buddhist-pilgrimage

"Sister Nivedita also relates that Swamiji's first act after taking Sannyas was to "hurry to Bodh Gaya, and sit under the great tree"; and that his last journey, too, had taken him to Bodh Gaya."

"The Tibetan monk Dharmaswamin came to India in AD 1234, that is, within forty years of the destruction and plunder of Nalanda. He stayed in Magadha for about two and half years, and spent about six months in Nalanda itself. People lived and hid in dread of the marauding Muslim rulers: ‘… he [Dharmaswamin] and his hosts were always in apprehension of a Muslim attack any time,’ Dr. A.S. Altekar informs us while introducing the Biography. Altekar summarizes Dharmaswamin’s account: When Dharmaswmin reached Vaisali on his way to Bodh Gaya, the town was all deserted on account of the apprehended arrival of a Muslim force. People used to desert their houses by day and come back to them at night. Vikramsila had been completely destroyed before 1206 A.D. and its foundation stones had been hurled into the Ganga. The Bodh Gaya establishment had been deserted by all except four monks. The ancient image had been walled up by a brick wall and a new one had been put in the ante-chamber. The old image had, however, been already despoiled of its emerald eyes earlier. The king of Bodh Gaya had fled to the forest. Dharmaswamin himself had to flee away for seventeen days… Dharmaswamin found Nalanda to be a ghost of what it had been. Of the eight temples and the fourteen large and eighty-four smaller monasteries, only two viharas were in serviceable condition. There was ‘absolutely no one to look after them or make offerings,’ Dharmaswami noted."

"Since 1590, Shaiva monks had taken care of the temple, which had been abandoned by Buddhists after the massacre of the Buddhist monks by Muslim invaders in ca. A.D. 1192. In 1874, they agreed to the Burmese king’s proposal to re-establish the building as a Buddhist place of worship. But the Anglo-Burmese War and several foreign interventions spoiled the project."

"“the laudable work of the construction of the Mahabodhi temple” was “undertaken by a Brahmana minister of Shaivite persuasion”.6"

"The earliest and most authentic record is of course by Hiuen Tsang [= Xuan Zang] who visited Bodh Gaya in A.D. 637. He says that two Brahmin brothers prayed to Lord Maheshwara in the Himalayas to grant their wishes, upon which Maheshwara instructed them to carry out the meritorious task of erecting a large temple and excavate a large tank and devote all kinds of religious offerings near the most sanctified Bodhi tree for attaining ‘the fruit of a Buddha’. The elder Brahmin devotee accordingly built a large temple”."

"“concerning the right of the Hindus to worship the Buddha-image Dharmeshwara, [the Bodhi tree] in the Bodh-Gaya temple and its sacred area, we have noticed that as far back as the Kushana age it is enjoined in the Epic version of the earlier Eulogium that every pious Hindu visiting Gaya should make it a point to go also to Dharmaprastha or Bodh-Gaya and have a sacred touch of the Buddha image of the place. The later Eulogium in the Puranas enjoins in the same manner that every Hindu pilgrim to the Gaya region desiring to release the departed spirits of his ancestors must visit also Bodh Gaya to pay his respectful homage to the Buddha image Dharmeshvara as well as the [Bodhi treel”.... “So far as our information goes, the Buddhists have never and nowhere prevented the Hindus from either visiting or conducting worship at their shrines. As a matter of fact, they have no case against the Hindu devotees coming to a Buddhist shrine for worship. Their shrines remain open to all for worship, without any distinction of caste and creed. The inscription of Keshava, engraved during the reign of Dharmapala, clearly proves that the Buddhists were liberal and tolerant enough even to allow a Hindu to instal a figure of his deities, Shiva and Brahma, in their temple at Bodh-Gaya for the benefit of the resident Shaivite Brahmins.”"

"“The iconoclastic fury of Islam must have [had] a terrible effect on the shrines of the Gaya region, and particularly on Buddhism, with the result that a time came when, there being no Buddhists to look after their own shrines and worship at Bodh Gaya, the Brahmins had to do their work even by going [outside] their jurisdiction.”"

