The background

Let us start exploring the region with the story of its rediscovery…
Believe it or not, all our rich culture of this area that we know today and all that is yet to be discovered were buried under a pile of mud and the natives had no clue about the treasure they were sitting on and in certain cases were even destroying it. Besides the physical damage, since there was an absence of any literature that would explain the origin of the heritage, there were stories built around the sculptures and they became part of the mythology and now centuries later it is tough distinguish between the real history and all the fiction that is entrenched into the local customs.
All our present knowledge about the Buddhist past comes from the Travelogues of Chinese pilgrims and Pali sources. And these sources weren’t exactly the ‘lonely planet’ guide books that take you to the tourist destinations with a list of things about how to get there and what to expect. These are centuries old scriptures that have been modified during their several revisions and that too in a language that wasn’t know at the time… That’s not all, once you follow the direction in the book to reach your ‘Tourist attraction’ site, it was at the best a mound of mud if at all that…

Our purpose of giving you all this information is just so that you understand that the process of rediscovery and restoration of Buddhist past in this area is painstakingly tedious and time consuming and was covered by various historians at different times in history.

For the purpose of better understanding, we chose to divide this work by orientalists and enthusiasts in four phases….


1st phase — Setting up of Asiatic Society

"India's most gorgeous antiquity....her greatest treasure is her ancient literary language (Sanskrit), the richness and structural features of which are absolutely unique." - G. Roerich.


William Jones after his arrival 1783 at Calcutta soon realized the extensiveness of the unexplored potential of this part of world. It was a major challenge to execute an exploration of this magnitude and after much deliberations he realized it can be achieved by “unifying the efforts of many”, and proceeded to set up a learned society in the lines of Britain’s royal society in India. Hence Asiatic society was established in Calcutta in 1784.
A lot of work was furnished in this area and the word Buddha was mentioned for the first time in a volume of Asiatic researches in 1789; it was Charles Wilkins who translated an inscription from a temple south of Town Gaya. The inscription read “The place of supreme being Buddha”; it didn’t draw any attention then. This was also the time when many of orientalists in India and abroad were attracted towards the richness of the Sanskrit language and literature. Many of the East India company staff and westerners actively learned Sanskrit the “Language of Gods” as said by William Jones to better understand the Indian culture, history and rich past. Charles Wilkins and William Jones the pioneers of the translations of ancient text and old Indian scriptures are credited with translation of Hitopadesa, Shakuntala and Gitagovinda.

William Jones laid the foundation of “Synchronology”, a study of comparing names and events recorded in ancient documents of one nation with that of ancient documents in other nations. He successfully established a link between “Sandrokottos” found mention in the accounts of Megasthenes and “Chandragupta” of a Sanskrit text “Mudra-rakshasa”.
Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador was sent to “Palimbothra”, in the court of king “Sandrokottos”, approximately in 302BC. Only clue about the “Palimbothra” was that it was situated at the conjunction of river Ganges and river “Erranoboas”. Many identification of Palimbothra were suggested but the “Patlipootra”, the modern Patna suggested by James Rennell was most suitable. Patna was indeed further east of confluence of river Sone and river Ganges.
It was just a chance that while translating one of the ancient Sanskrit texts William Jones found “Hiranyabahu” another name of the river sone. It was obvious “Erranoboas” was Greek rendering of “Hiranyabahu”. This important identification established a fixed point for drawing chronological history of Indian kings’ and their dynasties backwards and forwards.

The name Buddha again appeared in the chronology of Indian kings prepared by Jones on the basis of Rajavamsa a Sanskrit manuscript; and Jones placed him around 1027 BC.
At that time there wasn’t much awareness about his besides being a king and the information and knowledge about the Buddhist past was still in nascent stage well below the threshold to draw any attention for further research.
The Caves around Mumbai, Stone idols, topes and big structures that we now know are part of Buddhist heritage, were all assumed to be of African origin. Sacya, the law-giver, was believed to be of Ethiopian origin.

