Bodh Gaya celebrates traditional Buddhist New Year

Buddhist monks from across the world converged at ancient temple in Bihar to celebrate traditional water festival, heralding the New Year for the community.

On Monday, Buddhist monks offered water at the statue of Lord Buddha in Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya and marked the traditional new year.

"Water is offered. In our Buddhist society, people offer water to each other and seek blessings from each other. Today, we celebrated water festival which we generally celebrate on the arrival of New Year of Buddhist community. We had invited people on this occasion of Songkran (traditional New Year), which also marked the anniversary of Babasaheb Ambedkar (architect of Indian Constitution, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar) and we gathered over here. We also celebrated it as water festival," said caretaker of Bodh Gaya temple, Bhante Dinanand.

The area is sacrosanct to Buddhists all over the world since it was under the Mahabodhi tree that Lord Buddha attained enlightenment.

In the year 2002, the UNESCO had declared Mahabodhi Temple as a World Heritage Site.