The Decline of the Mahant of Boodh Gaya

Herein is the problem. At the Mahant's College these feet are presented as the sacred imprint of Vishnoo. Across the road at the Mahbodhi Temple the Boodhists present the same relics as the footprints of Lord Boodha.

There is another story to be told concerning the revitalization of the great Mahabodhi Temple in Boodh Gaya. The British, as related in a previous post, created the archaeological and administrative circumstances that allowed the Boodhists of the world to reclaim the long neglected temple complex – location of the revered Peepel Tree under which Sakyamooni Boodha attained enlightenment – but this, it must be related, was at the expense of the local Hindoos. The temple had long been under the ownership of the local Mahant (priest) and had been loosely and somewhat incongruously incorporated into the region’s network of Shiva temples and Math (Hindoo monasteries). 

Generally, the Mahant had neglected the Mahabodhi complex although, as Sir Arthur Cunningham who conducted the authoritative archaeological survey of the site relates, he seems to have sometimes used it as a source of stone, statuary and other building materials. Certainly, the Mahant had no need of it for explicitly Hindoo purposes – except that Lord Boodha, much like Krishma, is regarded by Hindoos as an incarnation of Vishnoo – and there were, until the late 19th C., no local Boodhists or pilgrims in any substantial number needing to use it. The movement to restore the temple noted this fact and sought ways to arrest control of the place from the Mahant who was, at the time, the most powerful man in the district. This proved a more difficult task than had been hoped. In the end it took over a century of difficult legal proceedings before the temple was finally taken from the Mahant’s sole jurisdiction and put in the hands of a governing committee. 

It must be said that the Mahant did not play his cards well. There were many points at which he could have sold the complex to Boodhist interests at a very substantial price. This, for a time, was the solution preferred by the British. But he had no interest in selling and instead squandered his resources and store of good will on court cases that ultimately went against him. Even then, in the 1950s, he wanted to challenge the rulings in the Supreme Court of India. This won him the ire of Prime Minister Nehru who, losing patience, intervened and threatened to investigate the legality of the Mahant’s other land holdings if he did not desist and leave the site to the Boodhists. 

The Mahant in question.

The impasse required a compromise. It was determined that the complex would be administered by a committee of equal numbers of Boodhists and Hindoos, of which the Mahant would only be one. The Mahant was aggrieved by this solution but so too were the Boodhists who had hoped for exclusive control without Hindoo involvement. This remains so to this day. They argue that the Hindoos have no real claim to the sacred site and that it belongs to the Boodhist sanga. They would like Hindoo oversight ended altogether. The Mahant, on the contrary, claims an historical right as well as some religious justifications.

The politics of this controversy is complicated but, essentially, leftist intellectuals in India – insufferably self-righteous and verbose at the best of times – side with the Boodhists, while Hindoo nationalists - pig-headed chauvanists in the main - side with the Mahant. He feels that his property has been confiscated by force, that he has been elbowed out by over-bearing Boodhist peaceniks, and most recently by UNESCO who have claimed the site for World Heritage listing.

It need not have been this way. The Japanese sage, Tenshen – mentioned in earlier posts on this web log – proposed, in the early 1900s, that the site ought to be a joint Shiva/Boodha temple shared by Hindoos and Boodhists with the claims of both faiths given due recognition. This pan-Asian view did not prevail. Instead, the Hindoos and Boodhists, Brahmins and Lamas, went their separate ways, or at least settled on an uncomfortable and awkward detente.

In this, though, the Mahant in fact lost out. Over the course of the entire affair his position has been much diminished and a once thriving centre of Shiva spirituality adjoining the actual Mahabodhi site has been displaced and overshadowed by the sprawling  majesty of the new Boodhist pilgrim theme park. The triumphant restorationism of the Boodhists has, in fact, been at the Hindoos expense. Very much so, as the present author has witnessed for himself. Not only has the booming Boodhist pilgrim trade in Boodh Gaya left the local Hindoo population impoverished – as this author related a few posts ago – but the former glory of the Mahant now lies in ruins. 

Leaving the Mahabodhi complex, following the pathways through the market and then the back streets behind the high walls – areas the pilgrims rarely venture – the author chanced upon a fortress-like building with wide, heavy gates that clearly was once somewhere important. Inside, he has shown around – for a few hundred rupees - by a cheerful but mute Indian man who managed to communicate that the building – quite vast – was the ‘college’ of the Mahant and the remains of an old Math and Shiva Temples. It is in considerable disarray. History books tell us that there was once a time when the Mahant was greeted in the streets outside by merchants and wallahs and shoppers and pedestrians stopping, standing and bowing in his honour. The College – along the banks of the river - was a thriving complex with over 300 students at a time and the Math was an important way station for wandering Shaivite sadhoos. Now the Mahant collects rent but has no real power and the college is almost deserted. The Math is entirely in ruins and the vast ‘Cobra Garden’ - which was clearly once magnificent - is a jungle, except for areas being used as a market garden.

Photographs of the Mahant's college follow. They can be compared with pictures of the beautiful restoration of the Boodhist's Mahabodhi complex just a stone's throw away. The wheel has turned. The Boodhist's fortunes have been reversed, but so have those of the local Hindoos who were clearly the losers. It is a great pity that the prosperity of one party meant the decline of the other. While it is a matter of some wonderment that the Boodhist world has had its omphalos restored after many long centuries, it is a great pity that the Mahant's college and the Shiva Temples of Boodh Gaya are now rotting in poverty and neglect. 

The compound of the Mahant's religious college.

The college in relation to the Mahabodhi Temple at the rear.

The Mahant's throne today. (That is a real tiger's skin.)

In a second floor area there is a gallery of old photographs that tell the history of the building and also the Mahant and his relationship with the Mahabodhi complex.

Shiva shrines

All that is left of the Math (Monastery)

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black