In early British India , many European scholars were engaged in rediscovering and documenting Indian antiquities. A movement that was started initially to understand Indian culture for legitimising colonial rule shifted to a profound, academic fascination with its literature, archaeology, and history. Many Indian scholars joined the movement and contributed immensely to discover the treasure troves of ancient India. The trajectory of antiquarian investigations began with the foundation of Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784. The Society is celebrated for its pioneering documentation of antiquarian wealth and translating ancient Sanskrit texts and inscriptions.
The establishment of the Archaeological Survey of India in 1861 fostered surveys and numerous excavations throughout India. Indian antiquity is fundamentally rich and vastly important for understanding global human evolution, major scientific discoveries, architectural marvels and deep-rooted cultural philosophies. It provides evidence of how ancient people tackled systemic challenges of life and thrived. The Bodh Gaya shrine became a subject of antiquarian interest in the British period. The Mahabodhi Temple is a pinnacle of antiquity marking the noble cradle of Buddhism and stands for the oldest surviving brick-built structure on the globe.
Built on the precise location where Siddhartha Gautama attained ‘Nirvana’, the temple complex embraces spiritual vibration as well as architectural sensation. The site serves as the birthplace of a global religion. It is the ultimate geographical anchor for Buddhism. The sacred Bodhi Tree and the ‘Vajrasana’ (the Diamond Throne) under it, symbolise the Great Transition of Lord Buddha and the physical connection to a great global philosophy. The Mahabodhi Temple’s origins directly trace back to the Mauryan period as it is conceived that it was constructed by Emperor Ashoka in 250 B.C.
The temple stands as an archaeological testament for Ashoka’s inclination toward Buddhism and as historical veracity of state-patronage of religious philosophy. While Ashoka built the original shrine, the central structure that stands erect today dates back to the Gupta Period i.e. 5th to 6th centuries C.E. The building acts as a physical timeline of ancient Indian history, holding layers of structural additions, votive stupas, and stone railings from the Mauryan, Shunga, Gupta and Pala dynasties. It congregates the ideas, cultural attributes, and craftsmanship of different periods of Indian history.
The temple complex suffered from long abandonment and was found in a derelict condition in the nineteenth century. In 1809, Dr. Buchanan Hamilton was the first official visitor to the temple site. He described the temple as a dilapidated, ruinous, and deserted structure surrounded by uneven mound of debris. However, Hamilton found the Bodhi Tree in ‘full vigour’. The results of his inquiries were not published until 1830. In 1832, Mr Hawthrone, then Judge of Gaya, recovered inscriptions found in Bodh Gaya and these were published in the Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal. However, no major developments occurred for some time. Fieldwork expanded in 1846 with Major Markham Kittoe, the then Archaeological Surveyor, who collected numerous drawings and artifacts from Gaya district. His premature death cut his research short.
A major turn occurred in 1861 when General Alexander Cunningham (1814-1893) visited the site. An officer of the Royal Engineers, Cunningham devoted every minute he could spare from his military duties to study material remains of ancient India. He was appointed the first Archaeological Surveyor of India in 1862. His early findings on the Bodh Gaya temple, published by the Asiatic Society, prompted major excavations at site in 1863. Major Mead led the excavation works. But no report of his operations was ever published. In 1871, General Cunningham visited the temple site a second time and published a comprehensive essay on its antiquities in his Archaeological Survey Reports. In an incidental event, by January 1877, representatives of the Burmese King began repairing the temple with the permission of the local ‘mahanta’.
While they cleared space, built walls, and protected the sacred Bodhi Tree, their methods alarmed the British government. Sir Stuart Bailey, then Secretary to the Government of Bengal, sought the expertise of Rajendralal Mitra (1824-1891) to prevent the ‘masking and modernising’ of the ancient structure. Bailey noted with concern that the Burmese were inadvertently endangering the foundations and ‘sticking foolish heads on ancient torsos.’ Mitra arrived in the autumn of 1877 to provide scholarly oversight and ensure the proper preservation of artifacts. His erudite work culminated in the 1878 volume titled ‘Buddha Gaya: The Hermitage of Sakya Muni’. Mitra’s work was the first systematic and exhaustive scientific study of the temple site, combining several disciplines of history, architecture, religion, sculpture, inscription.
