Status up front
Bodh Gaya itself is Verified. Elsewhere in the Buddha's life, Kapilavastu is the known exception: two sites, Piprahwa ( India) and Tilaurakot ( Nepal), are both claimed. That one is Contested.
A gap, said plainly
I could not read Canto 14 verse by verse in Johnston or Olivelle, so this page gives no Canto 14 line numbers.
What survives of Canto 14
31
about this many verses of Canto 14 survive in Sanskrit. The rest of the poem is rebuilt from Tibetan and Chinese. Fact
Source: E. H. Johnston, The Buddhacarita, Part II (Lahore, 1936), Canto XIV from p. 203, and his Introduction.
Cowell's 1894 Books XIV to XVII are a later Nepalese addition by Amritānanda, not Aśvaghoṣa. Cowell says so in a footnote.
The route, in text order
The poem sends the Bodhisattva to the Gaya area, the Nairañjanā river and the tree. All three sit in one small place. Status here describes the place, not a verse.
| # | Place | Country | Lat, Lon | Era | What happened or what is there | Text ref. | Source | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gaya (area) | India | not sourced | Poem: c. 1st to 2nd c. CE | The setting of the awakening | Cowell SBE 49, XII to XIII (Cowell numbering) | sacred-texts | Verified |
| 2 | Nairañjanā river (Pāli Nerañjarā) | India | not sourced | Both traditions | River beside the seat | Cowell XII to XIII; Mahāvagga I.1; Udāna 1 | sacred-texts; dhammatalks | Verified |
| 3 | Bodhi tree and seat (Mahabodhi Temple, Bodh Gaya) | India | 24.696 N, 84.991 E | Ashoka's tour; temple 5th to 6th c. CE | Temple complex, UNESCO site since 2002 | Cowell XII to XIII | Rock Edict VIII; UNESCO | Verified |
| 4 | "Navel of the earth" | n/a | none | Poem | The tree's spot as the centre of the world | Cowell XII to XIII | sacred-texts | Symbolic |
Canto 14 past about verse 31 was not read, so no places are listed from it. Sources: Cowell, SBE 49; UNESCO 1056; Rock Edict VIII.
One place with sourced coordinates, and three that are not pinned
Gaya and the Nairañjanā are not pinned because I have no sourced coordinates for them.
Map: Natural Earth via world-atlas. Coordinates: UNESCO and Wikipedia agree to three decimals.
What the poem says, and what stands there
The text Fact
- A river, a tree, a seat, and a place called Gaya.
- The tree's spot is the "navel of the earth".
- The name "Bodh Gaya" is not in the text we can read.
- Canto 14 itself is largely lost in Sanskrit.
Cowell XII to XIII; Johnston, Introduction.
The ground Fact
- The Mahabodhi Temple Complex, India.
- A brick temple from the 5th to 6th century CE.
- On the UNESCO World Heritage list since 2002.
- Run since 1949 by a joint Hindu and Buddhist committee.
Seven layers, not to scale
Sources: Rock Edict VIII; UNESCO; Dharmapala; The Week. The two sources disagree on Arnold's visit year: 1885 or February 1886, so it is Contested.
Who claims it
- Ashoka. Rock Edict VIII: ten years after his coronation he "went on a tour to Sambodhi". Primary text.
- The Pāli texts. They put the awakening at Uruvelā, by the Nerañjarā river.
- Modern times. I found no one who "first proposed" the site in what I could read. The sources treat it as long-held. The live dispute is over control, not location.
Sources: Rock Edict VIII; dhammatalks.org, Mahāvagga I.1 and Udāna 1.
Why here, at this point
Interpretation Canto 14 is where the poem turns from the prince's search to the Buddha's achievement. That turn needs a fixed, sacred centre. A river, a tree and a seat do that job, and "navel of the earth" says the centre is the world's.
I did not find a scholarly source that makes this argument for Canto 14, so it is my reading, not a citation. Johnston's Introduction is the first place to check.
Hero insight
In the text we can read, Aśvaghoṣa gives a river, a tree and a seat near Gaya, and never the name Bodh Gaya. The Bodh Gaya you can visit also carries a campaign that began in 1891 and a law from 1949, which the poem knows nothing about.
- The Sanskrit of Canto 14 mostly does not survive, and Cowell's later books are not Aśvaghoṣa.
- The Pāli texts say Uruvelā and Ashoka says Sambodhi: other names for the same spot.
- Dharmapala campaigned from 1891, and a joint Hindu and Buddhist committee took over in 1949.
Interpretation The place was fixed early. What changed was who told its story, and who ran it.
Sources and claims log
17 claims logged: 11 Verified (one of them with a contested year, Arnold's visit), 1 Contested (which site is Kapilavastu), 5 Unverified and kept off this page. What I could not find: Canto 14 verse by verse, scholarship on why Bodh Gaya appears here, and the current court status of the temple dispute. Images are credited below.
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Mahabodhi Temple Complex (1056)
- Cowell, The Buddha-karita, SBE 49
- E. H. Johnston, The Buddhacarita, Part II (Lahore, 1936), front matter and Introduction
- Rock Edict VIII (Dhammika translation)
- dhammatalks.org: Mahāvagga I.1, Udāna 1
- Mahabodhi Temple · Bodh Gaya Temple Act, 1949 · Anagarika Dharmapala · Kapilavastu
- Images: "Mahabodhi Temple - Bodh Gaya" by WeeKeeEditor, CC BY-SA 4.0; "Bodhi Tree at the Mahabodhi Temple Bodh Gaya" by Корыгин Андрей, CC BY-SA 3.0. Found through Openverse and the Commons API.
- The Week, "What triggered a Hindu-Buddhist dispute in the 19th century in Bodh Gaya"
The poem never says Bodh Gaya
Buddhacarita, Canto 14, the awakening. This board follows how the place got its shape.
Status first
Bodh Gaya is Verified. Kapilavastu, elsewhere in the Buddha's life, is the exception: two sites are claimed.
The text is mostly lost
Only about 31 verses of Canto 14 survive in Sanskrit. I could not read them verse by verse, and I say so.
The route
A river, a tree and a seat near Gaya. The "navel of the earth" is symbolic, not geography.
On the map
One place has sourced coordinates, the Mahabodhi Temple. Only a verified place gets a filled dot.
The tree in the photo
A Bodhi tree stands at the temple today. I did not check how old this tree is or how it relates to the one in the poem.
Text against ground
The poem gives a setting. The ground has a 5th to 6th century temple, a UNESCO listing and a joint committee.
Seven layers
Ashoka, the poem, the temple, Arnold, Dharmapala, the 1949 Act and UNESCO. Not to scale.
Who claims it
Ashoka and the Pāli texts name the spot. The modern dispute is about who runs it.
Why here
My reading: the turn from search to achievement needs a fixed centre. I found no scholarship that says this for Canto 14.
The finding
The place was fixed early. The name, the campaign and the law came later.
Sources and gaps
17 claims, 11 Verified, 1 Contested, 5 kept off the page.
The whole board
Drag to explore, or use "Read as one page".