Lumbini

Lumbini is revered as the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. Buddhist tradition holds that Queen Maya gave birth here in a garden, and the sacred pond nearby is associated with her ritual bathing and that of the newborn child. The emperor Ashoka marked the place with an inscribed stone pillar. A later inscription records the visit of Ripu Malla in 1312, testimony to the continuing pilgrimage to this ancient sanctuary.