The soft thunder of Lumbini

We are in Sonauli, on the Indo-Nepalese border. Thunder rumbles softly over the hills but though the electricity flickered off about an hour ago, we can see light shimmering on the Nepalese side. “There is always light on the other side,” chuckled our little gnome of a bearer when he brought dinner to our room. And then he asked: “You know about Lumbini?”

We did, and that is why we were in Sonauli. In the Seventh Century B.C., there was a little republic, nor far from here. It was ruled by Suddhodana, a descendant of the Scythians from Central Asia; they were known as the Sakyas. In 633 B.C.., Sudhodana queen, Mahamaya, travelled in state from her capital, Kapilavastu to visit her parents home. On the way, however, she gave birth to a son in her tent between two towering Sal trees. The name of the place was Lumbini and her son would become Gautama Buddha.

The Burmese pagoda.......awesomely magnetic, Lumbini.

“May be it will rain soon.” Said the little gnome, “but worry not, you will find Lumbini very beautiful, rain or not...”

It is raining now and we have just finished reading through our research on Buddhism. The rain has driven away the mosquitoes and made it restfully cool in the Terai. Tomorrow should be a pleasant day.

The rain scrubbed the skies, the trees and the roads leading to Lumbini. And yes, it was a most illuminating day.

After crossing the border check-post, where Nepalese policemen wore blue uniforms, the road was a causeway for much of its length, arrowing between fields, villages and mango orchards, crossing five small rivers. The last stretch of the road, which diverted into Lumbini, was a little bumpy and uneven: the soft soil of the Terai make road-building an uncertain proposition.

But when we entered the fenced area set aside for Lumbini, a sense of order became apparent. Of the three square miles...they still calculate in miles... one square mile is the tourist area of restaurants, hotels and other visitor facilities called the New Lumbini Village; another square mile is for monasteries and temples; the third is for sacred forests. Clearly, the original forests became victims of population pressure but the human settlements have been moved away and there has been massive afforestation. We left our car at the gate and joined little groups of visitors from Nepal, Sri Lanka, Sikkim, West Bengal and a few from neighbouring Uttar Pradesh. And scattered among them were Buddhist monks and nuns in plum, strawberry and ochre, like a confetti of bright petals.

We were, now, in the most sacred area of Lumbini: the places closely associated with the birth of Lord Buddha. Here, at the entrance, was the small, hut-like, temple dedicated to “Maya Devi”, the Lord’s mother with a beautiful bas-relief showing the birth of Prince Gautama. Significantly, a note by Nepal’s Department of Tourism said: “Earlier, the image was placed in the famous white temple of Mayadevi, beside the pillar - now totally dismantled to make way for the excavations - which revealed the sanctum sanctorum, the exact spot where the Lord was born”.

Clearly, the Government of Nepal did not rely on faith or legends but on scientific evidence, even if it meant demolishing a temple to unearth such proof.

We walked out of the relocated Maya Devi temple, down a path of hexagonal cement tiles winding between the foundations of old monasteries, to an area covered by a great, red, marquee or shamiana. It housed piles of bricks and a mound covered in a cloth of gold sheet. It had been fenced in and archaeological and restoration work was in progress. Outside the fence was a paved forecourt identified as the “Prayer Area”. Devotees prostrated themselves and chanted softly, sonorously. The atmosphere of reverence was as compelling as clouds of rising incense.

We walked behind the Shamiana. A knot of Burmese women in yellow, orange and flame saris stopped their chattering as we approached and regarded us with bright, inquisitive eyes.

A stone pillar, erected by Emperor Ashoka in the 20th year of his reign, stood behind the Shamiana. In 1886, German archaeologist Dr. Alois A. Fuhrer had located the once-forgotten site of Lumbini largely because of this monolith with its Brahmi inscriptions. Behind it, a Gul Mohur flared resplendently and held one end of a string of prayer flags snapping in the breeze. The flags stretched across an ancient tank beyond which was the only large tree we saw in the sacred area of Lumbini. The tank, with brick steps descending to the emerald-green water, is revered as the sacred Pushkarni pool where, it is believed, Maya Devi bathed before giving birth to her son and in which she had cleansed her new-born child.

