Out of Phase: What the British Did For Buddhism

The feet of the Boodha at Boodha Gaya, an iconography that predates physical representations of Boodha Sakyamooni.

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I would to-day, in these columns, respectfully invite the vast and intelligent British public to forget, for a little while, home weather and home politics, and to accompany me, in fancy, to a sunny corner of their empire... and will also show them how the Indian Government of Her Majesty, supported by their own enlightened opinion, might, through an easy and blameless act of administrative sympathy, render four hundred millions of Asiatics for ever the friends and grateful admirers of England. . .

- Edwin Arnold, 1893

Some splendid years ago the author had the opportunity to visit the magnificent and massive basalt tantric Boodhist complex at Borobador in Java. The story of the complex is a famous one. After the Mahometan conquest of the Indonesian islands, which entailed the savage eradication of both Boodhism and Hindooism in every guise, the great stepped temple at Borobador fell into complete obscurity and was swallowed by jungle and buried beneath volcanic ash. It remained that way for centuries. It was only after the British took control of Java for a brief tenure of colonial rule under Govenor-Gneral Raffles that the temple complex was accidentally rediscovered. British explorers, penetrating the dense jungles of the island, chanced upon the remnants of the temple and thereafter cleared the copious vegetation, tonnes of dust and yards of rubble under which it had been concealed. The Mahometans had no use nor recollection of it. It was British archaeologists who brought this extraordinary architectural gem, an encylopedia of Boodhist iconography in stone - in fact, the largest and most intact Boodhist temple outside of Asia - once again to the light of day.

The Mahabhodi Temple

An eventuality similar to this, but even more auspicious, also occurred in the Indian state of Bihar, not far from the undistinguished town of Gaya. In 1810, the explorer and geographer Mr. Francis Buchanan, pushing his way through tiger-laden jungles near the river Falgoo, chanced upon a huge abandoned temple that had been devoured and buried by vegetation and silt. It was of no interest to the local Hindoos who could relate very little about it. But Buchanan quickly determined that it was a Boodhist complex from a very early date and he surmised, correctly, that it had been left to ruin after the decline of Boodhism in the Indian subcontinent in the Middle Ages. Indeed, he determined that this was none other than the long lost Mahabodhi Temple, once revered by Boodhists as marking the very place that the Boodha, Sakyamooni, achieved Enlightenment under the Peepel Tree. It had once been a place of Boodhist pilgrimage. Even more, it had once been regarded as the very centre of the Boodhist cosmos, the pivot of the Boodhist world, the axis of Boodhist spirituality. As in Java, the temple had fallen into disuse after the Mahometan invasions had eradicated the Boodhist faith. Neither the Mahometans nor the Brahmins cared for it. It was lost and forgotten.*

(*This is disputed by the Hindoos. They point out that after the departure of the Boodhists from the Gaya region, the local Brahmins gave the temple at least residual occasional care for several centuries.)

A representation of the Mahabodhi Temple as it was found by Buchanan.

Subsequently, decades later, the British led the archaeological survey of the site and then its restoration. They determined that the temple had been built in the time of Ashoka in the third century BC, which made it one of the earliest surviving examples of Indian religious architecture. From inscriptions, coins and other evidence, they pieced together the history of the place and - with the assistance of Boodhists from Burma - cleared, cleaned and rebuilt it, returning it to its original purpose. A first restoration was somewhat shabbily done, but a second effort led by Sir Arthur Cunningham was more perfect. Cunningham wrote a thorough account of the complex which he published in 1892. His work led the restoration of this sacred place to the Boodhist religion.

The restored temple. The four corner towers are controversial. Some believe they were not a feature of the original complex.

Floor plan of the temple complex.

Unfortunately, though, in law the site belonged to an Indian Mahant, and as soon as the British cleaned up the buildings it was reclaimed by the Hindoos who pretended to be puzzled by its iconography. (There is a nearby Shiva Temple and the Hindoos furthermore attempt to appropriate the Boodha as an incarnation of Vishnoo.) This situation was what greeted the zealous Ceylonese Neo-Boodhist reformer Anagarika Dharmapala who went there on pilgrimage in the late 1800s. Along with the British Theosophists, and the ager support of the Orientalist Mr. Edwin Arnold, he founded a movement to restore the site once more to Boodhism and to remove the Hindoo intruders. Since the Mahant owned the site (part of some 11,000 acres of land he owned around Gaya), and since possession is nine tenths of the law, a protracted legal battle ensued and continued right through until after the end of British rule. In 1949 Hindoos and Boodhists were given equal rights over the site and it was again open to Boodhist pilgrims. This was not, and still is not, an entirely happy situation, but the temple is now also under the protection of UNESCO and so the unimpeded access to it by Boodhist pilgrims is guaranteed.*

(*Disputes concerning the use of the temple are on-going. There is a Shiva lingham at the site that Boodhist purists seek to have removed. But as the present author saw for himself, the nearby Shiva temple complex is now abandoned. The Boodhist revival has displaced the Hindoos, perhaps unfairly. Boodhists can be difficult.)

Thus here, as in Java, the British colonialists rediscovered and then restored a major site of Boodhist sanctity. The importance of the Mahabodhi Temple for Boodhists can hardly be over stated. This is the very place where the Boodha achieved liberation from the round of existence. In fact, in Boodhist theology, it is said that all Boodhas of every era - past and future - attained liberation at this place. For Boodhists it is synonymous with nirvana. It is the place of ultimate sanctity. It is to Boodhists what Mecca is to Mohametans and what Kashi is to the Hindoo. In this, as in other ways, the British rule of India has allowed the restoration of Boodhism in its historical homeland after the ravages of the Mahometans and the chauvinism of the Hindoos in earlier times.

The author has been in Boodha Gaya - the small town that now surrounds the Temple - for several days. The weather is warm; the shade of the Peepel Tree is soothing. On the road in is the sign 'Welcome to Bodh Gaya, the Spiritual Centre of the Buddhist World'. It was the British, let it be known, who gave the Boodhist world back its spiritual centre. Some photographs of the temple as it is today are to be viewed below.

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