What Archaeologists Are Uncovering About the Buddha in His Legendary Nepali Hometown

The birthplace of the Buddha beckons worshipers from around the world, as well as researchers hoping to dig up new evidence about the revered spiritual leader

Photographs by GMB Akash / Panos Pictures

April/May 2025

Pilgrims at the Maya Devi Temple in Lumbini offer candles on the lunar date celebrated as the Buddha’s birthday. GMB Akash / Panos Pictures

Shortly after dawn, more than 200 monks from an order of Tibetan exiles carry carefully bundled scriptures and 108 gold-gilt Buddha statues in a long procession toward the site revered as Siddhartha Gautama’s birthplace. Some monks beat drums or wave sweet incense. Some wear ritual crowns or hold elaborately tasseled umbrellas. Some play brass-and-copper dungchen, or long horns, which vibrate with an eerie rumble that is said to resonate with the otherworldly beauty of the Buddha’s teachings.

The parade arrives at a large white building of brick and steel. Most of the monks circumambulate the building, walking past a polished sandstone pillar placed here in the third century B.C. and along the edges of a pond where it is said that Maya Devi, Siddhartha’s mother, bathed herself before childbirth. A smaller group of senior Tibetan monks enter the building. There, standing before a fourth-century A.D. bas-relief of Maya Devi giving birth, and above an ancient “marker stone” that is said to identify the precise nativity spot, the men conduct a purification ritual, offering a symbolic lamp of wisdom to dispel forces of ignorance from the Buddha’s birthplace.

In an area outside the temple building known as the “sacred garden,” monks from many other lands are gathering in the early morning light, some in saffron robes, others in burgundy. They come from Nepal and Vietnam, India and Thailand, Sri Lanka, Japan, and many other countries. Gray- and black-clad monks from China hold aloft an undulating, blue-and-gold dragon. A smattering of Buddhist nuns is present, too, many dressed in pink or white. On a meditation platform, devotees from countries and territories that are bitter political rivals sit shoulder-to-shoulder to chant mantras for peace. Lobsang Lama, a Nepali layperson, hands out crisp 10-rupee notes (the equivalent of about 8 cents) to each of the seated monks and nuns. “We believe in cause and effect,” he says. “What we give, we will get in the next life.”

The Thousand Buddha Temple in Lumbini, Nepal. GMB Akash / Panos Pictures

The monks, nuns and pilgrims have gathered in the stiflingly hot town of Lumbini, near the border with India, because this is the day when the Buddha’s birth is celebrated here in Nepal—and because Buddhists believe this place has sacred power. But they are not the only people seeking the Buddha in Lumbini. Archaeologists have been searching here for an altogether different Buddha—not the figure of faith and metaphor, but an actual man who was born, lived, preached and died in this region at least a century before any records of his teachings were written down. They’ve been digging for artifacts in the area identified as his birthplace, and also in an area of buried ruins 17 miles away, which the archaeologists believe was the site of the ancient town of Kapilavastu, Siddhartha’s childhood home.

What they are finding—and what they are still hoping to find—could be important to practicing Buddhists, who still debate among themselves when exactly the Buddha lived. The findings could also shed new light on when and how Buddhism spread throughout Asia. Economic interests are also at stake: A developing country like Nepal would like to boost pilgrimage and tourism to sites identified with the Buddha’s story, and new finds and revelations are likely to attract more visitors. And yet the discoveries to date—and the theories about them—are controversial, and they come at a time when there is renewed scholarly debate about whether a man named Siddhartha Gautama ever existed at all.

Even among believers, the Buddha is a figure who takes on different forms depending on the observer. Among secular Buddhists in the United States, he’s often regarded simply as an enlightened teacher—a person who, through discipline and deep meditation, gained remarkable insights into the human condition and gave instructions for how people can tame and channel their minds to reduce the stress of living. In Asia, where Buddhism is practiced in a bewildering array of different schools and lineages, each with its own traditions and rituals, he’s often a much more magical figure—someone who could levitate and fly long distances, subdue dragons and demons, project duplicates of himself in space, and travel to astral realms.

