Boghgaya (Bihar) - February 23rd, 2007

The state of Bihar borders with the Himalaya in Nepal and eastern Ganges, and it's very much involved with the life of Buddha, who spent most of his life here.
This city has the most sacred of all Buddhist sites, the Mahabodhi temple. Prince Sidhartha Gautama attained enlighment and became the Buddha over 2500 years ago.
This is a small town with lots of temples Buddhist from many countries. I stayed at the Bhutan Monastery with beautiful gardens and temple. The room was fine but the bathroom sharing situation wasn't, so in the morning I moved to another place.
While visiting the Mahaboddhi Temple I met a monk from Burma who graduated in Buddhism here. He was very kind to show me the whole place and explain about the seven weeks of Enlightment the Buddha went through. I will meet him again in Varanassi in a week. I bought a book about the Essence of Dhamma" and have ben reading about the history of Buddha.
I also visited a Great Buddha Statue, over 80 meters high, unveiled by the Dalai Mama in 1989, and donated by Japan. Quite impressive!