We paused for a long while beside this tree, absorbing the atmosphere of undemanding piety that permeated this place. Here, according to a growing number of people all over the world, history’s pivotal event had occurred. The aura of that great birth reached across 26 centuries and made Lumbini flower with faith and monasteries, each expressing its own, national, ethos of Buddhist architecture. The guards at the gate permitted us to drive through the monastic area past an eternal flame set at one end of a reflecting pool. Some of the monasteries and temples are still being built but the Burmese Pagoda was a shimmering miniature of Yangon’s great Shwe Dagon and the Chinese temple, with its high wall and yellow, ceramic, tiles looked as awesomely magnetic as the Forbidden City in Beijing.

Back near the entrance we visited the Nepalese temple with its black, carved-wood windows like the old shrines of Patan. Close to it is the Tibetan temple set in a beautiful Japanese garden. On its right was a hall with a constellation of hundreds of butter-lamps as if the Milky Way had been ensnared and brought to earth. The serene image of the Buddha in the temple was halved with lights.

We stood, rapt with serenity, till a group of European visitors entered. They were led by a shaven-headed American woman in the strawberry robes of a Buddhist nun. She had, obviously, been explaining something to her flock.

“But why,” asked another woman in a slow, southern, drawl, “must something so awesome as a thunderbolt represent such a non-violent faith”? She held a double-headed brass Vajra which she had, possibly, bought from vendors outside the gate. The four prongs at each end curved in to enclose the central prong replicating the shape of lotus buds.

The guide in the strawberry robes smiled and shook her head slowly. “In Buddhist inconograpy, the Vajra represents the illumination that strikes the mind when it is, suddenly, flooded by Truth. It is an instant brightness that tingles your whole being and lasts and lasts and lasts...”

It was a brilliant explanation for a phenomenon that even mystics have seldom been able to describe.

But her questioner was still skeptical.

“A soft thunderbolt...?”

The guide nodded. “Exactly. It is a bolt of soft thunder ...”

And now, as we complete these notes in our room, soft thunder continues to rumble out of Lumbini.

Combination of snow, sand and sea for joint tourism promotion

By A Staff Reporter

Chief Minister of the Indian State of Goa, Francisco Sardinha called on Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, April 26, in the morning and discussed the possibilities of cooperation in the tourism sector between Nepal and Goa. Sardinha was in Kathmandu to participate in the Goa Zatras Festival, which started on April 22 - 28.

 At special function organised at the Soaltee Crowne Plaza Hotel in Kathmadu April 25, Foreign Minister  Chakra  Prasad Bastola in his address, said that organisation of festivals like the Goa Zatras was a novel idea for promotion of bilateral cooperation in the field of tourism and culture. The visiting Chief Minister of Goa said that the combination of the snow in Nepal and sea and sand in the Goa can be utilised for promotion of tourism in the region.

For the Festival, master chefs from Goa had been specially flown in to create the culinary magic. The dignitaries were treated with some of the famous and authentic dishes of the Goan cuisine, including Sorpotel and Pork Vindaloo. The ambience was further enhanced by the exotic dances performed by the Goan cultural troupe, included the traditional dances, such as Dekhi, Ghode Morni and Kunbi Kher.

Travel agents, tourists face difficulties

By A Staff Reporter

A delegation of Nepal Association of Travel Agents (NATA) met foreign minister Chakra Prasad Bastola at his office last week and apprised him of the problems faced by Nepalese travel agents that have emerged due to the compulsory provision of paying visa fee in terms of US dollars for both, foreigners as well as locals started by the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu.

Similarly, the consular section of the embassy opens only three days a week for an hour a day. As such, most of the tourists groups fail to obtain the visa in time and are bound to cancel their confirmed flights. NATA delegation also complained to the foreign minister about the problems faced by Nepalese travel agents and people in general in obtaining visa for Hong Kong. The delegation urged the  minister to look into these problems and provide solutions by bringing up these issues, if necessary, at the bilateral or diplomatic level.

The NATA delegation led by President Bhola Bikram Thapa, comprised of VP Narendra Dev Bhatta, Secy. General Shashi Ram Bhandari, Treasurer Ram Kaji Koney, NATA-HMG Liaison Committee Advisor Bishnu Prasai and CEO Hari Sarmah.