Buddhist India

Pilgrimage to Buddhist India:
The four famous places of Buddhist Pilgrimage are Lumbini, Bodh Gaya, Sarnath and Kushinagar which are associated with the life and Teachings of the Lord Buddha.
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Buddhist Architecture
Bodh Gaya, Vaishali, Nalanda, Sarnath command special veneration of the Buddhists because these were associated with the persona of Lord Buddha. The neighboring States of Bihar are also rich with Monuments depicting the architecture of Buddhist period

Buddhist Festivals and Special days
There are many special festivals celebrated by Buddhists throughout the year. Some of these are associated with the birth, enlightenment and death of Lord Buddha. Buddhist Tours in India

TouristPlacesinIndia offers Buddhist Tour packages including Travel Bookings for tourism to Buddhist pilgrimage centers, travel information and travel plans to Indian Buddhist locations.

Hotels In India For Buddhist Tours

Gautam Buddha - The Originator of Buddhism:
The word 'Buddha' is a title and not a name. It means 'one who is awake' in the sense of having 'woken up to reality'. It was first given to a man who was born as Siddhartha Gautama in Nepal 2,500 years ago. He did not claim to be a God and he has never been regarded as such by Buddhists. He was a human being who became Enlightened, understanding life in the deepest way possible.

Siddharta was born into the royal family of a small kingdom on the Indian-Nepalese border. According to the traditional story he had a cloistered upbringing, but was jolted out of complacency on understanding that life includes the harsh facts of old age, sickness, and death.

He left home to follow the traditional Indian path of the wandering holy man, a seeker after Truth. He practised meditation under various teachers and then took to asceticism. Eventually he practised austerities so severe that he was on the point of death - but true understanding seemed as far away as ever. He decided to abandon this path and to look into his own heart and mind. He sat down beneath the pipal tree and vowed that 'flesh may wither, blood may dry up, but I shall not rise from this spot until Enlightenment has been won.' After forty days, the Buddha finally attained Enlightenment.

During the remaining 45 years of his life he travelled through much of northern India, spreading his teaching of the way to Enlightenment. The teaching is known in the East as the Buddha-dharma - 'the teaching of the Enlightened One'. Travelling from place to place, the Buddha taught numerous disciples, many of whom gained Enlightenment in their own right. They, in turn, taught others and in this way an unbroken chain of teaching has continued, right down to the present day.

The Buddha was not a God and he made no claim to divinity. He was a human being who, through tremendous efforts, transformed himself. Buddhists see him as an ideal and a guide who can lead one to Enlightenment oneself.


Lumbini Buddhist Pilgrimage:
Lumbini was the birthplace of the Buddha and is now located near the Nepal-India border north of Gorakpur.

Immediately before his birth, the bodhisattva was lord of Tushita deva realm. There he had resolved to be reborn for the last time and show the attainment of enlightenment to the world. He had made the five investigations and determined that this southern continent, where men lived for one hundred years, was the most suitable place and, as the royal caste was then most respected and the lineages of King Suddhodana and his Queen Mayadevi were pure, he would be born as their son, a prince of the Shakya dynasty. Placing his crown upon the head of his successor Maitreya, the bodhisattva descended from Tushita to the world of man.

During the night of his conception, Queen Mayadevi, who is to be the mother of all the thousand buddhas of this aeon, dreamt of a great white elephant entering her womb. The earth trembled six times. It is said that in the manner of all bodhisattvas in their final birth, he remained sitting cross-legged for the whole time within the womb. Furthermore, all buddhas are born in a forest grove while their mother remains standing.

At the appointed time Queen Mayadevi was visiting the Lumbini Garden some ten miles from the Shakya city of Kapilavastu. Emerging from a bath with her face to the east, she leant her right arm on a sala tree. The bodhisattva was then born from her right side and immediately took seven steps - from which lotus flowers sprang up - in each of the four directions. To each direction he proclaimed as with a lion's roar: "I am the first, the best of all beings, this is my last birth.'' He looked down to predict the defeat of Mara and the benefiting of beings in the lower realms through the power of his teachings. He then looked up to indicate that all the world would come to respect and appreciate his deeds.

