Bodhgaya Pilgrimage

The town of Bodhgaya is believed to mark the precise location of the Buddha’s enlightenment. In the cool winter months, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims flock here from all over the Buddhist world. The pilgrimage season also draws destitute families from across the parched expanse of Bihar, India’s poorest state. Victims of leprosy, polio, mutilation, and famine beg along the town’s thoroughfare and outside the walled temples and monastery grounds. At the heart of Bodhgaya is the Mahabodhi Temple, surrounding a Pipal tree descended from the one which sheltered the Buddha, over two thousand five hundred years ago, during his days and nights of meditation.

 

 

To hear the audio accompaniment to the photographs
use the player below.

 

 

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Monk Praying near the Bodhi Tree, 2006

Indian Cadets at the Shrine of the Bodhi Tree, 2006

Indian Monks at the Mahabodhi Temple, 2006

Chinese Nun with the Monastic Vows Branded on Her Head, 2006

Sunset at the Mahabodhi Temple, 2001

Tibetan Monks Traversing the Outskirts of Town, 2001

Tibetan Rinpoche Handing Money to a Polio Victim, 2004

The Gateway of a Monastery, 2001

Man Stooping to Help a Begging Child, 2001

Woman Begging through the Wall of the Mahabodhi Temple, 2006

Lotus Offering on a Stone Relief of the Buddha's Footprint, 2006

Tibetan Monk Instructing an Indian Novice on the Sutras, 2006

Tibetan Monks Rising from a Ceremony by the Bodhi Tree, 2006

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