In 1863, Major Mead had invited Mitra to examine the antiquities his excavations brought to light. Mitra then prepared a ground-plan for the sake of easy reference and comparison. It was subsequently published in the journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal. The Bodhi Tree in 1863 appeared to Mitra as ‘decayed and dying’. In 1876 it was dead and knocked down by a storm and its place had been filled by a seedling about three feet high. Mitra’s meticulous inspection of the site and historical records led to his immense insights that have been validated by time. He opined that the space between the railings and the Great Temple was intentionally kept clear to allow worshippers to perform Buddhist worship; circumambulation – the vital Buddhist ritual of walking around the sacred structure from the right.
Huen Thsang, who visited the temple in 637 A.D., narrated that the temple was about 160 to 170 feet in height, built of bluish bricks plastered with chunah. It represents niches disposed on tiers, which each contain a statuette of ‘Buddha in Gold’. Four sides of walls are covered with admirable sculptures. It is surmounted on top by an ‘amalaka’ of gilt copper, a pinnacle over it. Mitra measured bricks of sizes 19”x13”x2” of the most ancient parts of the Great Temple. He noticed the bricks were ‘ver y carefully made with well-puddled clay, having no grits or clots, and so planned and smoothed as to sit very closely on each other’. The older bricks had the peculiar bluish tinge observed by Huen Thsang. The cement used was a finely puddled, tenacious bluish clay.
At first sight, the bricks appeared to be in direct contact with each other. Mitra commented that ‘the art of building was indigenous and not as supposed by some, introduced by foreign architects.’ Altogether seventeen arches were found in the temple. Mitra argued that some of these arches formed a remarkable feature of Buddha Gaya architecture. Such a structure more than 2,000 years old proved that Indians had the knowledge of the principle of the arch and artistic skills at a very early period of civilisation. Whether viewed from a small or great distance the characteristic of the temple is ‘in the display of its massiveness as an element of architectural effect’. It is a work in which both science and architecture were brought into play.
In 1879, Cunningham visited Buddha Gaya for the express purpose of seeing what had been done by the Burmese. He saw that early Burmese excavations at the site were shallow and lacked archaeological precision, and could not reach the ancient monuments buried near the temple’s original foundation level. In 1880, Sir Ashley Eden, then Lt. Governor of Bengal, appointed engineer J. D. Beglar to make a thorough repair of the whole building. The work began during the course of the year. In February 1881, Cunningham revisited the site to supervise the renovation and restoration efforts. Based on excavations and surviving remains, he confirmed that the original temple was founded by Ashoka in 250 B.C. But the most fascinating discovery was that the current temple was built directly atop the remains of Ashoka’s original structure.
The inscriptions found from the site indicate a significant renovation of the temple was executed by the Burmese King between 1035 and 1079 A.D. Another major repair took place in the late 12th century. For roughly six hundred years, the temple lay abandoned, its structure gradually deteriorating. Fortunately, sufficient fragments of the original niches and mouldings survived to allow an exact reconstruction. Cunningham detailed a meticulous restoration process that respected the temple’s solemnity and historical integrity, ensuring no modern additions compromised the original design. The restoration job was completed in 1884. The government-led restoration of the shrine and the share taken in this work by Rajendralal Mitra, kept Indian interest intense throughout the country.
Swami Vivekananda, impressed by Mitra’s writings and the book ‘Light of Asia’, rushed to Bodh Gaya in April 1886, immediately after taking monastic vows, to meditate under the Bodhi Tree. The Mahabodhi Temple is not merely an enduring structure; it is a towering witness to the fact that the people of ancient India enjoyed life, “passionately delighting both in the things of the senses and the things of the spirit.”
(The writer is a cost accountant who worked for a public sector power utility)