Nepal Buddhist Pilgrimage Tour

Bouddhanath Stupa

Bouddhanath Stupa is the largest stupa in Nepal. It is also the center of Tibetan culture in Kathmandu and rich in Buddhist symbolism and sacred importance. The stupa is located in the town of Bouddha on the north-east outskirts of Kathmandu. Bouddhanath was  built in the 14th century after the Mugal invasions; various interesting legends are told regarding the reasons for its construction. After the arrival of thousands of Tibetans following the 1959 Chinese invasion, the stupa  has become one of the most important centers of Tibetan Buddhist. Today it remains an important place of pilgrimage and meditation for Tibetan Buddhists and local Nepalese, as well as a popular tourist site. 

Swoyambhunath Stupa

 

The Buddhist temple of Swoyambhunath, situated on the top of a hill west of the city, is one of the most popular and instantly recognizable symbols of Nepal. Geologists believe that the Kathmandu Valley was once a lake and legends relate that the hill on which Swoyambhunath stands was an island in that lake. Under the Mallas, various improvements were made and the great stairway to the stupa was constructed by King Pratap Malla in the 17th century. From the flattened top of the hill, the soaring central stupa is topped by a gold-colored square block from which the watchful eyes of the Buddha gaze out across the valley in each direction. From the platform of the spot the splendid changing view of the valley could be seen with the monkeys running here and there.  The Stupa is atop a hill, and requires considerable walk. There is also a road that leads almost to the base of the statue.

 

Namo Buddha Stupa

One of the unsurpassable supreme sacred sites known as the Three Stupas in Nepal is Tagmo Lüjin (lit. "the place where the future Buddha sacrificed his body to a tigress"). It is the very sacred place where our teacher, the perfect and supreme Buddha-at that time still on the path of learning-offered his own body without regret to a tigress suffering from great hunger. What follows is a history of this supreme and distinguished sacred site, whose location is unmistaken based on the clear identification given in the Sutra Requested by the Tigress and so forth.

 

Kapan Monastery

 

Just north of the ancient Buddhist town of Bouddhanath is the Kapan hill (pictured left), rising up out of the terraced fields of the Kathmandu valley and visible for miles. Dominated by a magnificent Bodhi tree, it was once the home of the astrologer to the king of Nepal. It was to this hill that these lamas first came with their first Western students in 1969.

Kapan Monastery had its beginnings in the Solukhumbu region of the Himalayan mountains. In 1971 Lama Zopa Rinpoche, the reincarnation of the Lawudo Lama, a yogi of the tiny hamlet of Lawudo, fulfilled the promise of the previous Lawudo Lama to start a monastic school for the local children. The school was called it Mount Everest Center. Twenty five monks moved down from the mountain to Kapan in 1971 - prompted by the harsh climate at an altitude of 4000 m, which made study barely possible in winter.

Now Kapan is a thriving monastery of several monks, mainly from Nepal and Tibet, and a spiritual oasis for hundreds of visitors yearly from around the world. Nearby is Khachoe Ghakyil Ling Nunnery, home to  nuns. Both the monastery and the nunnery are under the spiritual guidance of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and the care of the abbot, Khen Rinpoche Geshe Lhundrup Rigsel. And it is the wellspring of the FPMT, a network of some 140 centers and activities world-wide, themselves expressions of the Buddha activity of Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

 

Lumbini

 

Lumbini, is situated at the foothills of the Himalayas in modern Nepal. In the Buddha's time, Lumbini was a beautiful garden full of green and shady Sal trees (Shorea). The garden and its tranquil environs were owned by both the Asoka pillarkyas and Kolias clans. King Suddhodan, father of Gautama Buddha was of the Shakya dynasty belonging to the Kshatriya or the warrior caste. Maya Devi, his mother, gave birth to the child on her way to her parent's home in Devadaha while taking rest in Lumbini under a sal tree in the month of May in the year 642 B.C. The beauty of Lumbini is described in Pali and Sanskrit literature. Maya Devi it is said was spellbound to see the natural grandeur of Lumbini. While she was standing, she felt labor pains and catching hold of a drooping branch of a Sal tree, the baby, the future Buddha, was born.

The bas relief above depicts Maya Devi with her right hand holding on to a branch of a sal tree with a newborn child standing upright on a lotus petal, shedding an oval halo, around his head, while two celestial figures pour water and lotuses from vessels of heaven as indicated by the delineation of clouds. This nativity scene was installed by Malla Kings of the Naga dynasty from about the 11th to 15th Century in the Karnali zone of Nepal.

In 249 BC, when the Emperor Ashoka visited Lumbini it was a flourishing village. Ashoka constructed four stupas and a stone pillar with a figure of a horse on top. The stone pillar bears an inscription which, in English translation, runs as follows: "Beloved of Devas; King Piyadasi (Ashoka), in the 20 year of the coronation, himself made a royal visit, Buddha Sakyamuni having been born here, a stone railing was built and a stone pillar erected to the Bhagavan having been born here, Lumbini village was taxed reduced and entitled to the eight part (only)".