Bodhgayanews

Melbourne, Saturday, 15 March, 2003. (Peter Friedlander). Today marks one year of the Bodhgaya news website. Its been quite an eventful year as well in Bodhgaya it seems: the Maitreya Statue Project seems to have relocated to Kushinagar; World Heritage Listing has brought new attention to Bodhgaya; the Dalai Lama attracted thousands of people to a great Kalacakra Puja and the Ambedkarite monks attracted widespread attention to their claim to the temple. One way or another its fair to say that a years local events clearly show how fast things are changing in Bodhgaya.

How much the hardships and travails of the local people have been changed by these developments is much harder to say, but it doesn't seem from following the local news that much has really changed in this regard. A couple of notes on the website itself, I have renewed my website subscription and hope to continue the site for another year.

Over the last year there have been over 37,057 requests to view pages on the site, thats an average of about a hundred pages a day. Another way to look at it is that the visits have come from some 7,734 or so unique hosts, which is roughly equivalent to the number of different visitors to the site. So thanks to all of you who visited and please do keep on visiting as I hope to continue to provide a similar perspective on Bodhgaya news during the coming year again.

Tuesday, 2 April 2002. It sometimes seems that people regard Bodhgaya as a kind blank slate on which development projects and religious activities can be drawn.This is far from the case, there are numerous stake holders with an interest in the future of Bodhgaya.
The following is a brief attempt to illustrate the complexity of the situation on the ground in Bodhgaya in terms of who has an interest in the Mahabodhi temple.