[Buddha-l] more light(?) on Bodhgaya

[jkirk]

http://www.travelintelligence.net/wsd/articles/art_1791.html

(I can't find any date for this article. JK)

Battling for the Buddha


by William Dalrymple

.......Not wishing to be left behind by India's other warring religious 
communities, the supposedly peace-loving Buddhists stepped into the fray a 
year later. The Buddhists were upset because the Mahabodhi temple in Bodh 
Gaya, the site of the Buddha's Enlightenment, was controlled not by the 
monks of their religion but by a nearby monastery of aggressively 
anti-Buddhist Hindu monks. According to Buddhist mythology, Bodh Gaya is not 
only the most sacred spot on earth but the very navel of the universe. It 
was only fair, argued the Buddhists, that they should be allowed to control 
their Holy of Holies.

The Buddhists were also extremely critical of the Hindu's guardianship of 
the Bodh Gaya temple. They accused the Temple Management Committee of 
furtively selling off several ancient Buddhist idols and of surreptitiously 
converting others into Hindu Gods: one year, a set of five superb 
Gupta-period Buddha images were suddenly rechristened the Pandava brothers 
and declared to be idols of the five semi-divine heroes of the great Hindu 
epic, the Mahabharata. These meditating Buddha images now lie dressed up in 
tinselly warrior garb similar to that worn by the brothers in the camped-up 
version of the epic broadcast on Indian television two years ago.

The Brahmins who controlled the temple remained unmoved by the Buddhists' 
complaints. Backed up by the big guns of the B.J.P, they declared that the 
Buddha was really just an extra incarnation of the Hindu God Vishnu and that 
Buddhism, far from being a separate religion, was no more than an unorthodox 
sect of Hinduism. They thus had the right, so they implied, to seize control 
of any Buddhist temple whenever they chose.

Tension at the site finally erupted into violence in May. Led by a Japanese 
monk, a column of 1,000 Buddhists vowed to 'liberate' the temple and marched 
into the complex, banners raised. They disrobed 'the Pandavas' and damaged 
an ancient Buddhist pedestal, claimed by the Hindus to be a Shiv Lingam - a 
model of Shiva's sacred phallus. Furious at this impertinence, the Brahmins 
retreated behind the bastions of their monastery and sent out 200 armed 
gundas [hired thugs] to do battle with the Buddhists. A number of the 
orange-robed monks were badly beaten before the police intervened...........

...Every so often there would be a flash of yellow silk as a group of 
Burmese monks circambulated the shrine, prayer wheels spinning. [Burmese 
monks--prayer wheels?? JK]

Joanna