The best place of Buddhism erupts in protests because of the Hindu ‘Control’ of the Sanctuary | Policy

Bodh Gaya, India – While standing in line in front of a makeshift kitchen for breakfast, 30-year-old Abhishek Bauddh couldn’t help, but think about a bunch of people around him in Bodh Gaya, the brightest place of Buddhism.

Bauddh visited the city in the State of Bihar in eastern India, where Buda gained enlightenment, since he was 15. “But I have never seen such an atmosphere. Buddhists from all over the country gather here,” he said.

Once are not in Bodh Gaya for pilgrimage. They are part of the protests of Buddhists who have erupted throughout India in recent weeks because of the demand of control over the temple of Mahabodhi Bodh Gaye, one of the most holy shrines of Faith, teaching exclusively to the community.

Several Buddhist organizations were held by sets, from Ladakhh bordered by China in the north to the cities of Mumbai in the west and Mysur in the south. Now people are increasingly being done by Bodh Gay to join the main protest, said Akash Lama, Secretary General of the Buddhist Forum All India (AIBF), a collective who led the campaign. India was estimated at 8.4 million Buddhist citizens, according to the latest census in the country in 2011.

For the last 76 years, the Temple has been managed by the eight-member Committee of Hindus and four Buddhists-the Law on the Temple of Bodh Gay, 1949, the Law on the State of Bihar.

But protesters, including saffron -coated monks with speakers and banners in their hands, seek to abolish this act and complete hand over the temple of Buddhists. They claim that in recent years, the Hindu monks, enabled by the fact that the influence of community is under law, are increasingly performing rituals that defy the spirit of Buddhism – and that other, more subtle forms of protests failed.

Bodh Gaya Math, a Hindu monastery that performs rituals within the complex, insists that he has played a central role for centuries in maintaining a shrine and has a law on his side.

Protesters point out that Buda opposed the Vedic rituals. All religions in India “care and manage their own religious sites,” said Bauddh, who traveled 540 KM (335 miles) to Bodh Gay from his home in the Central State of Chhattisgarh. “So why are Hindu involved in the Buddhist Religious Place Committee?”

Sitting with a plate of hot rice with Dalo, he said: “Buddhists did not get justice [so far]What should we do if we do not calmly protest? “

Old appeal, new trigger

Barely 2 km (1.2 miles) from the Holy Fig tree in the Mahabodhi Temple complex, where it is believed that Buddha has meditated, the minibus arrives dusty from Patno, the capital of Bihara, carrying protesters from different parts of the country.

For some who regularly visited the shrine, concern about the Hindu rituals performed in the temple complex is not new.

“From the very beginning, when we came here, we felt very disgusting when we saw the rituals that Lord Buddha was forbidden to perform people from other religions in this yard,” said 58-year-old Amogdarshini, who traveled from Vadodore in the Western State of Gujarat to join the protests in Bodh Gay.

In recent years, Buddhists have complained to local, state and national authorities on Hindu rituals. In 2012, two monks filed a petition before the Supreme Court seeking to abolish the law of 1949, which gives Hindus a word in running the shrine. This case is not even listed on the hearing, 13 years later. In recent months, the monks have re -surrendered the memorandums to the state and the central governments and pulled together on the streets.

But things appeared last year. On February 27, more than two dozen Buddhist monks who at midnight at midnight removed the hunger stroke on the premises of the Temple, who forced them to move outside the temple.

“Are we terrorists? Why can’t we protest in the yard that belongs to us?” Said Pragya Mitra Bodh, secretary of the National Confederation of Buddhist India, who came from Jaipura to the Western State of Rajasthan with 15 other protesters. “This Law on Temple Management and the Committee is set by our Buddhist identity and the Mahabodhi Temple I can never fully belong to us if the act is not abolished.”

Since then, protests have reinforced – some, like Amogdarshini, who has spent several weeks in Bodh Gay in January, have now returned to join the protest.

Stanzin Suddho, a passenger agent from Ladakho who is currently in Bodh Gaya, said protests financed the contributions of devotees. “We don’t stay long,” he said, adding that he came with 40 others. “Once we come back, more people will join here.”

The history of transferring ownership

At the heart of the Battle of the Temple of Mahabodhi-the place of UNESCO World Heritage-his long challenging heritage.

The temple was built by Emperor Ashok, who visited Bodh Gay in 260 after accepting Buddhism, about 200 years after the Buddha’s Enlightenment.

For years, he remained under the Buddhist management until the great political changes in the region in the 13th century, said Imtiaz Ahmed, a professor of medieval history at the University of Patna. The invasion of India of Turko-Afghanistan General Bakhtiyara Khili “led to a possible fall of Buddhism in the region,” Ahmed said.

According to UNESCO, the sanctuary was largely abandoned between the 13th and 18th centuries, before the British began to renew.

But according to the website of the shrine, the Hindu monk, Ghamandi Giri, appeared in the temple in 1590 and began to live there. He started running rituals and founded the mathematics of Bodh Gay, a Hindu monastery. Since then, the temple has been controlled by Giri offspring.

At the end of the 19th century, visiting Sri Lankan and Japanese Buddhist monks founded the Society of Maha Bodhi to lead a movement for a place to return.

In 1903, these efforts led the then Vicero of India, Lord Curzon, to try to negotiate an agreement between the Hindu and Buddhist sides, but he failed. Later both sides began to mobilize political support and finally, two years after India received independence from the British rule in 1947, the Bihar’s government was pushed through the Bodh Gay Temple Act. The law transferred the management of the Temple from the Mathematics Chief Bodh Gaya into the eight-member committee, at which the ninth member is now headed, the district judge-Vrhun bureaucrats in charge of the district.

But Buddhists claim that the mathematics of Bodh Gaya-like the most influential institution on the ground-firmly controls the daily functioning of the complex.

‘Hindus owned him’

Swami Vivekananda Giri, a Hindu priest who is currently taking care of the mathematics of Bodh Gaya, are protests without any problems describing agitations as “politically motivated” – given the Bihare elections for legislative authorities later this year.

“Learning of our mathematics treats gentlemen being like the ninth reincarnation [Hindu] Lord Vishnu and we consider Buddhists our brothers, “Giri told Al Jazeera.” For years we hosted Buddhist devotees, from other countries, and we have never made it impossible to pray in the premises. “

Giri says that the Hindu side was “generous in allowing four places of Buddhists on the Management Committee.”

“If you abolish the act, the temple will only belong to the Hindu side because we owned it before the act and independence [of India]”Said Giri, digging protesters.” When Buddhists left him after the invasion of the Muslim rulers, we preserved and took care of the temple. However, we never treated Buddhist visitors as “others.”

Returning to the protest page, Akash Lama, which leads demonstrations, suggested that protesters are a little hoped that the federal government of the Hindu Majorati Bharatiiya Janata Party (BJP) and the State Government – in which the BJP partner is an alliance – listen to their complaints.

“The real Buddhists are gradually violated by law. Buddhists have the right over the temple, so it should be handed over to Buddhists,” he said. “We are disappointed in the Government and the Supreme Court [for failing to hear the case]. “

But Bauddh, protester Chhattisgarha, still has hope – not in the Government, but in the people he sees around him. “This unity makes our protest strong,” he said.