You see, India and Nepal hold the ruins of four of the most sacred Buddhist locations on Earth. These sacred locations are where the Buddha was born, where the Buddha found enlightenment, where the Buddha preached his first sermon and where he died.
The Buddha was born in a place that is today called Lumbini, although several variations of the name can be found. Ancient Buddhist monks began the tradition of making a pilgrimage there.
Lumbini Grove was a pleasure garden that was reserved for the peoples of the Koliya and Sakya clans. The Buddha was a prince in the Sakya community before he left the royal palace at the age of 29 to discover the outside world and find enlightenment.
Legend holds that Lumbini Grove was created through the hand of divine intervention after being seen by a deva but, even if the truth is more mundane, all evidence strongly attests to the Buddha being born there.
The area was located between two important towns. Some scholars strongly suspect that the area bustled with commerce. However, this all would be destroyed by an invasion in the 12th century, so it is difficult to precisely know.
King Asoka (who brought Buddhism to ancient Siam after the Buddha passed away) eventually marked the area with one of his famous pillars. Today, Lumbini is a World Heritage Site, readily recognised by many Buddhists and home to the Buddha’s exact birthplace.
The Buddha attained enlightenment at a place that is today known as Budhgaya (aka Bodh Gaya). Its original name roughly translates to “the land beneath the Bodhi tree”, and it bears this name because the Buddha found enlightenment under this Bodhi tree.
Some records suggest that the area lacked a formal temple until long after the Buddha died. By the 12th century, a travelling Tibetan Buddhist monk noted that only four Buddhist monks were left to tend to the area due to a foreign army. Burmese soldiers eventually attempted to intervene, but the area ultimately fell into the hands of other religions until a small group of Buddhist monks returned in 1891 and undertook breathtaking repairs that nearly defy logic.
The small group of monks wanted to install a Buddhist image donated from Japan. In 1906, they entered into a protracted legal contest with non-Buddhists which would last nearly 45 years. In the end, devoted believers would leave the Mahabodhi Temple [Great Awakening Temple] as an opulent and enduring landmark.
The Bodhi tree in the rear of the temple is sometimes called “the navel of the Earth”. Over the centuries, this tree has actually been felled numerous times. Yet kind-hearted people kept nursing it back to life.
Today, Thailand, Burma (now Myanmar) and nearly a dozen other countries have established temples in the area, but the Mahabodhi Temple is one of very few brick structures to have withstood the passage of so much time in India.
The Buddha gave his first sermon in a deer park which we call Sarnath. It is important not only because of the Buddha’s first sermon but also because Sarnath is the birthplace of the Buddhist monkhood.
Today, Sarnath is a beautiful, well-tended area that has many gardens and relics. Sarnath hosted the Buddha on many occasions, and awe-inspiring structures were hoisted by a host of kings as the centuries went along. In 520 AD, the Huns passed through and did considerable destruction to the area. Fortunately, several Buddhist kings and queens mended the area afterward.
However, the area was eventually deserted after a different religion swept the area in the 13th century. Some 600 years later, many buildings were plundered for their stones, and many precious relics were thrown into the Ganges River. Counter-intuitively, it was British nationals who initiated a recovery act which would restore the area for all of us to enjoy today.
Finally, the Buddha died at a place which is today known as Kusinara. Whilst the records are somewhat ambiguous, it would be fair to say that Kusinara was just a little city carved out of the jungle-side. The huts and houses were quite mundane and inauspicious.
The Buddha personally made his last conversion here to a disciple named Subhadda while he was dying. A number of enduring Buddhist texts were recorded in Kusinara before the Buddha died. After the Buddha passed, legend holds that mandarava flowers fell from the Heavens until the entire town was knee-deep in them.
Kusinara became an ancient mecca for Buddhists but was not able to cope very well with its new world status. By the 8th century, Chinese Buddhist monks found the entire area had fallen into ruin but recorded elaborate records in fine detail. Like the other three sacred sites that we’ve discussed, Kusinara was completely deserted during the 12th century.
Kusinara then laid relatively undisturbed until the British colonial authorities started to identify the significance of the site in the 1850s-1890s. The British colonial authorities did some good excavating, and Buddhist monks moved in again in the very early 20th century. In 1994, Thailand built Wat Thai in Kusinara. It is widely regarded to be one of Thailand’s more memorable temples abroad.
Lumbini Grove, Budhgaya, Sarnath and Kusinara are very sacred sites in the Buddhist world. Buddhist pilgrimages there evoke ghosts of another time, so to speak. These memories of the dawn of Buddhism have spurred millions of Buddhists to travel vast distances and endure great hardships.
The Buddhist practitioners of today arguably are driven by wonderful memories of Buddhism’s dawn.
How wonderful it can sometimes be to feel haunted.
Editor’s Note: For further reading, consult the Jatakas, the Dhammapada Commentary, the writings of Buddhaghosa, the journals of Fa Hien or read P.A. Wonglakorn's excellent book entitled ‘Dhammayatra’, C. 2010.
All About Buddhism is a monthly column in The Phuket News where I take readers on my exotic journey into Thai Buddhism and debunk a number of myths about Buddhism. If you have any specific queries, or ideas for articles, please let us know. Email editor1@classactmedia.co.th, and I will do my best to accommodate your interests.