Lumbini is a village, archaeological site, and place of pilgrimage honored as the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha, l. c. 563-483 BCE) located in modern-day Rupandehi District of Nepal, Province 5, near the Indian border. It was first formally identified as the Buddha’s birthsite in 249 BCE by the Mauryan king Ashoka the Great (r. 268-232 BCE).
Prior to Ashoka’s visit, the village was known by another name, perhaps similar but now lost, and was already an important pilgrimage site for adherents of the early Buddhist schools. It seems to originally have been a landscaped pleasure garden located between the cities of Kapilavastu, to the east, and Devadaha, to the southwest, ruled, respectively, by the clans of the Shakya and Koliya, who were related by blood. Suddhodana, of the Shakya, married his cousin Maya, of the Koliya, who would become the mother of the Buddha.
According to the accounts in Buddhist and Jaina texts, Maya was traveling from Kapilavastu to her home city of Devadaha to give birth when she stopped to rest in the gardens of Lumbini and went into labor. She gave birth to her son beneath a Sala tree and, according to some versions of the story, bathed him in a nearby pond. She seems to have then returned to Kapilavastu where she died seven days later.
Visa: Tourists from most countries can obtain a visa on arrival at the airport or land border crossings.
