The Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya represented to the British, in the nineteenth century, a conveniently ruined Indian past which could be protected, recovered and restored as both a duty and a validation of legitimacy. However, for the temple's Hindu proprietors, the shrine—aside from being a valuable estate in purely financial terms—functioned as a symbol of the triumph of ‘orthodox’ Hinduism over ‘heterodox’ Buddhism. Finally, for the Burmese Buddhists who undertook their own ‘restoration’ mission in 1874, the Mahabodhi Temple marked the site where, according to Buddhist tradition, Gautama Buddha first achieved enlightenment and thereby began the career of the religion that bears his name.