Cover image of the Smithsonian Magazine April/May 2025 issue

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This article is a selection from the April/May 2025 issue of Smithsonian magazine

Opening Group Shot — Tibetan monks at the temple surround their abbot (seated). GMB Akash / Panos Pictures

There is no definitive scriptural text that lays out the full story of the Buddha’s life. As John S. Strong, an emeritus scholar of religious studies at Bates College, writes in his 2001 book, The Buddha: A Beginner’s Guide, “each Buddhist telling and retelling of stories about him has been influenced by historical recollections, doctrinal emphases, ritual concerns, political allegiances, social and cultural factors, or simply the desire to weave a good tale.” Such yarns differ in their particulars—often contradicting one another—but they generally follow a pattern, including key episodes regarded as “inspiring and worth recalling, whatever their grounding in history,” Strong writes.

As recounted in a very popular form of ancient Buddhist literature called the Jataka tales, the Buddha first appears many eons ago as a man who aspires to become a buddha, Sanskrit for “awakened one.” He passes through countless lives and re-incarnations as a human, god and animal, sometimes encountering previous buddhas along the way. In all of these lifetimes, he is seeking spiritual liberation, but he does not succeed until his final rebirth, which occurs in Lumbini.

The stories of his birth are fantastical. The future Buddha enters the womb fully formed and resides there in a splendid palace, where he receives deities as guests. In some versions of the story, his mother, Maya Devi, has an auspicious dream of a white elephant entering her body, symbolizing holiness, prosperity and power. Ten lunar months later, Maya Devi travels toward her parents’ home, hoping to deliver there. But she doesn’t make it. About halfway through her journey, she stops at a grove or garden in Lumbini, where she takes hold of a tree branch and gives birth standing up.

As the story is recorded in key scriptures and depicted in ancient Buddhist works of art, the newborn child miraculously emerges from beneath her right armpit. Like all Buddhas throughout time, he emerges unsullied—“stainless, not defiled by water, mucus, blood or any impurity, pure and spotless,” according to the Mahapadana Sutta, or Great Discourse on the Lineage. He lands in the hands of devas, celestial beings—or in a golden net held by the devas—and then is placed on the ground, where he immediately takes seven steps, each marked by a sprouting lotus flower. “I am supreme in the world,” he declares. “This is my last birth; henceforth, there will be no rebirth for me.”

Young Tibetan monks line up to view supposed relics of the Buddha himself—pebble-sized bits of bone—
inside a small stupa in Lumbini. GMB Akash / Panos Pictures

Maya Devi dies seven days later, and Siddhartha is raised by his father, King Suddhodana, and his mother’s sister, Mahaprajapati Gautami, in a nearby city called Kapilavastu. Sages counsel the king that Siddhartha will grow up either to be a universal monarch or a supreme spiritual leader. Hoping to tip the scales in favor of worldly rule, the king keeps his son sheltered from the woes of the world. Siddhartha lives in a pleasure palace surrounded by attendants and beautiful women, unexposed to the perils and sufferings of life. According to tradition, at 16 he marries the lovely Yasodhara, who eventually gives birth to a son they name Rahula, which tellingly means “fetter” or “obstacle.”

Sometime later, however, Siddhartha (with the help of the gods) emerges from his compound and encounters four key scenes: an old man, a sick man, a corpse and a traveling ascetic. “The first three signs make him deeply aware of the inevitability of suffering and impermanence,” Strong tells me, and “the fourth gives him hope that there is a solution.” At the age of 29, having resolved that he must seek a remedy for life’s suffering, he shaves off his hair, sheds his royal garb, puts on the yellow robes of a monk or beggar, and begins his long journey to attain enlightenment.

At first, he lives a life of extreme self-denial, which nearly kills him. Then he turns toward a “middle way”—avoiding extremes of both indulgent pleasure and self-mortification. He endures many challenges during his journey, including assaults from a deity named Mara, often characterized as an evil demon, who tries to deter and distract him. But Siddhartha finally achieves the spiritual awakening he seeks and lives to the age of 80.

