travelling lumbini essay
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Answer: Last year I tried to blog my travel story of Lumbini with an introductory teaser post- Essence of Lumbini. Somehow, I failed to respect the travel-blogging protocol and bring in the actual travel tale in due time. Well, better late than never, today yours truly shall wrap up the unfinished narration of his trip to Lumbini which dates back to January 2013. Just asking, did you check out my motorcycling travelogue of Bodh Gaya? One thing I must confess, with visit to each Buddhist pilgrimage site my urge to cover the entire Buddhist Circuit is increasing exponentially. The neat ambiance around majority of holy Buddhist sites is really therapeutic to any traveler's tired mind. A cordial thank to my Sri Lankan colleagues won’t be simply enough for the initiation and fuel they had provided me for this Trip to Lumbini!
A Trip to Lumbini - the holy birth place of Lord Buddha
There was no public holiday this time; so at most two days were all I could spend but that doesn’t make this trip any trivial affair… after all it was a visit to the birth place of Lord Buddha, who blows off the mystery of the legendary mist of existence, who shows the trail to liberation and who is the icon of peace and compassion! On a winter Friday we boarded the bus for Butwal before the crack of the dawn and like most of the rickety bus you usually find in non-tourist-spots of Nepal our one took its own sweet time of seven hours to drop us in Butwal. I don’t think my struggle for leg-space in the bus throughout the journey holds any relevance here but I tell you it’s not a situation one can ignore. My Buddhist co-travelers were concerned that they won’t be able to reach Lumbini in proper time and pay a visit to the main temple if public transport is availed and we hired a taxi (though later we found out to be a futile decision) from Butwal Bus Park itself for Lumbini. It took exactly one hour to reach Lumbini, crossing Bhairahawa in the middle of the route.
A Trip to Lumbini - the holy birth place of Lord Buddha
As pre-decided we met, a monk of Rajakiya Buddha Vihar who was acquainted with one of our Buddhist friends. He directed us to a hotel Lumbini Village Lodge, quite near to gate no. 5. Though he had told us to get ready in an hour but our tiredness, hunger coupled with an untimely drizzle brought us back to the road only fifteen minutes before five. We almost ran to Maya Devi Temple which is the heart of all the monuments of this holy site of Lumbini. The temple area bears the evidence of several phases of construction over the centuries. Inside the temple there are remains of structures of early Maya Devi Temple that dates back to the 3rdcentury BC to 7th century AD! Inside the temple there’s the Marker Stone located deeply buried in the sanctum sanctorum indicates the exact spot of auspicious birth of Lord Buddha. Outside of the temple there’s the Pushkarini, which is believed to be the most sacred pond of Shakyas in which Maya Devi took her bathe before giving birth to the Prince, Siddhartha.
A Trip to Lumbini - the holy birth place of Lord Buddha
On another side of Maya Devi Temple there stands the Ashokan Pillar with the inscription engraved by Ashoka validating the authenticity of this birth place. We can also see the brick masonry foundations, known as the Group of Stupas and Vihars built in the period of Mauryan Gupta and Kushana which are evidence of the early devotee desire to be near the sacred birth place. Drizzle was still on and even the umbrella was not enough to protect my camera while clicking some quick snaps. The light dimmed faster than our anticipation and we had call it a day. We paid our visit to the monk and listened to his ‘Prabachan’ for an hour. Among various encouraging and appreciable topics, the concept of ‘inclusion’ (i.e. no place for caste in religion) in Buddhism impressed me. We bid him goodnight. Nothing much we could do after that than Obama-Manmohan-Global-warming chitchats in the candle lit hotel environment. The dinner we got packed from an outside restaurant was awful, so I better skip the food talk.
Hope it helps uh cheerio