Sangharakshita Pilgrimage
Map showing location of Ananda Vihara, Maha Bodhi Society, Bombay

Ananda Vihara, Maha Bodhi Society, Bombay

Bombay, India · 1955–1956

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19.00820°N, 72.83700°E

Key Facts

  • Built in the 1920s by Dr Anandrao Nair, a wealthy South Indian physician who had become a Buddhist and founded the Buddha Society Bombay.
  • Located on a busy thoroughfare in the Nair Hospital compound, not far from Bombay Central railway station.
  • Sangharakshita described it as distinctly under-used: barely half a dozen visitors per week despite the adjacent hospital seeing hundreds daily.
  • He gave lectures here on 'Buddhism and the Future of India' and 'Buddhist Meditation'.
  • Served as the base from which he made contact with Dr Ambedkar's followers and with the Society of Servants of God.

“The modest, two-storey building was situated on a busy thoroughfare in the heart of the city, not far from Bombay Central railway station, and stood in a corner of the Nair Hospital compound.”

In the Sign of the Golden Wheel

“The Ananda Vihara was in fact distinctly under-used. Vaiśākha Pūrṇimā was celebrated every year, and there was the occasional lecture, and that was about all.”

In the Sign of the Golden Wheel

Source: In the Sign of the Golden Wheel

Other sites in Bombay

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