The Mahabodhi Temple at Dawn

It is Saturday morning, and some members of our sangha got up before dawn and went back to the Mahabodhi Temple to do mindful walking at about six or six thirty. The bus moved at a leisurely pace, and we saw countless people, mostly Tibetan monks and nuns, walking steadily in groups, headed for the big temple in the semi-darkness of dawn. Shantum had anticipated that we would be so early that it wouldn’t be crowded, but that was looking pretty erroneous. At least we’d be in good company. We got off the bus not far from the temple and walked toward the shoe stop, where Shantum said we could tuck our shoes in our bags instead of leaving them behind, if we wanted, and I did that. Others took newspapers from Jagdish and wrapped their shoes before putting them in their bags. It must be nice to have your head screwed on properly.

A gate and offerings in front of the bodhi tree

Bodh Gaya is quite the place for people watching. In front of the shoe stop, I stood around and observed the plethora of red-robed figures drifting by, and I saw a Tibetan monk with a striking resemblance to the Dalai Lama. He looked between fifty and sixty years old, wore glasses, and had eyebrows pointed in the center just like the Dalai Lama’s. I first saw him walking up the path and also watched him enter the bookstore next to the shoe stop. I mentioned this to John later, and he said that he’s seen the same monk, and that he must get a kick out of looking like the Dalai Lama. During Strucks in the evening, I said, “I saw a Tibetan monk who looked a lot like the Dalai Lama.”

“Maybe he’s his son,” Natalie said. She hastily added, with a little shake of her head, “Oh!”

The air was cold enough when we started walking around the temple that I could see my breath. The sky had begun lightening to a dark blue. We passed through the gate and turned sharply to the left. I saw the lawn around the Mahabodhi temple lit up with strings of yellow-white lights, creating countless glowing lines in the dark; they were like Christmas tree lights. We circled along a walkway just within the gate, crowded in mostly with red-clad monks who murmured prayers, a soothing sound like many cats purring. The path, no bigger than a typical sidewalk, was wall-to-wall people, and occasionally robes brushed against me, but the murmurs were so pleasant that someone could have stepped on my toe and I wouldn’t have minded. Not much, anyway.

I had worn my sandals instead of my sneakers, and so I walked barefoot on the cold pavement. Dean asked, “Aren’t your feet cold?”
I said slowly, with braced teeth, “Yes.”
Dean nodded at that and repeated, “Yesssss.”
“I’m gaining merit this way,” I said. “Besides, my feet aren’t as cold blooded as the rest of me. It’s like I’ve got someone else’s feet.”

We visited significant places of the Buddha, where he hung out around the Mahabodhi Temple during his first week after gaining enlightenment, and at each location Shantum explained how it was significant. Circumambulating, we moved gradually closer and closer to the Bodhi Tree: this circling around, from a big square to smaller and smaller internal squares, is how I finally realized that the temple is set up as a mandala, like in Tibetan artwork that symbolizes various realms. Some mandalas are artists’ renditions of Mount Kailash, and others represent the mythic kingdom of Shambhala, for instance. Here at the Mahabodhi Temple, Tibetan monks seemed to paint the three dimensional mandala with red: many circumambulated like us, and amid the stone stupas and walkways, Tibetan monks sat or prostrated on long cushions.

As we reached one corner, Shantum led us straight ahead, instead of going around the corner. We came to a nook where we temporarily left the square of the mandala and walked across a patio with the Muchalinda Ashoka Pillar looming in the center. Tibetans and Bhutanese circled it, rubbing their backs against it as they circumambulated slowly. This was quite unlike the pillar at Deer Park, which was behind a forbidding fence. I looked up, but the pillar no longer had its capital, whether or not snarly lions used to top it.

We stepped through a stone archway, walked straight ahead in an open structure with columns, and approached a big tank, the Muchalinda Pond, where legend has it a snake came and protected the Buddha in a storm. Now in the center of the tank stands a big colorful Buddha statue protected by a cobra arching its head above the seated Buddha’s head. Countless Tibetan prayer flags are strung across the pond, beyond the statue, and the flags give the grey early morning sky a festive look with all their bright Buddha colors.

