The Mahabodhi temple at Bodhgaya in eastern India has long been recognised as the place where the Buddha sat in meditation and attained enlightenment. The site, soon identified as the 'Diamond Throne' or vajrasana, became a destination for pilgrims and a focus of religious attention for more than two thousand years. This volume presents new research on Bodhgaya and assesses the important archaeological, artistic and literary evidence that bears witness to the Buddha's enlightenment and to the enduring significance of Bodhgaya 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 Bodhgaya's importance in the field of Buddhist studies.

About the Author
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 L'Orientale, University of Naples. Daniela was a researcher of the ERC project Beyond Boundaries: Religion, Region, Language and the State and curated the British Museum's 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 Mahapratisara-Mahavidyarajni: The Great Amulet, Great Queen of Spells (Aditya Prakashan, 2012), A Buddhist Ritual Manual on Agriculture: Vajratundasamayakalparaja (De Gruyter, 2019) and Powers of Protection: the Buddhist Tradition of Spells in the Dharanisamgraha 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.


Book Information
ISBN 9780861592289
Author Sam van Schaik
Format Paperback
Page Count 224
Imprint British Museum Press
Publisher British Museum Press