Talk:Lumbini
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[edit] Confusion
There is some confusion as to whether Lumbini is in Nepal or in India. Let me make things pretty clear; some people in India are falsely claiming their rights on the birthplace of the Buddha by trying to re-make Lumbini in India!
This is the same group that is also trying to spread worldwide rumors that Nepal is NOT the birthplace of the holy man as was origially seen !!
All such ideas are totally rubbbish... it is again a case of a bigger and a stronger country trying to impose its powers on a smaller and a naiive one..
I wouldn't worry about it. Historical records and chronicles are the best evidence available that prove Lumbini has always been in Nepal, and that Gautama's mother, Mahamaya, was indeed in Lumbini at the time of the birth. Many accounts show that the Shakya clan lived in Nepal, not India, and that the palace of Suddhodana, Gautama's father, was somewhere "in the foothills of the Himalaya". If this is true then there are very few places in India where Gautama could have spent his early life, as the southern foothills of the Himalaya (of the region) rest mostly in Nepal and not in India. It is possible though that Suddhodana relocated his family at some point later. --Bentonia School 16:22, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] A Correction
The article says that Gautama was the founder of Buddhism, but this is not true. Buddha and the philosophy of an earlier Buddhism existed when Gautama was born in 586 BCE. In fact, it is told, that the mystic Kala Devala, upon seeing the baby Gautama a few days after the birth, reacted first with a smile, then with tears, then by bowing and touching the baby Gautama's feet. When asked by Gautama's father, Suddhodana, why he reacted so, Kala Devala said: "I smiled when I saw him because I have been privileged to see a being who will know Buddhahood. Then I wept, because as I know my own future I know that I shall not live to meet him then. Then I bowed to touch the feet of the greatest being in the whole world." Gautama became a revolutionary in that he redefined Buddhism, but he did not found it. --Bentonia School 16:12, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Relevant books
Source http://www.asianstudies.emory.edu/sinhas/kprb0401a.html
Lumbini Chakra: Geometric Interpretation of the Archaelogical Remains (1998, Sashi Rimal) by Shankar Nath Rimal was written in response to a request by the Lumbini Development Trust regarding how the Mayadevi temple complex could be reconstructed and developed. Through various diagram-generating exercises, Rimal tries to prove that Lumbini did not grow on its own without formal planning, and shows how the remains that have been located at the birth-site of Gautam Buddha are related to each other in a geometric pattern. He suspects that "the planning process could have been initiated by the Emperor Ashoka." We should expect expert commentary on Rimal's attempt from archaelogists who have studied the site.
