Forgotten monuments: Why do Indians skip Bodh Gaya, Nalanda?

An irony of Indian history is that much of its finest heritage lay buried and forgotten for centuries and was rediscovered not by Indians but by British colonial archaeologists. The story of the Mahabodhi Temple at

Bodh Gaya

and the great Buddhist university of Nalanda — both pit stops on an election tour — shows how a country once at the forefront of global learning allowed great monuments to sink beneath mud and memory.
The Mahabodhi Temple marks the spot where Buddha attained enlightenment under a Bodhi (peepul) tree. Emperor Ashoka built a stupa there. Later, Gupta and Pala Buddhist kings built over the stupa to create the 180-foot-tall Mahabodhi temple. But Hindu-Buddhist clashes proliferated. The Sunga dynasty kings destroyed many Buddhist sites. The sacred Bodhi tree was cut down more than once, notably by Hindu King Shashanka of Bengal, who smashed adjacent Buddhist monasteries.