[4] Many of the oldest sculptural elements have been moved to the museum beside the temple, and some, such as the carved stone railing wall around the main structure, have been replaced by replicas.

This is a stylistic feature that has continued in Jain and Hindu temples to the present day, and influenced Buddhist architecture in other countries, in forms like the pagoda.

[2] Traditional accounts say that, around 589 BCE,[6] Siddhartha Gautama, a young prince who saw the suffering of the world and wanted to end it, reached the forested banks of the Phalgu river, near the city of Gaya, India.

[12] In approximately 250 BCE, about 200 years after the Buddha attained enlightenment [dubious – discuss], Emperor Ashoka of the Mauryan Empire visited Bodh Gaya in order to establish a monastery and shrine on the holy site, which has today disappeared.

[13] The Diamond throne, or Vajrasana, is thought to have been built by Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire between 250 and 233 BCE,[14] at the location where the Buddha reached enlightenment.

While Asoka is considered the Mahabodhi Temple's founder, the current pyramidal structure dates from the Gupta Empire, in the 5th–6th century CE.

[7] However, this may represent a restoration of earlier work of the 2nd or 3rd century: a plaque from Kumrahar dated 150–200 CE, based on its dated Kharoshthi inscriptions and combined finds of Huvishka coins, already shows the Mahabodhi Temple in its current shape with a stepped truncated pyramid and a small hemispherical stupa with finials on top.

[22] This truncated pyramid design also marked the evolution from the aniconic stupa dedicated to the cult of relics, to the iconic temple with multiple images of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas.

[28] During the 12th century CE, Bodh Gaya and the nearby regions were invaded and destroyed by Muslim Turk armies, led by Delhi Sultanate's Qutb al-Din Aibak and Bakhtiyar Khilji.

[29] Over the following centuries, the monastery's abbot or mahant position became occupied by the area's primary landholder, who claimed ownership of the Mahabodhi Temple grounds.

[30][page needed] It is said that six weeks after the Buddha began meditating under the Bodhi Tree, the heavens darkened for seven days, and a prodigious rain descended.

When the great storm had cleared, the serpent king assumed his human form, bowed before the Buddha, and returned in joy to his palace.

[31] In the 1880s, the then-British colonial government of India began to restore Mahabodhi Temple under the direction of Sir Alexander Cunningham and Joseph David Beglar.

In 1884, a large Buddha image of the Pāla period, likely removed at an earlier stage to the Mahant's residence from the temple sanctum, was reinstated.

According to UNESCO, "the present temple is one of the earliest and most imposing structures built entirely in brick from Gupta period" (300–600 CE).

The older ones, made of sandstone, date to about 150 BCE, and the others, constructed from unpolished coarse granite, are believed to be of the Gupta period.

The older railings have scenes such as Lakshmi, the Hindu/Buddhist goddess of wealth, being bathed by elephants; and Surya, the Hindu sun god, riding a chariot drawn by four horses.

Images of the site include Avalokiteśvara (Padmapani, Khasarpana), Vajrapani, Tara, Marichi, Yamantaka, Jambhala and Vajravārāhī.

Sir Edwin Arnold, author of The Light of Asia, started advocating for the renovation of the site and its return to Buddhist care.

[41] Here he experienced a shock to find the temple in the hands of a Saivite priest, the Buddha image transformed into a Hindu icon and Buddhists barred from worship.

[43][44] After a protracted struggle, this was successful only after Indian independence (1947) and sixteen years after Dharmapala's own death (1933), with the partial restoration of the site to the management of the Maha Bodhi Society in 1949.

[46] Mahabodhi's first head monk under the management committee was Anagarika Munindra, a Bengali man who had been an active member of the Maha Bodhi Society.

[51] The Bihar state government assumed responsibility for the protection, management, and monitoring of the temple and its properties when India gained its independence.

[53] A 2013 Amendment to the Bodhgaya Temple Management Act allows the Gaya District Magistrate to be the chairman of the committee, even if he is not Hindu.

[54] The advisory board consists of the governor of Bihar and twenty to twenty-five other members, half of them from foreign Buddhist countries.

The temple's head monk, Bhikkhu Bodhipala, resigned in 2007 after he was charged with cutting the branches of Mahabodhi tree on a regular basis and selling them to foreigners for significant amounts of money.

A newspaper alleged that wealthy Thai buyers bought a branch with the cooperation of senior members of the temple's management committee.

[62] On 4 November 2013, the National Investigation Agency announced that the Islamic terrorist group Indian Mujahideen was responsible for the bombings.