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Come
to
Bodhgaya
must visit “Mahabodhi
Temple” (Mahabodhi
samghāramā),
there is one 52 meters high and the appearance has 9 layers of
large stūpa. In the four sides of the large stūpa
carve the full niche for a statue and statue of Buddha, they are
quite exquisite and magnificent and carve engineering. According
to the records of 5 century Far-shians and the 8th
century Xuan-zang, the former address had existence of
the stūpa, this large tower being seen at present, it is
the Burmese king that built in the 12th century middle period.
Because of the Moslem's invasion in the 13th century later,
Buddhist buried the large stūpa which transformed into a
mound with the soil and stone in order to prevent this tower
from being
destroyed.
After being buried for more than 500 years, the stūpa was
excavated out again by archaeological scholar A. Cunningham
until 1881, from then here become Buddhist's important
pilgrimage ground nowadays, though the sovereignty of this
temple is still incorporated into Hinduism, but the religious
group from Tibet is quite active here, So we can see the
memorial ceremony of Tantric
Buddhism everywhere, and a lot of Lamas and Tibet monks
all over here, even the Buddhist pilgrimage are mostly Tibet
people.
In
addition, the most attractive one is Bodhi tree and Vajrāsana
when became a Buddha of Śākyamuni. The Bodhi tree being
seen is up to 12 meters at present by the pedestal place outside
the large stūpa in the location. Under the tree, there is
a still symbolize Vajrāsana that Śākyamuni had
ever sat. It
is a pedestal with the stone engraving at present which is 2.3
meters long, 1.2 meters wide and 0.9 meters high separately, and
find a stone engraving statue with Buddha on the pedestal. Base
on historical document of the period of the Tang Dynasty, there
were more than a
dozen eminent monks
had paid respects
to Vajrāsana. In legend Samghamittā who was the
daughter of Aśoka took the branch of this tree to
transplant to Sri Lanka once, later on because after this tree
was destroyed, it was transplanted from Sri Lanka back here,
So the
present Bodhi tree is not the original tree.
There was another
statement that the tree has perhaps perished naturally several times, and the
pippala tree is renowned for growing wherever its seeds fall
and the direct lineage has continued. As what Mr. A. Cunningham
said that after severe decay for more than a decade, the remains
of the old tree fell over during a storm one night in 1876.
Young sprouts were already growing within the old tree, it is
the one what we see today.
About
this tree had been destroyed deliberately on at least three
times. The first time was King Aśoka who initially hostile to
Buddhism, he ordered to cut it down and burned on the spot, but
when the tree sprang up anew from the flames his attitude was
transformed. Aśoka
lavished so much personal care and attention on the new tree
because in deep regret for his destruction of Bodhi tree. But
that made his queen became jealous and secretly had it destroyed
once more. Later Aśoka
revived it again and built a protective enclosing wall, as had
previously been done by King Prasenajit of Kośalā
within the Buddha's lifetime.
According the records of
Xuan-zang that
the third times of destruction
of the tree was in the 6th century. He saw remains of these
walls and states that king
Śaśāňka
of Bengal destroyed the tree. Afterwards it was revived by
Pūrņavarma of Magadha, and he
put on the stone railing to protect this tree in order to
prevent the descendant from denudating once again.
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