The Maha Bodhi Society is a

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

society presently based in

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. Founded by the

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

n Buddhist leader

Anagarika Dharmapala Anagārika Dharmapāla (Pali: ''Anagārika'', ; Sinhala: Anagārika, lit., si, අනගාරික ධර්මපාල; 17 September 1864 – 29 April 1933) was a Sri Lankan Buddhist revivalist and a writer. Anagarika Dharmapāla is not ...

and the British journalist and poet Sir

Edwin Arnold Sir Edwin Arnold KCIE CSI (10 June 183224 March 1904) was an English poet and journalist, who is most known for his work ''The Light of Asia''.Bodh Gaya Bodh Gaya is a religious site and place of pilgrimage associated with the Mahabodhi Temple Complex in Gaya district in the Indian state of Bihar. It is famous as it is the place where Gautama Buddha is said to have attained Enlightenment ( pi, ...

. The organization's efforts began in order to resuscitate Buddhism in India, and to restore the ancient Buddhist shrines at

Bodh Gaya Bodh Gaya is a religious site and place of pilgrimage associated with the Mahabodhi Temple Complex in Gaya district in the Indian state of Bihar. It is famous as it is the place where Gautama Buddha is said to have attained Enlightenment ( pi, ...

Sarnath Sarnath (Hindustani pronunciation: aːɾnaːtʰ also referred to as Sarangnath, Isipatana, Rishipattana, Migadaya, or Mrigadava) is a place located northeast of Varanasi, near the confluence of the Ganges and the Varuna rivers in Uttar Pr ...

and

Kushinara Kushinagar ( Hindustani: or ; Pali: ; Sanskrit: ) is a town in the Kushinagar district in Uttar Pradesh, India. It is an important and popular Buddhist pilgrimage site, where Buddhists believe Gautama Buddha attained ''parinirvana''. Etymo ...

. The restoration and revival of the glory and sanctity of Bodh Gaya are also aims of Maha Bodhi Society. -- non working ref --> http://mahabodhisociety.com/ Maha Bodhi Society/ref>Arnold, Edwin (1906)
India Revisited
London: K. Paul, Trench, TrübnerDipak K. Barua (1981). “Buddha Gaya Temple: its history”, Buddha Gaya: Buddha Gaya Temple Management Committee DharmarajikaChetiyaViharaInterior MahabodhiSoc CollegeSq-Calcutta 1926Nov

DharmarajikaChetiyaViharaInterior MahabodhiSoc CollegeSq-Calcutta 1926Nov

Inside View of Mahabodhi Society College Street

Although many Indians had remained culturally Buddhist for centuries after the decline of Buddhist religion, they did not self-identify as "Buddhist". The Maha Bodhi Society renewed interest in Buddhism, and spawned the

Ladakh Buddhist Association Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA) is an organization in Ladakh, India concerned with interests of Buddhists in Ladakh. It was founded in 1933 by King Jigmet Dadul Namgyal, Kalon Tsewang Rigzin, Kalon Bankapa Morup Gyaltsan and Munshi Sonam Tse ...

, All Assam Buddhist Association, and Himalayan Buddhist Society, as well as laying the grounds for the Dalit Buddhist movement.

Origins

In 1891, while on

pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...

to the recently restored

Mahabodhi Temple The Mahabodhi Temple (literally: "Great Awakening Temple") or the Mahābodhi Mahāvihāra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is an ancient, but rebuilt and restored Buddhist temple in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India, marking the location where the Buddha ...

, the location where

Siddhartha Gautama Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...

(the Buddha) attained enlightenment, Anagarika Dharmapala had experienced a shock to find the temple in the hands of a

Saivite Shaivism (; sa, शैवसम्प्रदायः, Śaivasampradāyaḥ) is one of the major Hindu traditions, which worships Shiva as the Supreme Being. One of the largest Hindu denominations, it incorporates many sub-traditions rangin ...

priest, the Buddha image transformed into a

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

icon and Buddhists barred from worship. As a result, he began an agitation movement. Sean O'Reilly, James O'Reilly, ''Pilgrimage: Adventures of the Spirit'', Travelers' Tales, 2000, pg 81-82 Prior to that, in 1885 Sir

Edwin Arnold Sir Edwin Arnold KCIE CSI (10 June 183224 March 1904) was an English poet and journalist, who is most known for his work ''The Light of Asia''. The Buddhist renaissance inaugurated by Anagarika Dharmapala through his Mahabodhi Movement has also been described as "conservative" for it considered

Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent The Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent mainly took place from the 13th to 17th centuries. Earlier Muslim conquests include the invasions into what is now modern-day Pakistan and the Umayyad campaigns in India in eighth century and res ...

responsible for the decay of

Buddhism in India Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

, in the then current mood of Hindu-Buddhist brotherhood. Ronaldshay presentsBuddhaRelic AsutoshMukharji 19201126

The Mahabodhi Society at

Colombo Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo me ...

was founded in 1891 but its offices were moved to

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

the following year. One of its primary aims was the restoration of the

, the chief of the four ancient Holy sites to Buddhist control. Arnold Wright, ''Twentieth Century Impressions of Ceylon: its history, people, commerce, industries, and resources'', "Angarika Dharmapala", Asian Educational Services, 1999, pg.119 C. J. Bleeker, G. Widengren, ''Historia Religionum, Volume 2 Religions of the Present: Handbook for the History of Religions'', Brill Academic Publishers, 1971, pg. 453 To accomplish this Dharmapala initiated a lawsuit against the

Brahmin Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests (purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers (guru ...

priests who had held control of the site for centuries. After a protracted struggle this was successful with the partial restoration of the site to the management of the Maha Bodhi Society in 1949. Maha Bodhi Society branches have been established in several countries, most significantly in India and Sri Lanka. A

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

branch was founded by Dr.