At the Ratnaghar Chaitya, the Buddha meditated, and his body supposedly emanated different colors, which to this day appear in the colors of the Buddhist flag: blue, green, yellow, red, and white. Those are the colors most often seen in Tibetan prayer flags, although the string of flags Erika purchased on the way up to the austerities cave included turquoise. I’ve read that the colors represent the five ancient elements, earth, air, fire, water and spirit; for instance, yellow represents the earth and blue represents air.

We walked along the Jewel Walk, where the Buddha thought up dependent causation. He was treading back and forth by the Bodhi Tree and stopped to stare at the tree without blinking. Meanwhile a bird pooped in his eye. Just kidding. Legend has it that lotuses sprang up where he stepped, just as they supposedly did shortly after he was born and walked for the first time. I conjured a vivid mental image of the Buddha, in his yellow robe, pacing back and forth on a grassy surface amid trees, and with lotus flowers magically springing up behind him.

As we neared the mandala’s center, we passed a section of lawn, stupas, and pale walkways with orange- and yellow-clad Indian monks seconds before visiting the sign marking where the Rajavata tree had stood. It was the place where the Buddha met and impressed two merchants. They offered him grain in exchange for his giving them teachings, and he gave them a talk on his doctrines under the tree. Thus the two merchants were unofficial disciples of the Buddha; they tend to not be counted simply because they were laypeople rather than monks. Now a stone with a sign on it stands marking the spot, and when we reached the location Tibetan monks surrounded the sign.

Gail turned to Shantum and asked, “Those monks we just saw, in the yellow and orange robes. Are they from Sri Lanka?”

He explained that no, they were Indian, and said, “Street people put on robes and beg.” Perhaps the movement to convert Untouchables to Buddhism is more political than spiritual.

We visited the location of the Ajapala Nigrodha Tree, a banyan tree. The god Brahma came and spoke to the Buddha here, or according to Shantum, the Buddha was really speaking to himself, having an internal dialogue. He had an internal conflict about whether or not he should teach, and eventually he decided to teach rather than merely kick back and bask in his enlightenment.

“It is,” Rikki later said, “difficult to describe rice pudding, just as it is difficult to describe becoming enlightened.” The Buddha was reluctant to do it, to teach others, but ultimately he took the risk. The tree is gone now; standing in its location is a pillar and a marble sign on another pillar beside it. The sign basically says, “I have not a teacher. I am the Enlightened One.” Yeah, sure, that’s my excuse for not having a teacher.

I get the impression that Siddhartha was inherently introverted like me. It would have been tempting indeed to not wander around teaching others, but to keep quiet, instead of taking the more responsible and nurturing path of teaching so that other people can acquire enlightenment and change the world. I have on a few rare occasions attempted to vocally teach closed-minded people a thing or two, and they have refused to take me seriously. But as a writer I can teach without people meeting me and thus without their passing judgments on me.

When we reached the inner circle of the mandala, we once again came to the Bodhi Tree, which is another of the seven special places of the Buddha. He sat under the tree on a full moon night and meditated all night long, and he attained Enlightenment at dawn. He next spent one week taking it easy and enjoying himself under the tree. We walked past, circling the tree and temple for the final time.

The sangha moved up the path back to the long staircase to leave the temple, but first we made one last stop at a special place of the Buddha. It was a Hindu temple, to the right of the path. In front of one of the little temples stands a pedestal with a stone plate edged with lotus petals, just like a lotus throne under a Buddha statue, and the plate is engraved with Buddha footprints on its flat surface. It probably dates to the era before artists began to disregard the Buddha’s wish to not be portrayed, when rather than Buddha statues, artists sculpted lotuses and empty lotus thrones that represented the Buddha. The footprints were strewn with orange marigold petals and pink lotuses.

It’s amazing when I realize how much we can do before we even have breakfast; the climb to the Saptaparni cave was before breakfast, as was today’s circumambulation of the Mahabodhi Temple. The early bird does get the worm, and Ben Franklin must have been onto something, about being healthy, wealthy, and wise. Not that I intend to get up at five every morning in future.