Venerating Bodh Gaya: The Return of the Ceylonese to Buddhism’s Holiest Site

In 1891, the Ceylonese Anagarika Dharmapala made his first pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya, the supposed site where Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha, in northern India. Following his visit, Dharmapala established the Maha Bodhi Society and himself became a household name in subcontinental Buddhist circles, especially for his campaigns to reclaim Buddhist ownership over the Bodh Gaya site. While Bodh Gaya currently remains a popular pilgrimage location for Buddhists from what is today Sri Lanka—with various governmental, religious, and commercial initiatives established to facilitate pilgrimages—this was not always the case. Indeed, before Dharmapala’s fateful visit, the island’s Buddhists appeared to have little to no engagement with what was, in theory, Buddhism’s holiest site and with the wider Middle Ganges region in which it is located. This article will provide a historical overview of how and why Sri Lankan Buddhists came to first accept, and then venerate, Bodh Gaya as a critical location in their Buddhist practice before Dharmapala. Referencing the scholarship of Indologists and the writings of Buddhists themselves, this article will describe the conditions that led to Dharmapala’s pilgrimage in 1891 and the emergence of both Bodh Gaya and the wider Middle Ganges region in the orbit and memory of Ceylonese Buddhists. This article will further build on existing scholarship on pilgrimage and sacred spaces and demonstrate how Bodh Gaya and its surroundings became part of a tradition of sacred Buddhist geography fixed around northern India for Ceylonese Buddhists.