Buddh Gaya

Here is a virtuous and high-born widow of a Hill Rajah on pilgrimage, she says, to Buddh Gaya.

May be he will go with me to Buddh Gaya.

This is believed by Buddhists to be a branch of the sacred bo-tree in Buddh Gaya, India, under which Prince Siddhartha sat on the day he attained Buddha-hood, this branch having been sent from India; it has been sacredly treated, enriched with stone carvings and braces, and honored with magnificent ceremonies by repeated dynasties; it has also been spared during the successive invasions of the land.

Close by, within the walls of a Buddhist temple, or monastery, still grows the famous Bo or Pipal tree, the oldest living historical tree in the world, brought here 250 B.C. from Buddh Gaya in India.

It was at Buddh Gaya that, after fleeing from the pomp and luxury of his father's royal palace, he sat and meditated under the Bo-tree on the vanity and misery of human life, but it was at Rajagriha, "the King's House," that he first began to preach.