Western scholars regard most or all of this tale as myth—a story that evolved over centuries and is more concerned with spiritual meaning than historical accuracy. The Buddha would likely have spoken a language called Magadhi Prakrit, a vernacular relative of Sanskrit that is now dead. During his lifetime there was no written script, so accounts of his life were transmitted orally for generations before they were written down.

Goddess Figure — A figure found at the Kapilavastu dig site, created during the Sunga dynasty between 185 and 73 B.C., may have been a goddess sacred to both Buddhists and Hindus. GMB Akash / Panos Pictures

The earliest Buddhist texts were probably written in Pali, Sanskrit and other closely related languages; translations and additions followed in Tibetan, Chinese and other tongues. The stories grew and morphed, elaborating on the Buddha’s birth, his supernatural powers, the presence of spectral creatures and demons, and hagiographical descriptions of places and events.

Textual scholars have tried to separate the reliable from the incredible. In the 19th century, some scholars suspected that the Buddha was an entirely mythical character. The stories in the scriptures seemed so exaggerated or fabricated as to be unreal, and they were often read as allegories. In the 20th century, however, a consensus emerged that a historical Buddha likely did exist: Among other things, inscriptions from the third century B.C. were discovered that directly referred to him—including the pillar at Lumbini—and it seemed easier to imagine a man who morphed into a myth than a series of myths and beliefs coalescing around an imaginary man. Such scholars sought to strip away the exaggerations of the biographies “so as to demythologize the tradition and come to an understanding of the ‘real Buddha,’” Strong writes in his biography. “In this, they mirrored to some extent the rationalist, positivist quest for the historical Jesus being undertaken by some of their contemporaries in biblical studies.” Still, disagreement over even the most basic facts—like the century in which the Buddha lived—continued.

The debate erupted again in 2017, when a Canadian scholar, David Drewes of the University of Manitoba, published an article in the Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, a leading publication, that argued that there was no solid evidence for the Buddha’s historical existence. Though “the Buddha is universally agreed to have lived,” Drewes wrote, “more than two centuries of scholarship have failed to establish anything about him. We are thus left with the rather strange proposition that Buddhism was founded by a historical figure who has not been linked to any historical facts, an idea that would seem decidedly unempirical, and only dubiously coherent.”

That article provoked strong criticism from other scholars, some who disagreed with Drewes and others who thought the argument was irrelevant—that nothing could be proved about a person who lived before anything was recorded in writing, and that the stories were culturally and spiritually meaningful whether or not the Buddha was an actual man.

The world’s most famous living Buddhist, the Dalai Lama, has called for more research into the Buddha’s life. “I personally feel it is quite disgraceful that nobody, not even Buddhists, knows when our teacher … actually lived,” the Tibetan leader wrote in his 2012 book The End of Suffering and the Discovery of Happiness. “I have been seriously considering whether some scientific research could be done. Relics are available in India and Tibet which people believe derive from the Buddha himself. If these were examined with modern techniques, we might be able to establish some accurate dates, which would be very helpful.”

The pillar of Ashoka, rediscovered in 1895 GMB Akash / Panos Pictures

Yet some believers question why scientists are so determined to dig up the past, and whether they might come to incorrect conclusions that disturb the Buddhist faith. There’s also potential conflict between conservationists, who want to protect archaeological sites by limiting visitors and commercial development in the area, and politicians, who want to generate more commerce and income, serving the needs of Nepal’s impoverished people.

“Nowadays, where there’s a Buddha there’s a dollar,” says Basanta Bidari, a Nepali archaeologist who worries that an influx of visitors will bring harm to fragile and irreplaceable ruins. When Bidari first came from New Delhi to Lumbini in 1985—a dozen years before it was designated a World Heritage Site by the United Nations—the place felt neglected. “Very few pilgrims used to come,” he recalls. “They’d come for a few hours with a lunchbox from across the border in India and return the same day.” The electricity, which also came from India, was “so weak it could take a full minute for the fan to make one rotation.” Venomous snakes were common. “They used to like to hide under the pillows,” says Bidari. “We’d use a stick to pick up the snake and toss it outside.”

