ABSTRACT
One of the first things a visitor encounters when entering the Mahabodhi compound is an enormous, beautifully wrought signboard (see Figure 8.1), located at the bottom of the stairs, right in the middle of the main path leading to the Temple. Made of white marble and red sandstone, it is inscribed with the following message: “Ajapala Nigrodha (Banyan Tree). Lord Buddha spent the fifth week under this tree in meditation after enlightenment. Here he replied to a Brahmana that only by one’s deeds one becomes a Brahmana, not by birth.” Scattered among the ancient stūpas, shrines, statues, and carved railings that surround the towering Mahabodhi Temple, six other marble and stone signboards are prominently featured. Each relates particular events that purportedly occurred during one of seven weeks after the Buddha’s awakening under the Bodhi Tree. The message that seems to emanate from these prominent signboards—the only markers of their kind in the entire complex—is twofold: first that these are the very places where the Buddha engaged in these sacred actions; and second that it is these very acts which make the Mahabodhi Temple significant, religiously.
