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| Saturday, 17 May 2003 |
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KATHMANDU, Friday (AFP) Nepal's King Gyanendra inaugurated a temple at the Buddha's reputed birth site in the southern town of Lumbini where he was born 2,547 years ago Friday. More than 100,000 faithful crowded around the steel-framed temple, built at a cost of more than eight million dollars, which was subsequently opened to the public, local officials said. The Maya Devi temple, named after the Buddha's mother, has enough space for 1,000 worshipers at a time. The complex includes the stone marking where the Buddha set his first step, which is now covered by bullet-proof glass. The stone was discovered by archeologists in the 1990s as they excavated the site after the original Maya Devi temple, built in 1939, had fallen into disrepair. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims head each year to Lumbini, 400 kilometres (250 miles) southwest of Nepal's capital Kathmandu, where several thousand also turned out Friday for celebrations at a Buddha relic. The Buddha is revered around Nepal, even though the kingdom is overwhelmingly Hindu. Nepal's majority religion considers the Budddha to be the ninth incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, protector of the universe. The Buddha's birthday is a public holiday, during which the slaughter of animals is banned across Nepal in respect to his belief in non-violence. Maya Devi gave birth to Siddhartha Gautam, who would later achieve enlightenment and become the Buddha, as she was travelling from Tilaurakot, the capital of her husband King Suddhodhan, to her maternal home at Koliyagram, now known as Deodaha, in far southwestern Nepal. A pillar marking Lumbini as Buddha's birthplace was erected in the mid-3rd century BC by Mauryan Emperor Ashoka. |
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