So as you see, there were a lot of discoveries of Buddhist origin in this time but there was no thread linking them together. The fabric of Buddhism that underlined it all was still unknown to the world and so no initiatives were taken to explore its roots or origin…
 NEXT: 2nd Phase-- Discovery of Dhamma - Coining of “Buddhism”

2nd Phase-- Discovery of Dhamma - Coining of “Buddhism”

“The people say they remember it as entire as the temple of mahamuni now is, but that it was round and solid”, “ in digging for the bricks he is said to have found a stone chest containing bones and many small things… he has also removed pillar which has been erected at…..” Mr. Buchanan on an act of vandalism by Mr. Boddam, a local officer at Gaya


First information about the “Buddha” & “Buddhism” in English language appeared in 1797 by a surgeon botanist Hamilton Buchanan. He traveled to the Kingdom of Ava in 1797 as a part of an official team to visit the court of King of Ava. Based on his observation and father Vincentius Sangrmano’s manuscript Buchanan produced “The religion and literature of the Burma”. He was 1st to chose the term “Buddhism” a religion founded by “Godma” also called “Buddh” though no information about the places associated with life and events of Buddha was known at the time. In response to the papers on Buddhism by Buchanan a few papers came from Srilanka one such response was written by Captain Mahony in 1801. It was based on Sinhalese texts in Pali and gave a more detailed account of Buddha and his life.
As destiny or a chance of faith as you may choose to call it, Buchanan went to Gaya for a routine survey work in 1811. He was approached by a local Mahant from Bodh Gaya, who told him about the visits of two envoys from Ava (modern Burma) to Mahabodhi in recent past and that they were sent by the king of Ava. Mahant told him about the importance of the place for the religion of Ava. Buchanan was yet again approached local; a Buddhist convert at this time who offered to take him around to other places around Bodh Gaya and during their visit described the significance of those places as were told to him by the messenger of Ava.
For the next three months Buchanan visited many places in and around Rajgir and most notable among them was his visit to Bargaon. At Bargaon (Remains of ancient Nalanda University), he was told about its links to Kundalpur capital of king Bhimika from Mahabharata mythology. Buchanan wasn’t convinced with this story though he did notice that the structure was remarkably similar to the circular mounds he had seen at Bodh Gaya. He could now compile his observations from his trips to Ava and Nepal and compare those with what he heard and found at Bodh Gaya. It was with these correlations that Bodh Gaya was established as the heart land of the religion of Ava and Nepal. But unfortunately, this important information didn’t get the required priority. Though the basic stage was set its important characters were missing to take the story further, William Jones wasn’t here to materialize the importance of this information and James Princep was yet to enter the scene...

As many orientalists learned the ancient languages and took up the translation work, more relevant information started pouring in. The English translation of Mahavamsa (Pali account of Kings of Srilanka from 6century BC to 4th century AD) by George Tournour in 1837 provided deep insight into the religion and the events as per the Srilankan traditions. Brian Hodgson was a major contributor with translation of two sets of Kanjur, the Tibetan cannon. Also, Alexandar Csoma de koros helped further by compiling a Tibetan-English dictionary.
With progress being made in trying to understand the available literature, the field activities gained momentum too. There was a surge in the knowledge base and as their importance was recognized the collection of manuscripts, antiquities, coins etc… increased rapidly.
Many mounds were discovered and cursory digs of the remains were rampant, yet the significance of the place and its association with past was a riddle and the iconography was still beyond comprehension. Each new discovery further complicated the riddle.
Colin Mackenzie, the then surveyor general, thought it was best to document things as is, in their original setting because it was tough to draw inferences about the scheme of things without the knowledge about their significance. He did his best to prepare detailed drawings of as many structures as possible; and it was him who coined word “Tope” for stupas.

Many other discoveries were made about the existence of structures like Ajanta, Ellora, Bhilsa etc; many of them got documented and equal number of them were vandalized and are now lost to us.

Buchanan provided enough pieces of the puzzle to establish a link between religions of Southeast Asia and it was quite apparent that Buddha was of jambudvipa origin and Bodh Gaya was the heartland of the religion of Buddha. But all that information needed a few more evidences to conclusively assemble the picture for the entire story to unfold...
Thus far many consequential discoveries were made throughout India and an apparent connection was emerging but these were some of the main questions that were still at large:

1- What is the significance of the places with massive structures, caves and topes and who made them
2- Where was the fountain head of “Buddhism”
3- The inscription on the stone pillars & rock edicts

NEXT: 3rd Phase – Rediscovery of Buddha