It's called Vishnu Paada, as it has Vishnu's footprint imprinted, incised into a block of basalt rock which is the sanctum sanctorium of this temple.
It's the story of how Gaya got its name. The demon Gayasura who lived there, through severe meditation, acquired divine powers such that anyone who saw or touched him went straight to heaven. This intruded on the power of Yamaraja, the lord of death, who appealed to Vishnu. So Lord Vishnu killed the demon by putting his foot on his head, (which is the imprint) after granting him the boon that the area surrounding the ground covered by his body would become the holiest place on earth, and be known as Gaya Kshetra.
The temple is well known for being a pinda daana vedi ( a site for making offerings to ones ancestors). There are fifty-five places in India to perform pinda daan and of these, Gaya is the most important, as mentioned in the puranas.
There's also a story of Sita making the pinda daana for Dhritharashtra; Rama gets suspicious about where she's been, and she looks to the river for evidence, but the river doesn't co-operate. Sita curses the river saying it will flow but never be seen. So Phalgun river always flows underground, just below the surface where it can be scooped out even by hand any time of the year. And it's only in the monsoons that it flows a few inches to feet above the surface, like it was now.
There is a story from the Ramayana at every town we go to in Bihar, what with a lot of the vanavas time of Rama,Laksmana and Seeta having been spent in the forests of Bihar.
Actually standing in the middle of the river Phalgun. While I didn't want to, Bholanath insisted I walk right in due to the punyakshethra thing :)
Temple view from the river, though you can't see the Gopurams.
An overall interesting experience.
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