The gods Brahma and Indra then received him and together with the four guardian protectors bathed him. At the same time two nagas, Nanda and Upananda, caused water to cascade over him. Later a well was found to have formed there, from which even in Fa Hien's time monks continued to draw water to drink. The young prince was next wrapped in fine muslin and carried with great rejoicing to the king's palace in Kapilavastu.

Many auspicious signs accompanied the bodhisattva's birth. Also, many beings who would play major parts in his life are said to have been born on the same day: Yasodhara, his future wife; Chandaka, the groom who would later help him leave the palace; Kanthaka, the horse that would bear him; the future kings Bimbisara of Magadha and Prasenajit of Koshala; and his protector Vajrapani. The bodhi tree is also said to have sprouted on the day of Buddha's birth.

When Ashoka visited Lumbini two centuries later, his advisor, the sage Upagata, perceived by clairvoyance and described all these events, pointing out their sites to the emperor. Ashoka made many offerings, built an elaborate stupa and erected a pillar surmounted by a horse capital. When Hsuan Chwang saw it, the pillar had already been destroyed by lightning. Nevertheless, when discovered at the end of the last century the inscription which remained on the present ruin was sufficiently legible to clearly identify the site as Lumbini.

The prince, now named Siddhartha, spent his first twenty-nine years in Kapilavastu. There he performed three more of the twelve principal deeds of a buddha. Surpassing all the Shakya youths and even his teachers in all fields of learning, skill and sport, he showed that he had already mastered all the worldly arts.

One day while still a child he was left unattended beneath a tree as his father performed the ceremonial first ploughing of the season. He sat and engaged in his first meditation, attaining such a degree of absorption that five sages flying overhead were halted in mid-flight by the power of it.

Later he was married to Yasodhara and experienced a life of pleasure in the palace amongst the women of the court. Yet despite King Suddhodana's efforts to protect him from unpleasant sights, one day when riding in his chariot through Kapilavastu he happened to see a man feeble with age, another struck down with sickness, and a corpse. He immediately realised the suffering nature of men's lives. Then he saw a monk of holy countenance, and recognized his path and vocation.

It is said that a buddha renounces the world only after seeing these four signs and when a son has been born to him. Accordingly, seven days before Siddhartha would have been crowned as his father's heir, a son, Rahula, was born to Yasodhara. Without further delay Siddhartha told his father of his resolve to leave the transient luxury of worldly life and live as a renunciate in order to discover the causes of true happiness and the end of misery.

Suddhodana was reluctant to let him go. Therefore, riding the horse Kanthaka and accompanied by the groom Chandaka, Prince Siddhartha left Kapilavastu with the aid of the gods. Some distance away he performed the great renunciation, cutting off his hair and donning the robes of an ascetic. He sent Chandaka back to the palace with his jewels and horse, and entered into the homeless life.

Some years later, after attaining enlightenment, Buddha returned briefly to Kapilavastu at his father's invitation. The Buddha and his followers were welcomed and treated well by the king and the people, who listened to his teachings.

The splendour of Kapilavastu did not last for long, for the city and many of the Shakya clan were destroyed by the rival king Vaidraka even within the Buddha's lifetime.

The Nepalese temple, which is cared for by a monk of the theravada tradition, also has rest houses within its grounds, provided by buddhists from Japan and the former U.N. General Secretary U Thant. In cooperation with the Nepalese Government, UNESCO is also helping to improve and develop this first of the eight pilgrimage places.
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Bodhgaya Buddhist Pilgrimage:
The bodhisattva, having renounced the luxurious life of Prince Siddhartha, now as Gautama the ascetic, walked in a south-easterly direction from Kapilavastu and came to Vaishali. Here he listened briefly to the teaching of Arada Kalapa, an aberrant samkhya, but left dissatisfied. Crossing the river Ganges he once again entered the kingdom of Magadha and came to Rajgir, the capital, where he listened to the yogic teachings of Rudraka. Again dissatisfied, he left followed by the five ascetics. Together with them he came to the village of Uravilva on the banks of the Nairanjana river, which is close to the place now known as Bodhgaya.

