The Buddha and the Sacred Site

This photograph, taken during the annual Nyingma prayer festival for peace, shows the Bodhi Tree (Ficus religiosa) in Bodh Gaya. The tree is believed to be a nineteenth-century descendant of the very tree under which the historical Buddha achieved enlightenment. Here, the French-born photographer Matthieu Ricard, a former molecular biologist and Tibetan-Buddhist monk known for his scholar-ship on Buddhism and Himalayan culture and for his humanitarian work in Asia, captures the tree surrounded by monks, who are among the throngs who make pilgrimage from all over the world to this sacred place.