The Buddhist landscape of ancient Magadha, modern south Bihar in
eastern India, constituted the religion’s heartland because the Buddha
had lived and taught here for a substantial period of time in the
sixth century BCE. Within a few centuries after the Buddha’s death,
Magadha started developing strong trans-regional connections,
attracting pilgrims from within and beyond the subcontinent to the
many shrines and monasteries that came to define the region. While
Magadha’s robust translocal networks have been well established, a
long-term history of its interface with the Himalayan and
trans-Himalayan regions in the premodern period has yet to be charted.
In this paper, I explore Magadha’s connections with parts of Nepal,
Tibet and China in the course of a millennium (fifth to fifteenth
century CE), using a combination of texts, inscriptions, sculptures
and other artefacts. Within Magadha, I focus on Mahābodhi, the place
of the Buddha’s enlightenment, and on Nālandā, the site of a renowned
mega-monastery (mahāvihāra), since they had the
most enduring transcultural links. Such an exercise highlights the
evolving character of the Buddhist heartland and the perception of it
in the Asian Buddhist world. It also demonstrates how cross-cultural
influences contributed to shaping Buddhist practices both within and
beyond the heartland.