25th May 1997

Pilgrimage to Lumbini

 'Queen Maya stood at noon her days fulfilled,
Under a Palsa in the palace grounds
A stately trunk, straight as a temple shaft,
With crown of glossy leaves  and fragrant blooms;
And knowing the time had come - for all things knew-
The conscious tree bent down its boughs to make
A bower above Queen Maya's majesty........
..........So brought forth her child
Pangless - he having on his perfect form
The marks - thirty two of blessed birth.
 

--- Light of Asia, by Sir Edwin Arnold

We should have come from Kusinara to Gorakpur the previous evening and stayed at the station or in a hotel and taken the early morning train to Nowgarh; then a bus to Sonoli on the Indo-Nepali border. From thence, we could have crossed over to Bahirwa in Nepal and reached Lumbini in the course of the morning. Which is what pilgrims should do.

With the buses waking up late at Kusinara, it was mid-morning when we reached Gorakpur and late afternoon when we reached Sonoli by bus. The journey was tortuous. The bus was old and uncomfortable and it bumped and shuddered all the way. On these rutty dirt roads, clouds of red dust came at you. We had to keep our noses covered with handkerchiefs. What there were of trees in this dry arid land area and the widely spaced out dwellings were covered with a fine film of red dust.

Suddenly, all of them shouted, 'Lumbini, Lumbini.' It was getting dark and we were dropped in the middle of nowhere, in a deserted place with a few ragged huts. There was not a light in sight and it was the only occasion when we felt some fear. I had been warned by a friend that we should get to Lumbini in'the morning, and this I forgot.

But the two policemen jumped off the bus and said they would show us the way. Going up that road was not a very agreeable prospect because it turned out to be scrub jungle on both sides. We trudged escorted by the two policemen and soon stumbled into the Sri Lankan temple. We saw a bhikku seated on a low seat talking to some people sitting on a mat by lamplight. The lights had failed.

The Ven. Wimalananda thero, a Nepali monk, had been at Vajirarama for 20 years and welcomed us as if he was expecting us. He spoke perfect Sinhala. We were very hungry, because since we set out from Gorakpur we had eaten only red dust and 'samosas.' Here again the Buddhist monk, guardian and provider for pilgrims got a meal cooked for us. It was rice and one vegetable but with the assortment of pickles left by pilgrims, it was a gorgeous meal.

There is a huge pilgrims' rest, but it was empty and the two of us could not possibly spend the night there alone. So the good bhikku gave us his office room to sleep in. It was stacked high with warm quilts and a jumble of other things. It was bitterly cold and we piled several quilts one on top of the other and made a warm bed for ourselves.

The monk took us around in the morning. In the Buddha's time, Lumbini had been a beautiful wooded grove of sal and other trees. Now the sal trees are found, it is said, at the foothills of the Himalayas. The place is deserted, sickly looking, isolated and unexpectedly disappointing. The mounds and ruins left me cold and I wanted to get away. But it is still a place one should see at least once, since the Buddha was born here, in this spot between Kapilavastu, the royal seat of King Suddhodhana and Devadaha.

At this time of the year there was not even grass, no trees or even a bird, only brownish red earth and dust. But among these desultory ruins is the famed Asokan pillar, erected after he came to Lumbini in 249 BC.

There is a stone relief depicting the birth of the Buddha, with Mahamaya Devi holding the branch of a sal tree, and attended by a couple of other persons.

Lumbini has been identified as Rummindei in Nepal, the site of the grove of Sal trees where the Buddha was born. Lumbini was then a part of the kingdom of Kapilavastu over which King Suddodhana ruled and it was the royal seat of the Sakya clan.

Lumbini was sited between Kapilavastu and Devadaha, home of Queen Maha Maya and she was on her way home for the birth of her child.

Hiuen Tsian; visited Lumbini in 636 AD and he says that he saw the tank in which Queen Maha Maya bathed, stupas and the Asokan pillar.

Lumbini together with other sacred Buddhist sites suffered at the hands of the Moghul invaders. It was in British times that the Brahami script of Asokan times was deciphered and the valuable ruins unearthed.

Early next morning we took a bus to Sonoli. At the bus stand when we showed that we were worried about our ability to stop these vans rushing to the border, two Nepali peasants with their baskets of vegetables helped us. They stopped the van, put our things in, helped us in and followed themselves. The van had six inch seats that cut into our bums and made it very uncomfortable.

They packed the van with people and included a woman ,who insisted on sitting on the floorboards, suckling her baby. She was wise in fact, preferring the roomy floorboards to poising herself on a strip of wood. There were baskets of cauliflower on the roof rack, bundles of clothes and bags of paddy inside. At certain points officials stopped the van and dug spikes into the bags of grain looking for contraband.

We reached Balrampur at 11 p.m. Here I take back all the unkind things I have said about Indian officialdom. We found two railway officials with a human face and they were incredibly humanitarian. As we got off the train I ran to the 'chaya' (tea) seller who was packing up his business for the night and asked for boiling water. He relit his burner and gave me a flask of water in exchange for one rupee.

In the morning, I told the cycle rickshaw rider to take us to a pharmacy because I was 'bimar' (sick) and wanted to buy 'dawa' (medicine - a cough mixture), and he did. There are no opening and closing hours apparently, and the pharmacy was open very early. Drugs are cheap, cheap, but you cannot stock up drugs like textiles, unfortunately.

A second World War jeep tied with string and dropping pieces took us to Sravasti. The Ven. Somaratne thero, one of the two Sri Lankan bhikkus at the Lankarama was another unusually kind Buddhist monk who saw to it that we were looked after well. Unlike most other people he was impressed that we had made this arduous journey to worship at the sacred Buddhist places. We were home.

A dog came straight to my bed and put its head on my body as if I was its oldest pal. It waited till I patted its head and rubbed it under the neck and spoke in Sinhala. It looked intelligently at me and told me that it understood. Perhaps it was a friend from another birth or just a dog which recognizes people who would appreciate it.

The other incident was most touching, and it bears out what I have said before about the kindness and concern of Buddhist monks in these places of worship. Just as in Kusinara, public transport are late risers, if at all. We had to get to the Balrumpur station, 32 km away before 9.30 a.m. to catch the train. There was no public transport and hardly a private car for hire. But Ven. Somarathane arranged a horse and cart to come very early and take us to the station.

The cart had already come and we were in an almighty hurry. It was going to be a slow jog to Balrumpur. We went round worshipping the monks. When I went towards the kitchen two young boys who usually did the cooking, two Indian monks and two very young samanera were huddled round the fire making chappatis for us to take on the train.

They insisted that we wait till they packed them for us. I was moved beyond measure at such kindness, and it was hard to believe that the monks were cooking for us.

Wait, they said, and take these chappatis, they are for you. We took the chappatis and the Ven. Somarathane's biscuits and ran to the cart. That too was a memorable journey.

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