BodhgayaNews

About This Site

Melbourne, (23 March, 2005). It has been three years now since I began this site. For the last year I also have to say my enthusiasm for updating it with stories about Bodhgaya has also been low as I have been involved in lots of other projects. However, I have found a new, more economical web hosting service, and so will maintain the present pages for the moment. I also hope to add articles as and when I see things that excite me.

Melbourne, (December 13, 2002). I started running this site in March this year and its amazing how much has happened since then, the giant Buddha project has been shifted, the temple has received world heritage listing and the issue of the custodianship of the temple has received fresh fuel, and Gaya International Airport has been opened. Meanwhile, the people of Bodhgaya have struggled with drought, strikes, administration issues, law and order concerns and the daily challenge of surviving in one of India's poorest and disadvantaged states. I hope that by collecting together these stories on this website it may help people to understand the complexity of the issues in this most sacred of sites, Bodhgaya the place of the Buddha's enlightenment.

Original introduction to the website.

This website aims to present a picture of what's happening in the Buddhist pilgrimage centre of Bodhgaya in the state of Bihar in India.

The intention is to cover four main areas of news about Bodh Gaya: what's in the press, both English and Hindi, about Bodh Gaya, what events are happening there, what kind of meditation programs are scheduled and news about development activity in Bodh Gaya.

News about Bodh Gaya is not prominent in the international Media. Every so often there are articles in the Indian English language newspapers. But, everyday there are articles about Bodh Gaya in the local Hindi language press.

For the most part these are not available on the net, however, the Dainik Jagran's internet edition often includes news from Gaya which sometimes includes news from Bodh Gaya. However, the news often needs some commentary to to be comprehensible if you are not following the kind of stories which are curent in Bodh Gaya.

What I intend to provide here is a collection of past and current stories from the Hindi press, mostly in the forms of translations or summaries, with some notes to help explain the context of the story in some cases.

I have a lot of older stories from Bodhgaya, mostly in the form of Hindi texts with vocabularies and notes for students learning Hindi.

This site is run by Peter Friedlander. I have a long standing interest in Bodhgaya and have been visiting it off and on since the late 1970s when I first set eyes on the Mahabodhi Temple.

Currently I am interested in what is happening in Bodhgaya on many levels, spiritual, social and historical. My intention is through this website to foster awareness of the complexity of Bodhgaya as a sacred site.

My contact Details are.

Dr Peter G. Friedlander
Asian Studies Program
La Trobe University, VIC 3086
Australia