
REMINISCENCE OF A REPORTER: For nearly two decades, Gyan Jagat, hailing from eastern UP, concealed his real identity and held sway over the shrine management.
Abdul Qadir
FACTS are stranger than fiction, it is said and perhaps rightly so. In what may appear to be like a poor script of a Bollywood film, Gyan Jagat, the then chief priest of the World famous Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya was found to be a mole planted in the shrine. During my investigation in the early 1990s, it was revealed that Gyan Jagat, the then chief priest of Mahabodhi Temple, was not a Buddhist.
He, in fact, turned out to be a VHP man. And, he was not an ordinary VHP worker robed as a Buddhist monk but was in fact a member of the Marg Darshak Mandal (Advisory Council) of the Hindu body.
For nearly two decades, Gyan Jagat, hailing from eastern UP, concealed his real identity and held sway over the shrine management. A well mannered person and a learned man, Gyan Jagat was the most revered chief priest of the Buddha shrine.
After removing the mask from Gyan Jagat, the real problem lay in establishing his VHP links as the clever man that he was, Gyan Jagat covered his tracks very well. Ultimately I, along with my friend Kamal Nayan, then working for Nav Bharat Times, the sister publication of Times of India, managed to get a photograph of Gyan Jagat visiting Bhutan as a member of the VHP delegation under the leadership of Acharya Giriraj Kishore.
The VHP delegation members including Gyan Jagat were photographed with the King of Bhutan. The evidence of Gyan Jagat being a VHP man impersonating as a Buddhist to occupy top spiritual position in the shrine was clinching. Patna edition of Times of India prominently covered the fraud/deception.
Much to his credit, unlike the politicians, Gyan Jagat did not contest his VHP connections or justified his association with the Hindu body. Instead, he mysteriously disappeared the day, TOI revealed his real identity as a fake Buddhist.
Leaving behind most of his belongings, Gyan Jagat performed a silent vanishing act. Gyan Jagat, who virtually ruled the entire township like a robed monarch, has never been seen since then. His personal belongings may still be lying somewhere in Bodh Gaya’s Samanvay Ashram. Some people say Gyan Jagat left the country itself. Maybe he was a con man but he was not shameless. Once caught, he left the place for good.
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From the Facebook wall of Abdul Qadir who has been reporting for Times of India from Gaya in Bihar