in 1891, the Sri Lankan Buddhist leader Anagarika Dharmapala started a campaign to return control of the temple to Buddhists, over the objections of the mahant.
The campaign was partially successful in 1949, when control passed from the Hindu mahant to the state government of Bihar, which established a temple management committee.
The committee has nine members, a majority of whom, including the chairman, must by law be Hindus. Mahabodhi’s first head monk under the