Today, an area called the Lumbini Cultural Municipality, which was formed in 2014 and combines seven rural villages, is home to more than 80 hotels, mainly serving pilgrims from the region. Dusty shops and stalls sell baby Buddha statues, singing bowls used for meditation and other religious objects, as well as colorful stuffed animals and plastic toys. The streets are populated by bicycle rickshaws, tuk-tuks, motorcycles, cars, vans, tractors, stray dogs and the occasional cow. The municipality’s residential and commercial sections surround a pilgrimage area that comprises three zones of about one square mile each: the sacred garden where the Buddha’s presumed birthplace and other archaeological treasures are located; a monastic zone bisected by a pedestrian walkway and boat canal, which features temples and meditation centers of many different nationalities; and the Cultural Center and New Lumbini Village, which includes a museum, an international research institute of Buddhist studies, a World Peace Pagoda and a crane sanctuary.

Tibetan Buddhist monks carry statues through the streets. GMB Akash / Panos Pictures

Women from the Tharu community, a mostly Hindu group in southern Nepal and northern India, parade in honor of Buddha’s birthday GMB Akash / Panos Pictures

The Bhairahawa airport serving the area was expanded in 2022 to handle international flights, and a new meditation and conference hall with a 5,000-person capacity opened the same year. After a tourism lull during the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of visitors “is rapidly increasing,” says Hit Bahadur Tamang, Nepal’s minister of culture, tourism and civil aviation. “The government of Nepal is ready to welcome millions of visitors to Lumbini.”

But the area’s rapid development has also brought problems. Commercial and residential buildings have sprung up in areas that were supposed to be protected from development. Pollution—largely from cement and brick-making factories and the open burning of agricultural waste—thickens the air, which has a corrosive effect on exposed artifacts. And the modern brick-and-steel structure covering the Buddha’s birthplace traps humidity, which erodes the ancient remains.

Some centuries-old brick ruins directly next to the birthplace have lost more than a foot in height because pilgrims have taken souvenirs, which they regard as holy relics. When I visited last year, a golden tarp was draped over those remains to prevent further destruction. “People are very happy to develop the sites for tourism, because they get instant income from that,” says Kosh Prasad Acharya, a Nepali co-leader of recent digs. “But they don’t consider the carrying capacity of the sites.” He and others regard the newly expanded airport as a “time bomb.” In 2024, UNESCO experts called for Lumbini to be placed on a World Heritage in Danger list, warning that the deterioration of archaeological sites showed an “alarming state of conservation.”

The pilgrimage area was originally imagined as “a serene place, a place of nature, a quiet place, a place of worship—all befitting its gravitas,” says Michael Croft, a recent UNESCO representative to Nepal. “But that sort of ethos is difficult to maintain, given the fact that it’s a place that local authorities, for very understandable reasons, want to leverage for the economic development of the province and the surrounding area, which are very, very poor.”

Delegates of the U.N. World Heritage Committee, meeting in neighboring India in July, decided to give Nepal more time to submit a report detailing urgent measures the authorities are taking to protect the site. An “in danger” listing would be an embarrassment to Nepal, suggesting it is incapable of properly managing the sacred area.

All the while, archaeologists have continued making provocative discoveries. Roughly 17 miles from the Buddha’s birthplace, for instance, they unearthed evidence of a “palatial compound” surrounded by a walled city with a gridwork of roads and neighborhoods dating to the sixth century B.C. The archaeologists believe these ruins are ancient Kapilavastu, where according to Buddhist scripture, Prince Siddhartha lived before he renounced his royal privileges and went off to seek enlightenment. That discovery, together with others at the birth site in Lumbini, seem to bolster the theory that the Buddha lived in the sixth century B.C.

Nepal has recently proposed the Kapilavastu site, located in modern-day Tilaurakot, for World Heritage status. That designation would give it international stature of its own—separate from the Lumbini birthplace—and draw more tourism. But Nepal isn’t making a firm claim that the buried ruins are the former hometown of Siddhartha. That’s because “there’s no smoking gun,” says UNESCO’s Croft—no inscriptions or other written records. Instead, Nepal is arguing for special status because the ancient complex represents “the best preserved Early Historic city and hinterland in South Asia.”

