LUMBINI

Buddhist statue on the side of the road near Lumbini

The many armed and many headed Buddha at a store front just outside the park at Lumbini.



The votive on top of the Hindu Temple where Buddha was born

The building that is built over the place where Buddha was born.



The exact spot where Siddartha was born, according to Buddhist lore.

Legend has it that Buddha once meditated under this tree when he passed through Lumbini on his way to see his father after his career was established.

Vegaterian Cuisine of Nepal

KAPILVASTU - The ruins of one of two places that is claimed to be the childhood home of Buddha. This place is in India. The other is in Nepal.

A monastery in the background. Ruins of the house in the foreground.



Ruins of a building, alledgedly the childhood home of Siddartha Gautma who became the Buddha.

BALRUMPUR to JETAVANA


Picture in the hotel hall.

The place where Buddha and his disciples spent the rainy seasons. In his day they would have lived in huts made of bamboo and grass. Over the centuries monestaries have been built here and torn down, and then rebuilt again. The well that Buddha used is still here.

A Buddhist statue in Buddha country.

LUCKNOW - What I remember of Lucknow

Ancient Doorway



Built in the style of the Taj Mahal

Symbol of Lucknow

Inside a mosque?

The tour guide said that the guy who started constructing this building had the leaning tower of Pisa in mind as a model, but he died before it was completed.

You don't see many graveyards in India since most of the people there are Hindu and are cremated after they die. The only cemeteries you will see in India are English, like the one below which resides behind an English fortification in the city of Lucknow. Muslims also bury their dead. I saw a few Muslim graves while I traveled through India.

Readerboards and graffitti found around Jaipur

Griffitti

FATEHPUR SIKRI

Reader boards found around the Taj Mahal


Reader boards found around the Taj Mahal

RED FORT in Agra

Here are four reader boards I photographed at the Agra Fort.

Here is a reader board from Akbar's Tomb in Agra, India. He seems to have been a good emporer.

Siddharth lived around the Niranjana River with five ascetics for several years. They were involved in extreme fasting and self mortification. He realized that all this fasting was making him physically weak. When you are physically weak, what good are you? Since he was on a quest for truth he wasn't going to stop with just one teaching. If a certain teaching proved to be false he was going to keep searching for the truth in spiritual matters and try something else.

One day while he out near the river he came upon a girl that was tending some her father's herds. She saw Siddartha. He looked like a skeleton from all his fasting and self mortification he had been involved in. She thought he was a holy man and it has been a custom in India from time immorial to give holy men something to eat. She had some milk and rice with her and she offered it to Siddartha. Siddhartha recieved a revelation. He had lived most of his life in total luxury in his father's house. He ultimately found that this was not the truth. Now he had spent six years in self deprivation. It became clear to him that this wasn't the truth either. He came up with the idea of the middle way. You can live a holy life with out living in the lap of luxury, and you can live a holy life with out depriving yourself from the good things of life. He accepted the milk and rice and broke his fast. As he ate it I imagine that he started to feel his strength come back. It was a good feeling.

His five companions saw him eat the little meal and thought that he was abandoning the ascetic life. They thought he was not serious any more about living the life of a sadu. They left him alone in Badgaya near the Niranjana River and went to a deer park in Sanarth where they were going to continue on with their rituals of self denial.

Siddhartha had come to a crossroad in his life. He wanted to know what the truth was. He crossed the river. It was shallow so it was easy to cross. He found a tree in a wooded area. He decided to sit under this tree and meditate until he found out what the truth was. He had done this before in other places around the Niranjana River, but nothing came of it. This time he was determined not to get up until the universe revealed to him what he should do and what this life was all about. He sat in meditation for 49 days. He would stop once in awhile to beg for food to keep his body going. Then he would go right back to his meditation.


Finally his wish came true after the 49th day. It shook him to the core. The revealations of truth came to him in wave after wave. This went on for a long time. For seven days after this experience he was in total awe of what had happened to him. He stayed in the area and contemplated all that had been revealed to him and continued to meditate. In time he went looking for his old companions and finally found them and convinced them of the new way he had found. After that he became known as the Buddha, the enlightened one.

The story of Buddha is still alive to this very day. It still inspires people even in our day and age. These are two reader boards that I found around Boghgaya. One is in front of a stupa that is believed to be built over the house of the girl who gave Siddhartha Rice and milk. Her name was Sujata. Some people doubt that this stupa is authentic. There is also another place in the Bodhgaya area that claims to be the house of Sujata. To come right down to it. These events took place many, many years ago. No one really knows where many of these historical sites are. There has been a demand by people touring these areas looking for history. The Indian people are not dumb. They are pretty enterprising. They fill the demand and these places popped up, and they bring in lots of money every year, and the tourists are happy that they have seen where certain events had taken place, even if it is not true at all. The 3rd picture is the sign on the school that I visited while I was there

This is my interpretation of what I believed happened to Siddartha 250,000 years ago.

KUSHINAGAR - This is the place where Buddha died. Just before he reached his 80th birthday he renounced his will to live any longer and proceeded on a journey with some of his faithful companions to Kushinagar. On the way he ate a meal of mushrooms and got sick from them. When they got to Kushinagar he first rested and drank some water near a river, then went to a park nearby. In the park he knew death was near so he had his cousin, Ananda make a bed for him between two sal trees where he laid down with his face toward the north. There he died.

I was able to capture three of the reader boards in the area.