"[The then king Buddhasena (the last but one independent ruler in the area) had] fled into the forest on the outskirts of Gaya on the approach of the Turkish raiders but returned soon after withdrawal. [The famous Tibetan monk Dharmaswami] had to flee away for seventeen days, owing to the [apprehension of] the attack of the Turks, [and king Buddhasena,] not able to provide protection, escaped into the forest for fear of the Turks. ... According to Dharmaswami, the Bodh Gaya establishment had been deserted by all except for [some] monks, on account of the repeated Turkish conquests."

"Hsuen Tsang's contention, from hearsay, that the Shaiva king Shashank had persecuted Buddhists and felled the Bodhi tree, also goes unquestioned. Yet, his story is just visibly untrustworthy : he claims that a replanted sapling of the Bodhi tree (which, from his story, must have been felled only a few years before his own arrival) miraculously grew overnight into a mature tree. Remember that secularist historians reject myths and irrational beliefs? What Hsuen Tsang got to see with his own eyes was a tree far bigger than a recently replanted sapling could have been: an indication that the tree had never been felled in the first place. Yet, so many secularist history books go on declaring that "fanatical Shashank felled the Bodhi tree", in defiance of proper historical criticism."

"Sages such as Sri Aurobindo who have meditated on Hindu iconography, and savants such as Ananda Coomara-swamy, Stella Kramrisch, and Alice Boner who have studied the subject, assure us that the forms and features of Hindu icons have a source higher than the normal reaches of the human mind. The icons are no photocopies of any human or animal forms as we find them in their physical frames. They are in fact crystallizations of the abstract into the concrete, of the infinite into the finite. They always point beyond themselves, and a contemplation of them always draws us from the outer to the inner. Hindu Šilpašãstras lay down not only technical formulas for carving holy icons in stone, and metal, and other materials. They also lay down elaborate rules about how the artist is to fast, and pray, and otherwise purify himself for long periods before he is permitted, if at all, to have a psychic image of the God or Goddess whom he wants to incarnate in a physical form. It is this sublime source of the Šilpašãstras which alone can explain a Sarnath Buddha, or a Chidambram Natarãja, or a Vidisha Varãha, to name only a few of the large assembly of divine images inhabiting the earth. It is because this sublime source is not accessible to modern sculptors that we have to be content with poor copies which look like parodies of the original marvels."

"Hari (Vishnu), who had been commissioned by Hara (Siva), in order to protect Varanasi from the wicked Turushka warrior, as the only one who was able to protect the earth, was again born from him, his name being renowned as Govindachandra..."

"“The ruined Jain temple situated in the western portion of MaheTh… derives the name ‘Sobhnãth’ from Sambhavanãtha, the third TîrthaMkara, who is believed to have been born at Šrãvastî… “Let us now turn our attention to the western-most part of Sobhnãth ruins. It is crowned by a domed edifice, apparently a Muslim tomb of the Pathãn period… “These remains are raised on a platform, 30’ square, built mostly of broken bricks including carved ones… This platform, no doubt, represents the plinth of the last Jain temple which was destroyed by the Muhammadan conquerors… It will be seen from the plan that the enclosure of the tomb overlaps this square platform. The tomb proper stands on a mass of debris which is probably the remains of the ruined shrine…"

"Very early in the morning of my last day’s sojourn here, I rode with General Simpson to the village of Sarnath. It is six miles north-east of Benares, and three, of the cantonments, and evidently lies on a classic soil, for, that a large and mighty city must have stood here, is amply testified by the numerous ruins, and beautifully-formed bricks, with which all the ground, and especially the banks of a lake, which extends from east to west, are covered. The only fragment which has been preserved, is a vaulted tower about sixty feet high; it is built of granite and blocks of red sandstone, which are let into one another, and fastened without any cement, and in the upper portion some bricks have been introduced. The diameter of its base is about 100 feet, and the whole of the exterior, forms a round domed cone, similar to the Manikeeala in the Punjab. This remarkable tower is a compact mass of stone, without any open space in the interior, and merely covers a deep well, into which the corpse of a king was probably let down. A copper tablet found upon its highest summit bears an inscription, which, as far as I know, has not yet been deciphered: it is now in the museum of the Asiatic Society at Calcutta. At an elevation of about twenty feet from the ground are several niches, surrounded by elegant arabesques, in which statutes of men, women, and children, the size of life, formerly stood: some of these have been removed to Calcutta, to save them from the destructive spirit of the natives; seven statutes of red sandstone, which were sadly mutilated were, however, lying about. They are the figures of a people, with flat noses, thick lips, and unusually large eyes. The hair lies perfectly smooth to the head, and falls in innumerable curls over the neck and shoulders. Some of them were quite naked, others wrapped in light garments, which are very curiously wrought, and fit tight to the body, or fall in picturesque folds. One of these figures wore a cord round the waist, exactly similar to that which distinguishes the Brahmins."