Current evidence does show that the city was an early Buddhist pilgrimage destination. In January 2024, archaeologists unearthed a very rare apsidal temple—with a curved wall on one end, similar to another one that exists at Sarnath in India, where the Buddha was said to have given his first sermon. They’ve yet to date the structure, but they believe it was built to honor the Buddha and his legacy.

“The apsidal temple is really exciting, because you only get apsidal temples in this period at core sites associated with Buddhist pilgrimage,” says Robin Coningham of England’s Durham University, a co-leader of the dig.

Roshani Maharjan (in the foreground), an engineer with Nepal’s Department of Archaeology, makes notes on the dig. GMB Akash / Panos Pictures

Other finds include a string of small, fortified places and wells along an old pilgrim road between Lumbini and Tilaurakot where travelers would have sought protection from wild animals and other potential threats. Coningham says the archaeologists also unearthed “a rather fabulous collection of silver punch-marked coins,” which date to around the third century B.C. That wave of pilgrimage was spurred by the emperor Ashoka the Great, who then ruled a vast empire stretching from Afghanistan in the west to the Bay of Bengal in the east.

Because writing had appeared in the region by Ashoka’s time, some legends about him are easier to verify than those about the Buddha. It was Ashoka who in 248 or 249 B.C., more than a century after the Buddha’s death, erected a sandstone pillar in Lumbini with an inscription that reads, in part: “Here was born the Buddha, the Shakya sage.”

By some accounts, Ashoka became a supporter of Buddhism in the eighth year after his coronation, when he waged a war to expand his territory. “Ashoka himself was present at the battle,” says Bidari, the Nepali archaeologist, who has a talent for storytelling and has escorted presidents, kings and U.N. secretaries general around the Lumbini area. “The slaughter took place on the banks of a river: hand-to-hand fighting, 100,000 dead, some with no hands, some with their stomachs falling out, some with heads broken open, and the river was flowing with blood. The scene changed him.”

A worker at the Kapilavastu site cleans the wall of an ancient reservoir GMB Akash / Panos Pictures

Back at his capital, located under the present-day Indian city of Patna, Ashoka visited a monastery and “took refuge in the Buddha,” Bidari says. The all-powerful emperor learned that the Buddha, on his deathbed, had recommended that his followers visit four sacred places: Lumbini, the Buddha’s birthplace; Bodh Gaya, where he attained enlightenment; Sarnath, where he gave his first sermon; and Kushinagar, where he attained parinirvana, the state after death of someone who has previously reached enlightenment. Tradition has it that a legendary monk named Upagupta personally took Ashoka on a tour of more than 30 sites associated with the Buddha, including Lumbini.

Ashoka was zealous about spreading Buddhism throughout his realm, building countless shrines, sending missionaries vast distances and encouraging Buddhist pilgrimage. According to legend, at least one of his sons became a Buddhist monk, and a daughter became a nun; both were said to be instrumental in spreading Buddhism to Sri Lanka. Some scholars, however, believe that Ashoka’s embrace of Buddhism may have been largely a matter of political expedience. After all, it made perfect sense for the emperor to espouse compassion and condemn war once he had conquered a vast realm and now wanted to secure it. Buddhism, says Strong, “was helpful for managing an empire.” Either way, Buddhists benefited greatly from Ashoka’s support.

