{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Incredible India Travel | Social Impact & Culture Tours","title":"Bodhgaya Buddhist Pilgrimage Tour Blog","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1464,"description":"In the year 528 BCE, on the banks of a river in what is now the state of Bihar in India, a prince from Nepal sat beneath a fig tree and refused to move until he understood the nature of suffering.He sat for 49 days.On the 49th day, as the last star faded from the morning sky, Siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment and became the Buddha.The fig tree still stands.Not the same tree but a direct descendant of the original Bodhi Tree, standing in the same place where the most transformative moment in the history of Asian civilisation occurred. And the town that grew up around it, Bodhgaya in Bihar, India, is the most sacred site in the Buddhist world. More sacred than Lumbini where the Buddha was born. More sacred than Sarnath where he first taught. More sacred than Kushinagar where he died. Because it is here that the teaching itself was born.In this episode we take you on a complete Bodhgaya Buddhist pilgrimage tour, through the Mahabodhi Temple complex and the Bodhi Tree, the Vajrasana or Diamond Throne that marks the exact spot where the Buddha sat for 49 days, the extraordinary collection of international monasteries that have transformed this small town in Bihar into the most culturally diverse Buddhist landscape on earth, the sacred Dungeshwari Caves where Siddhartha spent years in austerity before his enlightenment, and the extraordinary extension to Rajgir where the Buddha taught for twelve years and to Nalanda, the greatest university the ancient world ever built.We tell the complete human story of Prince Siddhartha's journey from the palace of his birth to the fig tree of his awakening. We explain how Buddhism spread from this single spot in Bihar to transform the civilisation of an entire continent and eventually reach every corner of the world. We explore the extraordinary international monasteries of Bodhgaya where the entire spectrum of Asian Buddhist tradition gathers in common reverence for the same source. We take you to Vulture's Peak at Rajgir...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/eWrZ3doNBWF40S0S56sC17IDwfhLRtHiDkqKOrNCvtA/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS85Yjg5/Y2Q3ODM2NzZkOTcz/NGJiMWMwMDEzMTFl/YjI3NC5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}