Bodhgaya is the place where the Buddha attained enlightenment (Nirvana) some 2,500 years ago. Located in the state of Bihar in India, it's home to the Mahabodhi Temple and the holy Bodhi tree. "This is the Mecca, the Jerusalem, of Buddhist pilgrimages," says Ward. "It's the place of Buddha's enlightenment --most important event in the life of the Buddha, and for Buddhists, the most important event of all time," adds Ward, who recounts his own Bodhgaya experience in the book Arousing the Goddess: Sex and Love in the Buddhist Ruins of India.
Legend goes that the Mahabodhi Temple was built byEmperor Ashoka more than 250 years after the Buddha was there. Abandoned and forgotten for years, it was eventually restored in the late 19th century by Sir Alexander Cunningham, as part of his work for the British Archaeological Society.
The temple itself is a 150-foot-high pyramidal tower made of bricks and surrounded by four smaller towers that mimic the central one. Inside the temple, an eighteen-foot golden Buddha sits in meditation.
A marble walkway surrounds the pyramid. While the walk offers incredible views of the carvings on the temple's walls, the walkway's primary purpose is circumambulation. "Circumambulation is the Tibetan Buddhist ritual of walking around a monastery, stupa or other sacred site," says Ward. "The rite is usually performed while chanting a mantra (usually Om Mani Padme Hum, the prayer for universal peace and enlightenment). Many Tibetan sacred sites are lined with hundreds of prayer wheels on the outer walls, so that as the pilgrims circumambulate, they give each one a spin in turn. The wheels are cylinders packed with prayer scrolls, and turning the wheel is the equivalent of praying all the mantras inside of it. For Tibetan Buddhists, spinning or walking around something sacred is a kind of spiritual dynamo --just as a spinning an electric dynamo generates electric energy, so circling a sacred site generates spiritual energy-- energy that brings peace and enlightenment to all beings."
One of the world's oldest religions started at the feet of the Bodhi Tree (literally, enlightenment tree), at the rear of the temple. Prince Siddhartha Gautama sat in the shade of the original pipal tree and attained Nirvana after three days and three nights of deep meditation. Although the original tree is long gone, the one standing in its place today it's a direct offspring. Among visitors, it's common practice to tie scarves to the Bodhi Tree while burning incense around it.
"At the front entrance of the temple, Tibetan pilgrims chant prayers and perform various rituals all day long (typically the 100,000 Grand Prostrations)," says Ward. "In the surrounding area there are monasteries from virtually every Buddhist sect on earth --an incredible global village of Buddhist traditions."