Shards of ancient terra cotta found at the site. GMB Akash / Panos Pictures

It took Ashoka more than a decade to get to Lumbini, but he hauled with him—or had his minions haul—massive sandstone columns from a quarry near the seat of his empire some 200 miles away. In Lumbini, he also constructed a shrine to the Buddha’s nativity. Archaeologists have determined that a shrine already existed there, however, long before Ashoka arrived. Digging below the Ashokan level, they found a brick curb and terrace dating to the fourth century B.C. Then they dug farther and found the postholes of an even earlier shrine—the remains of a stick-and-mud fence around a single tree—dating to the sixth century B.C. They believe that this shrine was built shortly after the Buddha’s death to mark his birthplace, which would make it the earliest Buddhist shrine in South Asia. This would support traditions that date the Buddha’s birth from the early seventh century to the latter half of the sixth century B.C.—earlier than dates accepted by many leading scholars. (“A fairly recent semi-consensus,” says Strong, puts the Buddha’s death between 486 and 360 B.C., with his birth roughly 80 years before that.)

It would make sense for this particular sacred space to center on a tree. Siddhartha’s mother, after all, is said to have given birth in a garden while holding on to a tree branch. Many scholars, however, reject the suggestion that the sixth-century B.C. shrine is Buddhist. It was more likely just a yaksha, they argue—an animist tree shrine common to the region. Such scholars believe that Ashoka arrived at the site, which was mentioned in scripture as the birthplace of the Buddha, and reappropriated the existing tree shrine as the nativity site. The site “is very near to many tree sanctuaries found all over India, long before Buddhism,” says Oskar von Hinüber, an emeritus scholar of Indology at the University of Freiburg in Germany and a former president of the International Association of Buddhist Studies. “There is not the slightest trace of anything that connects the shrine to the Buddha except that it’s found in Lumbini.”

While von Hinüber takes issue with the tree shrine evidence, he does believe that a historical Buddha likely existed. He has separated out the scriptural descriptions of the Buddha’s life that appear to him as the most credible—that seem to “contain the memory of a genuine person,” as he puts it. For instance, the story of Siddhartha’s departure from his father’s home is often animated by the supernatural: Siddhartha slips out of the palace grounds on his faithful white horse, Kanthaka, and the gods silence the sound of its neighing so the prince can depart unnoticed. But an earlier scriptural version has Siddhartha directly confronting his parents, who are terribly upset by his decision. Though they “wished otherwise and wept with tearful faces,” the Buddha tells his followers in this account, he cut off his hair, “put on a yellow robe and went forth from the home life into homelessness.” Von Hinüber takes this older version of Siddhartha’s departure—involving an emotional conflict with his parents that might seem familiar to many even today—as more plausible and reliable.

At Lumbini’s Thousand Buddha Temple, a massive four-story Tibetan structure with 30- to 40-foot ceilings in the main hall, the Buddha’s narrative is depicted on 16 giant tapestries, or thangkas. “He was very good at everything,” one young monk told me as we viewed scenes from Siddhartha’s youth. “In studies and sports, he was only number one.” In one panel, Siddhartha is shown on the evening he departs home to become an ascetic: He’s in a colorful, multistory palace that vaguely resembles the grand monastery in which we’re standing.

A souvenir shop in Lumbini. — At a souvenir shop in Lumbini, portraits of the Buddha hang alongside Hindu deities such as Saraswati (bottom, left)
and Ganesh (center, right).

But if archaeology and history tell us anything definite, it’s that Siddhartha would have grown up in simpler surroundings. Siddhartha’s father was not a king, scholars say, but the chosen or elected leader of a tribal republic. There were no homes of stone or cement or even brick in this region when Siddhartha was alive. He would have lived in a house made of wood or bamboo sticks, dried mud or wattle, with a thatched roof. His floors would likely have been plastered in cow dung.

The monks seemed okay with that, noting that Siddhartha’s home would have still been a palace compared with the way others lived. One devotee compared it to a modern luxury eco-lodge made of natural materials and adorned with flowers.

What some monks had a harder time accepting was the scientific denial of miracles. “We respect science, but whatever science says is not necessarily 100 percent correct,” said Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, the founder and abbot of the Thousand Buddha Temple. He was seated cross-legged on a throne-like couch in a reception room, where visitors came and bowed to him. “In many religions, they imagine miracles,” he told me. The inclusion of these stories, the abbot elaborated, “is beneficial for those who believe in them.” Such beliefs can instill faith in the practices and thereby lead to what he calls the “best miracles” of all: fewer negative emotions and the ability to “be more kind.”