"Vincent Smith wrote: “The ashes of the Buddhist sanctuary at Samath near Benares still bear witness to the rage of the image-breakers. Many noble monuments of the ancient civilization of India were irrevocably wrecked in the course of the early Muslim invasions. These invasions were fatal to the existence of Buddhism as an organised religion in northern India where its strength resided chiefly in Bihar and certain adjoining regions.”"

"Coming to the ruins of a Buddhist monastery in the same complex, the archaeologist proceeds: “In the 23rd cell, which I identify with the store-room, I found half-buried in the floor a big earthen jar… This must have been used for storage of corn… “This cell is connected with a find which is certainly the most notable discovery of the season. I refer to an inscribed copper-plate of Govindachandra of Kanauj… The charter was issued from Vãrãnasî on Monday, the full moon day of ÃshãDha Sam. 1186, which… corresponds to the 23rd of June, 1130. The inscription records the grant of six villages to the ‘Community of Buddhist friars of whom Buddhabhattãraka is the chief and foremost, residing in the great convent of the holy Jetavana,’ and is of a paramount importance, in as much as it conclusively settles the identification of MaheTh with the city of Šrãvastî…”"

"He describes as follows some of the sculptures unearthed at SrAvastI: “S.1. Statuette in grey stone… of Buddha seated cross-legged in the teaching attitude on a conventional lotus. The head, breast and fore-arms as well as the sides of the sculpture are broken. “S.2. Lower portion… of a blue schist image of Avalokitešvara in the sportive attitude (lîlãsana) on a lotus seat. “S. 3. Image… of Avalokitešvara seated in ardhaparyanka attitude on a conventional lotus… The head and left arms of the main figure are missing.”"

"With the conversion of Ashoka to Buddhism, Indian architecture began to throw off this alien influence, and to take its inspiration and it symbols from the new religion. The transition is evident in the great capital which is all that now remains of another Ashokan pillar, at Sarnath; here, in a composition of astonishing perfection, ranked by Sir John Marshall as equal to “anything of its kind in the ancient world,” we have four powerful lions, standing back to back on guard, and thoroughly Persian in form and countenance; but beneath them is a frieze of well-carved figures including so Indian a favorite as the elephant, and so Indian a symbol as the Buddhist Wheel of the Law; and under the frieze is a great stone lotus, formerly mistaken for a Persian bell-capital, but now accepted as the most ancient, universal and characteristic of all the symbols in Indian art. Represented upright, with the petals turned down and the pistil or seed-vessel showing, it stood for the womb of the world; or, as one of the fairest of nature’s manifestations, it served as the throne of a god. The lotus or water-lily symbol migrated with Buddhism, and permeated the art of China and Japan. A like form, used as a design for windows and doors, became the “horseshoe arch” of Ashokan vaults and domes, originally derived from the “covered wagon” curvature of Bengali thatched roofs supported by rods of bent bamboo."

"There is in the land of Mnar a vast still lake that is fed by no stream and out of which no stream flows. Ten thousand years ago there stood by its shore the mighty city of Sarnath, but Sarnath stands there no more."

"Lofty and amazing were the seventeen tower-like temples of Sarnath, fashioned of a bright multi-coloured stone not known elsewhere."

"The tremendous complex at Sarnath which had grown up on the site of the first Buddhist sermon was wrecked beyond recovery, thus ending a continuous tradition of refuge and meeting-place for ascetics which went back to the centuries before Buddha."

"The inscriptions found there extending to the twelfth century A.D. show that the connection of Sarnath with Buddhism was still remembered at that date."

"The condition of the excavated ruins leaves little doubt that a violent catastrophe accompanied by willful destruction and plunder overtook the place."