Quiet flows the Phalgu, undisturbed and unseen. The river, according to a legend, hides itself by simply disappearing from the common man’s view. Once Ram and Sita stopped by its banks for a breather. As they relaxed, Ram realised it was time to offer prayers to the departed. As he went looking for offerings for ancestors, it began to get dark. Sita had two choices: perform ‘pind daan’ herself or risk missing out on the ritual altogether. She opted for the former, presenting the ancestors with grains of timeless sand, the grains touched by Phalgu, covered by the branches of the tree. Among her witnesses were Agni, a Brahmin and a cow. Yet when Ram came back, ready for ‘pind daan’, Sita’s much-trusted witnesses turned hostile.
The Agni, the Brahmin, the cow and the river all were overcome by the possibility of a new offering if Ram started the rituals afresh. Only the tree stayed honest. Shaken, Sita cursed them all except the loyal tree. As Phalgu had nowhere to hide, the river quietly went underground out of shame. She has stayed there since. The story, recounted a million times, has become part of our culture, much like the Gupta sculptures, Ashokan edicts, Chola temples and Mughal monuments. Phalgu continues to bless Gaya – and Bodh Gaya. Its riverbanks were once used as a shelter by Ram and Sita, a peepal tree, not too far from Phalgu was the place where Prince Siddhartha attained enlightenment and became the Buddha. Ram, Sita, Buddha are all revered by millions across the world. Forgotten flows the river.
Confluence of religions
If Gaya is all about Hinduism with its legend of Ram and Sita and the world famous Vishnupad Mandir which has a large footprint of Lord Vishnu, Bodh Gaya, about 15 km away, is all about Buddhism with its famous Mahabodhi temple, and the Bodhi tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment. It has not always been a peaceful existence though. Religions have often been used in history for conquest of the other. It was no different here.
As Romila Thapar writes in Indian Cultures as Heritage: Contemporary Pasts, “We may insist today that Buddhism and Jainism have always been a part of what we now call Hinduism, and therefore, there was no conflict between them and Hinduism. But their teachings were distinctively different….There are references to hostility between what was in the past called the dharma of the Brahmanas and that of the Shravanas.”
Revered by Hindus and Buddhists alike today, the township has seen more bloodshed in history than many remember. Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang who visited India during the reign of Harshvardhana (606-647), talked of a Gauda king Shashanka who cut down the Bodhi tree at Gaya and removed the statue of Buddha from the temple. Noted historian D.N. Jha says as much in his book, Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History, “Shashanka cut down the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya, removed the statue of the Buddha from the local temple and ordered it to be replaced by the image of Maheshvara….Although Bodh Gaya came under Buddhist control again during the Pala rulers, the place has remained a site of religious contestation throughout Indian history.” According to Jha, “The Mahabodhi temple was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt. At the nearby Gaya, which figures prominently as a ‘pitritirtha’ (where ancestral rites could be performed), in early Puranic texts, a site was appropriated in the mid-eleventh century to establish a Vishnu temple...The modern Vishnupad temple, was, however, built by the queen Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore in the eighteenth century.”
Situated in spirituality
Temple, trees, kings and queens - all that is inevitably part of history.
Today, Bodh Gaya is a place where spirituality lies in repose under every tree, every brick and wall of the Mahabodhi complex. A Manak Publications — Deshkal Society presentation, Imaging Bodh Gaya: Shared Histories and Global Future, steers clear of vicissitudes of inter-religion claims. Instead, it presents the calm, soothing body of the place, thereby touching your soul. Sanjay Kumar, who has written the introduction for the book with excellent visual documentation by Khanjan Purohit says, “In the distance the Mahabodhi temple appears as mysterious as it is old. Its pyramidal shikhara rises sharply over 55 metres in the afternoon heat over Bodh Gaya countryside, centering the ancient town at the apex of Buddhist civilisational glory going back over 2,300 years to Ashoka’s rule.” Mornings here start early as birds chirp in the gentle breeze and monks appear barefoot from monasteries, walking silently towards the temple. In the vicinity is the Sujata stupa, reached through a bridge over the Phalgu. Further down is Sujata temple named after the milkmaid from Bakraur village who offered kheer to an emaciated Buddha sitting under a banyan tree near the Phalgu river. The site of the tree has been turned into a temple for Sujata, who brought the Buddha to the Middle Path. Fittingly, the book has beautiful visuals of Sujata Mandir besides those of the significant events of the seven weeks associated with places surrounding the Mahabodhi temple, each place corresponding to a week in chronology, the Bodhi Tree, Animesh Lochan Chaitya, Ratnachakrama, Ratnagar Chaitya, Ajapala Nigrodha tree, Lotus Pond and the Rajyatna tree.
Meanwhile, the Phalgu stays quiet, a bridge over it transporting pilgrims and tourists alike. The river blesses the sacred and the mundane too.
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