree. In the Pali Canon, the site is called Bodhimanda, and the monastery there the Bodhimanda Vihara. The tallest tower is 55 metres (180 ft) tall.In approximately 250 BCE, about 250 years after the Buddha attained Enlightenment, Buddhist Emperor Asoka visited Bodh Gaya with the intention of establishing a monastery and shrine. As part of the temple, he built the diamond throne (called the Vajrasana), attempting to mark the exact spot of the Buddha's enlightenment, was established. Asoka is considered the founder of the Mahabodhi Temple. The present temple dates from the 5th–6th century, although in the words of one scholar it is largely a nineteenth-century British Archaeological Survey of India reconstruction based on what is generally believed to be an approximately fifth-century structure. Prior to that, there seems to have been a pyramidal structure perhaps built in about the second century. Knowledge of it comes only from a small, circa fourth century terracotta plaque found at modern Patna. It is significant that this version does not have the upper terrace with the small temples in the four corners. These small temples, although not used as such today, probably reflected certain esoteric traditions in Buddhism that were emerging more and more into less esoteric contexts by the late fourth and early fifth century. The pyramidal temple probably replaced an open pavilion that had been constructed around the tree and the Asokan platform . Representations of this early temple arc found at Sanci, on the toraṇas of Stūpa I, dating from around 25 BC, and on a relief carving from the stupa railing at Bhāhrut, from the early Śuṇga period (c. 185-c. 73 BC). It is one of the earliest Buddhist temples built entirely in brick that is still standing in India, from the late Gupta period.

PATNA

Patna