Gaya essay

Gaya has since remained a site of key importance for the performance of the pind-daan ritual. Gaya is considered to be one of the most ideal places to perform the Śrāddha. (A shraddh is the Hindu ritual that one performs to pay homage to one's 'ancestors', especially to one's dead parents).

The fame of ancient Gaya derived from the account in the Ramayana of the god Rama coming here to the banks of Phalgu River (called the Niranjana), accompanied by his wife and younger brother, to offer pind-daan for their father Dasharatha, for the moksha of his soul. In the Mahabharata, Gaya is referred to as Gayapuri.

Gaya has a large number of household industries, producing incense sticks (atagarbatti), local sweets tilkut (made with sesame seed) and lai (made with poppy seed), stone-work, hand weaving, power-loom weaving, textiles and garments, small-scale manufactured goods, and plastic products.

Gaya, along with other parts of the country, gained its independence in 1947. As attested by Francis Buchanan-Hamilton in the early nineteenth century, the city was divided into two areas: a sacred area in the southern part of the city, called Gaya; and the larger secular area, which may have been known by the Muslim community as Allahabad.