The Rebirth of Bodh Gaya (Buddhism and the Making of a World Heritage Site)

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Buddha attained enlightenment while sitting under what became known as the ORE THAN TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO, in a village in North India, Gautama Bodhi tree. This multilayered historical ethnography of Bodh Gaya explores the spatial politics surrounding the 2002 transformation of the Mahabodhi Temple Complex into a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The rapid change from a small town with an agricultural economy to an international destination that attracts hundreds of thousands of Bud dhist pilgrims and visitors each year has given rise to conflicts over space and meaning among Bodh Gaya's diverse constituencies, from Buddhist monks and nuns, to hotel and restaurant owners, to residents and tourists, to local and national government. Through the case of Bodh Gaya, David Geary examines the modern revival of Buddhism in India, the colonial and postcolonial dynamics surrounding archaeological heritage and sacred space, and the role of tourism and urban development.

DAVID GEARY is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia. He is the coeditor of Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on a Contested Buddhist Site: Bodh Gaya Jataka.

"The Rebirth of Bodh Gaya is a model ethnography that conveys, in attractively simple prose, the inevitable clash of scales and perspectives (high ideals, base commercial interests, hopes, and fears) that confront each other in one small town in Bihar-where the Buddha happens to have achieved enlightenment."

-DAVID N. GELLNER, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

"Geary's argument to go beyond viewing Bodh Gaya as a tourist site to one of global connection is an important and timely one as a transnational Buddhist public culture is flourishing across Asia."

-JUSTIN THOMAS MCDANIEL, AUTHOR OF GATHERING LEAVES AND LIFTING WORDS: HISTORIES OF BUDDHIST MONASTIC EDUCATION IN LAOS AND THAILAND

"Pathbreaking. This comprehensive treatment of Bodh Gaya as a center of religious pilgrimage and heritage tourism contextualizes exactly how this small town in India captured such a position of primacy within a global, transnational imaginary of Buddhist heritage."

ALTHOUGH IT NEVER COMPLETELY LEFT, BUDDHISM HAS RETURNED to India in a big way. Nowhere is this more evident than in Bodh Gaya, which is fast becoming a global destination attracting hundreds of thousands of Asian Buddhist pilgrims and visitors each year. According to the data col lected by the Union Tourism Ministry in 2009, the North Indian state of Bihar, where Bodh Gaya is located, attracted 4.2 lakh (420,000) foreign tour ists that year, eclipsing the popular tourist destination Goa. "Celebrated as the party destination in India, Goa appears to have lost its 'happening' tag to the humble Bihar," reports a Times of India article (Dhawan 2011). By 2011, the number of visitors to Bihar had nearly doubled to 972,487 overseas tour ists, earning its place as one of the top ten Indian states to attract foreign travelers, according to India's tourism ministry (Guha 2013).

With the rebranding of India's third most populous state as "Blissful Bihar," clearly a remarkable metamorphosis is under way-one that looks to shed Bihar's beleaguered reputation as an uncivilized place marked by poverty, illiteracy, caste warfare, Maoist guerillas, political corruption, and "backwardness." In fact, looking backward and capitalizing on heritage has become an integral strategy for an "enlightened" administration with vast cultural resources for increased commerce, including spiritually moti vated tourism. During a public appearance on May 28, 2008, at opening of the Nalanda Multimedia Museum, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar asked the audience, "What is there in Bihar? It is people. It is the soil, and its heritage. After the separation of Jharkhand [in 2000], all the industry went there and we got the heritage. But the one who has heritage is the most powerful in the world today."

Book's Contents and Sample Pages