For his part, the abbot believes in a world beyond what is scientifically proven: He told me he’s had “different visions” and has seen “different forms of beings.” When he saw one such being in Prague once, his hosts told him the city had ghosts. Scientists have made vital breakthroughs that have improved human lives, he acknowledged. But they’ve also made atom bombs and are building artificial intelligence they perhaps cannot control. And “they don’t know anything about the mind,” he said. Buddhists who achieve deep meditative states, he suggested, know more, and their faith should not be disturbed.

Other monks and nuns seemed more sanguine. Ani Choying Drolma, who is known as the “singing nun” for vocal performances she gives around the world, told me she has a hard time believing that Siddhartha was born from under Maya Devi’s armpit. “There’s a rib cage there, after all,” she said. I probed further, asking about the ostentatious ways the Buddha is presented in Lumbini. In some texts, the Buddha warned his disciples against overly relying on his presence. “One who sees me in body or hears me in voice will walk the wrong path,” he counsels his followers in the Diamond Sutra. An oft-quoted ninth-century Chinese aphorism put it more severely: “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him”—meaning that no one should cling to a teacher or rely on a savior. Yet the main hall of the Tibetan monastery was decorated with hundreds of golden Buddha statues.

The temple of Kudan in Lumbini stands where the Buddha’s son, Rahula, was said to have become a monk at age 8. The octagonal structure atop the mound is a Shiva temple built later by Hindus. GMB Akash / Panos Pictures

Drolma acknowledged the apparent contradiction, but she said that different “skillful means” are required for spreading the Buddha’s teachings. “Not everyone has the capacity to understand the essence of the teaching immediately. It has to come in stages. We try to create symbolic things that help people get the essence more easily.” The Buddha’s rejection of materialism is for “people who are highly intellectual,” she added. “Many other people need a symbolic support system.”

For practitioners at a more advanced stage, however, the journey toward enlightenment requires a questioning mind, Drolma said. “The Buddha said, ‘Don’t believe anything just because I’m saying it. Only believe something once you’ve done the research yourself.’ He never says, ‘I will liberate you.’ He only says, ‘I will show you the path.’”

Archaeologists say the current excavation sites encompass only a small portion of what is buried around Lumbini. Magnetometry reveals large underground formations throughout the area, many under private land. As UNESCO’s Croft puts it, “You kick the dirt there, and there’s something under it. It’s very, very rich from an archaeological perspective.”

One site that is certain not to be excavated by archaeologists anytime soon is a buried stupa at Ramagrama, about 30 miles from Lumbini, which is reputed to hold sacred relics of the Buddha himself—perhaps bits of his bone, teeth or ashes. On a recent visit, the stupa—a large, grassy mound topped by a centuries-old tree—was strewn with magnolia flowers and adorned with white Tibetan scarves called khatas. Two young women were practicing their dance moves nearby, while a few peasant women herded goats.

The 11-foot Little Buddha statue in Lumbini was a gift from Thai Buddhists, many of whom donated bits of gold at Thai gas stations and corner stores. GMB Akash / Panos Pictures

Ramagrama was once one of eight such stupas said to contain bodily remains of the Buddha. But according to legend, Ashoka had the other seven opened so he could remove and disperse relics to thousands of other stupas across his realm. This particular stupa, as reported by the Chinese pilgrim Faxian in the fifth century A.D., was protected by a serpent king or dragon. Geophysical mapping has been done in a wide area around Ramagrama, showing vast complexes of monasteries and other Buddhist structures long buried.

Religious considerations preclude any exploration of the Ramagrama stupa itself. According to tradition, even Ashoka the Great “did not dare” to open the sacred shrine, Acharya points out; digging into it now would be considered a violation of the site’s sanctity. Coningham, mindful of Buddhist sensitivities, says he’s fine with leaving the stupa undisturbed. “There are some questions that cannot and probably should not be answered by science,” he says. “There must be some mystery that remains.”

What Archaeologists Are Uncovering About the Buddha in His Legendary Nepali Hometown

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