: A Sinhalese missionary’s quest to reclaim the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya for Buddhists #IndiaNEWS In the 19th century, when the English poet and journalist Edwin Arnold called on Buddhists everywhere

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A Sinhalese missionary’s quest to reclaim the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya for Buddhists #IndiaNEWS
In the 19th century, when the English poet and journalist Edwin Arnold called on Buddhists everywhere to help restore their religious shrines in India, a young Sinhalese man decided to take up the cause of the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya. Anagarika Dharmapala was just 26 then and had a religious status that lay between a monk and a layperson. In 1891, spurred by Arnold’s exhortation, he decided to go on his first pilgrimage to the Mahabodhi Temple and pray at the spot under the Bodhi Tree that is believed to be where the Buddha attained enlightenment.The temple in Bodh Gaya was originally built by Emperor Ashoka in 3rd century BCE, according to the cultural agency of the United Nations, Unesco. It was restored several times over the centuries, but fell into a state of ruin after 13th century Turkic invasions of the region. Many parts of the temple complex were buried by elements of nature and remained there until they were excavated between 1879 and 1885 under the leadership of Alexander Cunningham, a British Army engineer who founded what would later become the Archaeological Survey of India.The official website of the temple says a wandering Saivite Sanyasi named Mahant Ghamandi Giri, who arrived in Bodh...Read more

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