Where the Buddha awakened: Bodh Gaya

Tree was saved from angry monotheistic Muslims

This 360 degree view of "Enlightenment Grove" or Bodh Gaya, India, allows viewers to look around by grabbing the screen to see all the sights of this most sacred place near the Bodhi tree and the Mahabodhi Temple.

Mahabodhi means "Great Enlightenment," a monument next to the tree, where thousands of pilgrims come daily to meditate, prostrate themselves on slippery boards Tibetan-style, or contemplate the enormity of what the wandering ascetic Siddhartha Gautama from Scythia (Shakya Land to the west in Gandhara, modern Afghanistan and Pakistan) accomplished in finally realizing the Truth and letting go.

It went to Sri Lanka and L.A.

It is a kind of wonder of the world with temples from every Buddhist country represented in a relatively small area in the present-day state of Bihar, India. It is named Bihar from the Buddhist word Vihar, a Buddhist monastic temple complex, abbey, monastery, or nunnery, where in the past so many sprouted up to put into practice the Buddha's path to enlightenment and freedom that the name stuck, and Vihar became Bihar (same pronunciation), given the penchant of Hindi to be a lot like Sanskrit but dropping the "a" at the end of so many words. Yoga becomes yog, asana becomes asan, and vihara becomes Vihar (Wihara, Bihara, Bihar). It is an extraordinary place to visit for world travelers.

Is it a real place I can visit? Millions do

• TEXT: Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly