Sri Lankan devotees offer prayers at Mahabodhi temple on Wednesday. Picture by Suman

Gaya, Aug. 7: A month ago he had left bloodstains on the stairs near Bodhi tree after a spate of explosions injured him at the Mahabodhi Mahavihara. Today, he visited the same place with heart filled with devotion to send a strong message to those who triggered the July 7 blasts that nothing can come between faith and courage.

Tenzing Lama (60) from Tibet, one of the two persons injured in the blasts near Bodhi tree, visited the Mahabodhi shrine today morning to offer his prayers for world peace.

A teacher with the school at Tergar Monastery, Tsering Gyatso, said during his visits to the Mahabodhi Mahavihara with junior monks, he saw the Tibetan devotee offering his prayer in silence.

“Not only today, but since he was released from Anugrah Narayan Medical College and Hospital, Tenzing has been a regular at the Mahavihara,” Gyatso said.

The blasts had left his ankle and knee badly wounded. Tenzing had run for safety outside the Mahavihara leaving bloodstains on the floor of the temple.

“The other devotee, Vilasagga of Myanmar, who was also injured in the blasts, has returned to his country,” Gyatso said.

A month after the serial blasts, it is business as usual in the temple town. However, the explosions have surely dealt a blow to the business community who thrived on the temple complex.

Around 5.40am on July 7, 10 cylinder bombs went off in minutes’ gap at the temple premises and its neighbouring areas sending shock waves across the Buddhist community.

Exactly a month later, around 5.40am today there was no sign of scare among devotees from Sri Lanka, who concentrated solely on offering prayers in front of the Buddha statue at the sanctum sanctorum of the world heritage Mahabodhi Mahavihara and under the Bodhi tree behind the sanctorum.

Janaka and Mahendra of Lotus Tours in Colombo, Sri Lanka, said a group of 80 devotees offered prayers today at the Mahavihara. A group of 200 devotees, too, offered prayers yesterday.

“As a sign of devotion towards Lord Buddha, the inaugural flight from Mahinda Rajapaksa International Airport in Hambantota, Sri Lanka, on August 3 had taken off for Gaya,” Janaka said.

Bhikkhu Hem Rathan Thero, a monk of Mahabodhi Society of India (MSI), Bodhgaya branch, who led a group to offer prayers at the Mahavihara, said: “No fear can separate devotees from Buddha.”

Not only foreign tourists but also domestic devotees are thronging the Mahavihara even after the series of explosions. Kanwariyas, visiting the Shiva temple in Deoghar, also take a detour to offer prayers in Bodhgaya almost every day during the holy month of Shravan.

Rajiv Kumar and Amit Kumar Pandey of a 21-member group of kanwariyas from Choubeypur, around 10km from Varanasi, said they have been visiting Bodhgaya for the past seven years during Shravan.

After July 7, the junior monks studying at the residential school of Tergar Monastery run by Ogyen Trinley Dorjee, one of the two popular claimants for the seat of the 17th Karmapa of Kagyue sect, have not missed their routine visits to the Mahavihara on Sundays.

Glasses of the windows of the two classrooms that were damaged in the blasts have been repaired. “We have also ordered for closed-circuit television cameras, which will be installed in the monastery soon,” said monastery in-charge Sotop.

Nina Finnigan, a 69-year-old retired tour manager in Wales, UK, said: “I arrived in Bodhgaya from UK on July 25 and accompanied the junior monks of the school in the Mahavihara on July 28. What I have found after the blasts is that local people have not benefited from the steps initiated for security reasons.”