The Mahābodhi temple at Bodhgayā in eastern India has long been recognized as the place where the Buddha sat in meditation and attained enlightenment. The site, soon identified as the &;Diamond Throne&; or vajrāsana, became a destination for pilgrims and a focus of religious attention for more than two thousand years.
This volume presents new research on Bodhgayā and assesses the important archaeological, artistic and literary evidence that bears witness to the Buddha&;s enlightenment and to the enduring significance of Bodhgayā in the history of Buddhism. The book brings together a team of international scholars to look at the history and perception of the site across the Buddhist world and its position in the networks of patronage and complex religious landscape of northern India. The volume assesses the site&;s decline in the thirteenth century, as well as its subsequent revival as a result of archaeological excavations in the nineteenth century. Using the British Museum&;s collections as a base, the authors discuss the rich material culture excavated from the site that highlights Bodhgayā&;s importance in the field of Buddhist studies.
This volume presents new research on the temple site of Bodhgaya in eastern India - long recognized as the place where the Buddha sat in meditation and attained enlightenment – and shows through discussion of the rich material excavated from the site its importance in the field of Buddhist studies.
| Introduction |
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1 | (7) |
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1 The Mahabodhi Temple Before its Restoration |
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8 | (21) |
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2 The Asana: Where the Budd ha Sat |
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29 | (11) |
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3 PTthlpati Puzzles: Custodians of the Diamond Throne |
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40 | (19) |
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4 Early Burmese Inscriptions from Bodhgaya |
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59 | (6) |
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5 The Internalisation of the Vajrasana |
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65 | (6) |
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6 Tibetan Inscriptions in the British Museum Archive |
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71 | (5) |
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7 Buddhist Sealings and the ye dharma Stanza |
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76 | (11) |
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8 DharanT Seals in the Cunningham Collection |
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87 | (8) |
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9 A Terracotta Plaque with an Old Mon Inscription |
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95 | (4) |
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10 Five Terracotta Plaques with Figurative Imagery |
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99 | (13) |
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11 The Mahabodhi Plaque of the Goddess Marie? |
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112 | (8) |
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12 From Bodhgaya to Berlin |
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120 | (8) |
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13 Numismatic Finds at Bodhgaya |
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128 | (8) |
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14 Deposits at Bodhgaya: Objects, Materials and Analysis |
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136 | (12) |
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15 Chinese Inscriptions from Bodhgaya |
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148 | (5) |
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16 Materials of British Museum Plaques 1887,0717.146-147 |
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153 | (3) |
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| Bibliography |
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156 | (10) |
| Contributors |
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166 | (2) |
| Index |
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168 | |
Sam van Schaik is a specialist in Tibetan Buddhism and is the head of the Endangered Archives Programme at the British Library. Before this he was a principal investigator on the ERC project Beyond Boundaries: Religion, Region, Language and the State. He is the author of several books including Tibet: A History, Tibetan Zen and Buddhist Magic. Daniela De Simone is an archaeologist and a museum curator. She studied Indian languages and cultures at LOrientale, University of Naples. Daniela was a researcher of the ERC project Beyond Boundaries: Religion, Region, Language and the State and curated the British Museums permanent exhibit of South Asian archaeological materials. Before this, she was Assistant Programme Specialist at UNESCO New Delhi and Field Director of the Italian Archaeological Mission to Nepal for the Italian Institute for Africa and the Orient. Gergely Hidas completed a DPhil in Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford. Between 2014 and 2019 he worked as a team member of the Beyond Boundaries project at the British Museum. He is the author of Mahpratisar-Mahvidyrjñ: The Great Amulet, Great Queen of Spells (Aditya Prakashan, 2012), A Buddhist Ritual Manual on Agriculture: Vajratuasamayakalparja (De Gruyter, 2019) and Powers of Protection: the Buddhist Tradition of Spells in the Dhrasagraha Collections (De Gruyter, 2021). Michael Willis studied Indian civilisation at the University of Chicago. From 1994 he was curator of South Asia at the British Museum and, from 2014 to 2020, led Religion, Region, Language and the State, a project funded by the European Research Council.