Paul Carus Paul Carus (; 18 July 1852 – 11 February 1919) was a German-American author, editor, a student of comparative religion

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. There is also a Maha Bodhi Society of

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

, founded by

Acharya Buddharakkhita Acharya Buddharakkhita (1922- 2013) was a Buddhist monk and prolific writer who established the Maha Bodhi Society of Bangalore and its sister bodies. It was inspired by the Maha Bodhi Society of Anagarika Dharmapala, but is functionally indepe ...

in 1956, which is not a part of or tied to the Maha Bodhi Society of India or Sri Lanka.

The Mahabodhi Temple

After the defeat of the Palas by the Hindu Sena dynasty, Buddhism's position again began to erode and was soon followed by the conquest of Magadha by General Ikhtiar Uddin Muhammad Bin Bakhtiyar Khilji. During this period, the Mahabodhi Temple fell into disrepair and was largely abandoned. During the 16th century, a

monastery was established near Bodh Gaya. Over the following centuries, the monastery's abbot or

mahant Mahant () is a religious superior, in particular the chief of a temple or the head of a monastery in Indian religions. James Mallinson, one of the few westerners to be named as a mahant, describes the position of a mahant as a combination of an ...

became the area's primary landholder and claimed ownership of the Mahabodhi Temple grounds. In the 1880s, the then-British government of India began to restore Mahabodhi Temple under the direction of Sir

Alexander Cunningham Major General Sir Alexander Cunningham (23 January 1814 – 28 November 1893) was a British Army engineer with the Bengal Engineer Group who later took an interest in the history and archaeology of India. In 1861, he was appointed to the newly ...

. In 1885, Sir

Edwin Arnold Sir Edwin Arnold KCIE CSI (10 June 183224 March 1904) was an English poet and journalist, who is most known for his work ''The Light of Asia''. He was guided in this undertaking by Ven.

Weligama Sri Sumangala Weligama Sri Sumangala Thero (1825-1905) was an outstanding scholar bhikkhu with many important publications -Hitopadsesa Atthadassi, Hitopadsesa Padarthavykanaya, Upadesa Vinischaya, Siddanta Sekaraya. His work Siddhanta Sekharaya of 700 pages wa ...

. In 1891,

started a campaign to return control of the temple to Buddhists, over the objections of the ''mahant''. The campaign was partially successful in 1949, when control passed from the Hindu mahant to the state government of Bihar, which established a temple management committee. The committee has nine members, a majority of whom, including the chairman, must by law be Hindus. Mahabodhi's first head monk under the management committee was

Anagarika Munindra Anagarika Shri Munindra (1915 – October 14, 2003), also called Munindraji by his disciples, was an Indian Vipassanā meditation teacher, who taught many notable meditation teachers including Dipa Ma, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Sur ...

, a

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

i man who had been an active member of the Maha Bodhi Society.

Mulagandha Kuty Vihara in Sarnath

Mulagandha Kuty Vihara in

is a fitting reminder of Sarnath's past glory. It is also the crowning and most glorious achievement of Anagarika Dharmapala's lifelong dedication. The construction of the Mulagandha Kuty Vihara was taken up by

in 1926, towards the end of his pious life. When he decided to construct a temple at

and after making the architectural plans, it was the generous Hawaiian Lady, Mary Foster who gave the first financial assistance that came from her parents, brother and well-wishers.

personally supervised the constructional works. The 200 feet high magnificent temple was opened to public in 1931. Later a reputed Japanese artist Kosetsu Nosu (1885- 1973) and his assistant undertook the task to decorate the temple walls with fresco paintings famously as the Mural paintings of Mulagandha Kuty Vihara, depicting the life events of Sakyamuni Buddha. On the opening day of the Vihara, the Buddha's relics donated to Anagarika Dharmapala by Govt. of India under the British Raj was enshrined in the temple. The Vihara, an attractive place of Buddhist worship was visited by numerous Indian and foreign dignitaries and millions of pilgrims and tourists over the past decades. At the Mulagandha Kuty Vihara annual function in November, the most attractive item among the programs is the exposition of the Buddha's sacred relic. People from different countries and from the homeland visit the Vihara to homage to the sacred relic considering it as a rare and an opportune moment in their lifetime. Mulagandha Kuty Vihara

Publications

The Maha Bodhi Society has a robust tradition of publications, spanning from

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or ''Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of ''Theravāda'' Buddhism ...

translations into modern Indian vernacular languages (such as

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

) to scholarly texts and new editions of Pali works typeset in

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental syste ...

to appeal to a Hindi-educated Indian audience. They have also published books and pamphlets in local/regional languages and dialects, sometimes in partnership with other presses.

Leadership

Most Venerable P Seewalee Thero is serving as the 12th and current General Secretary of the Maha Bodhi Society of India since 2016 and the Joint Secretaries are Venerable Kahatagollawe Medhankara Thero and Ven. Rathmalwa Sumithananda Thero. At a meeting in September 2008, the Maha Bodhi Society passed a rule that only persons born into Buddhist families will be eligible to serve as president or as one of the vice-presidents of the Society. The outgoing president, B. K. Modi, a

, assumed the position of patron. At the same meeting, the

14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...

was given the new title of chief patron.Sengupta, Ratnottama (September 28, 2008
Now, Hindus can't head Mahabodhi Society
Times of India

References

{{reflist

External links

Mahabodhi Society

Mahabodhi Society, Bangalore
Buddhism in India Buddhist organisations based in India Religious organizations established in 1891 1891 establishments in Ceylon