Pilgrims abound in Bodhgaya and in recent years thousands have had the fortune to listen to the Dharma there. Many buddhist masters are again travelling to Bodhgaya to turn the wheel of Dharma. For example, the Kalachakra empowerment given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1974 was attended by over 100,000 devotees. The Tibetan monastery now offers a two-month meditation course annually for the international buddhist community, and meditation courses and teachings are given occasionally in the Burmese, Thai, Japanese and other temples.

Bodhgaya Hotels - Siddhartha International - Hotel Lotus Nikko - Hotel Royal Residency
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Sarnath Buddhist Pilgrimage:
All the 1,000 buddhas of this aeon, after demonstrating the attainment of enlightenment at Vajrasana, proceed to Sarnath to give the first turning of the wheel of Dharma. In like manner, Shakyamuni walked from Bodhgaya to Sarnath in order to meet the five ascetics who had left him earlier. Coming to the Ganges, he crossed it in one step, where King Ashoka later made Pataliputra his capital city. He entered Benares early one morning, made his alms round, bathed, ate his meal and, leaving by the east gate of the city, walked northwards to Rishipatana Mrigadava, the rishi's Deer Park.

Benares, which was the second city to reappear following the last destruction of the world, was also a site of the previous buddha's manifestations. Kashyapa, the third buddha of this aeon, built a monastery near Deer Park, where he ordained the brahmin boy, Jotipala, an earlier incarnation of Shakyamuni. Hsuan Chwang records stupas and an artificial platform at the places where several previous buddhas had walked and sat in meditation.

There is also a Tibetan printing press, The Pleasure of Elegant Sayings, which over the last decade has published more than thirty Tibetan texts of buddhist treatises, otherwise hard to find. Thus the wheel of Dharma that Shakyamuni first turned at Sarnath continues to revolve.
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Kushinagar Buddhist Pilgrimage:
Last of the places of pilgrimage is Kushinagar, where Shakyamuni entered mahaparinirvana. This was the furthest he had reached on his final journey, which retraced much of the road he had walked when many years before he had left Kapilavastu. When he reached his eighty-first year, Buddha gave his last major teaching - the subject was the thirty-seven wings of enlightenment - and left Vulture's Peak with Ananda to journey north. After sleeping at Nalanda he crossed the Ganges for the last time at the place where Patna now stands and came to the village of Beluva. Here the Buddha was taken ill, but he suppressed the sickness and continued to Vaisali. This was a city where Shakyamuni had often stayed in the beautiful parks that had been offered to him. It was also the principal location of the third turning of the wheel of Dharma.

On one side of the park a former Chinese temple has been reopened as an international meditation centre. Next to it stands a large Burmese temple. On the south side of the park is a small Tibetan monastery with stupas in the Tibetan style beside it. Thus also at Kushinagar one can see dharmic activities alive even today.

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Sravasti :
Sravasti - The city where the Buddha passes his last twenty yearsBut now Sravasti or Saheth Maheth, about 16 kilometers from Balrumpur was the capital of Kosala, was said to have derived its name from the fact that everything was available there. It was indeed one of the wealthiest and most vibrant cities in the Middle Land. The Buddha visited Savatthi several times before finally making it his headquarters in the twentieth year of his enlightenment.

In is here Savatthi, that one of the most famous Buddhist site, Prince Jeta's grove at Anatthapindika's Park is located. Many famous suttas were delivered here. Amongst them were the Mangala Sutta, the Metta Sutta etc. It was also in this city that the Buddha converted the notorious robber Angulimala.

Attractions of Sravasti :
Today the ruins of Jetavana's many monasteries are set in attractive and peaceful gardens. The Buddha delivered more discourses here than in any other place so if you wish to read some while you are you have plenty to choose from. Recommended ones are the Kakacupama Sutta, the Vimamsaka Sutta and or the Angulimala Sutta, all of them from The Middle Length Discourses. There are many of Buddhist temples near the ruins that offer accommodation. Perhaps the best is the Sri Lankan temple right next to the main gate.
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