Walking In the Footsteps of the Buddha

BY SHANTUM SETH| MAY 31, 2022

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When we visit the very places where the Buddha lived and taught,
we discover deeper meaning in his teachings. Shantum Seth takes
us on a sacred pilgrimage.
Lumbini, in present-day Nepal, the birthplace of Siddhartha, has archeological sites as well as new monuments
built by Buddhist organizations from around the world. The World Peace Pagoda was built by Japanese
Buddhists. Photo by Giora Dan / © OUR PLACE The World Heritage Collection

As he lay on his deathbed, the Buddha comforted his distraught disciple

Ananda by telling him there were four places that those with faith in the
buddhadharma should visit. These four were the pleasure garden in
Lumbini, where he’d been born; under the tree by the Niranjana River in
Bodhgaya, where he’d awakened; in the Deer Park in Sarnath, where he’d
first taught; and in the sal forest of Kushinagar where he would breathe his
last. This was the Buddha’s way of saying that he could always be found
wherever he’d walked and taught.
 When we go on a pilgrimage like this, it is more than just
travel. It is also an inner journey.

So over the past 2,600 years, millions of pilgrims have renewed and
deepened their practice by visiting the four sites the Buddha listed. Plus,
other places of significance to the Buddha’s life have been added to the
pilgrimage circuit, such as Sravasti, where he spent twenty-four of his forty-
five rain retreats, and Kapilavastu, where he spent his early years.

The entire pilgrimage route is within the span of about 350 miles east to
west and 250 miles north to south, and the Buddha is known to have
walked across it many times. These journeys would take him months, as he
was often stopped for a few days at a time by people eager for his teachings.

He walked slowly, barefoot and mindful of each step. On bunds between

rice fields, along rivers, on dusty village paths, and on the shady roadsides
connecting the great cities of the time, he would be accompanied by a few of
his disciples, each “leaving space between them for a cow to pass through.”

Carrying only his robes, alms bowl, water filter, and needle, the Buddha
visited mango groves, sat by lotus ponds. Sometimes he’d sleep in the open
air, sometimes in people’s homes. He, along with his monastic companions,
would set off each morning on an alms round, stopping silently in front of
each house without expectation. Sometimes, they’d be invited for meals at
the home of one of the Buddha’s benefactors. After the meal, he usually
shared a teaching, and this was an opportunity for his lay disciples to ask
questions of him.

Some two hundred years after the Buddha’s death, the emperor Ashoka
came to power. He dedicated so much of his time to spreading the Buddha’s
teachings that, if it weren’t for him, it’s doubtful Buddhism would even
exist today. Ashoka embraced the dharma after leading a genocidal war in
Kalinga in which more than a hundred thousand people were killed. From
then on, Ashoka vowed to travel only on pilgrimage, never for war and
conquest. He went to many of the sites associated with the Buddha, putting
up stone pillars as markers on the holy path. On some of the pillars there
are inscriptions, carved in the Brahmi script, which describe how the place
was associated with the Buddha and the sangha. These pillars helped
archeologists of the late nineteenth century ascertain the authenticity and
relevance of these sites.
There have been many great Buddhist pilgrims throughout history, some of
whom have left records of the perilous journeys they undertook. Pilgrims,
such as Faxian (337–422 CE) and Xuanzang (602–664 CE) came from
China. They traversed the desolate Taklakaman Desert, facing everything
from freezing cold to scorching winds, and then crossed the passes of the
high Himalayas, finding the skeletal remains of earlier pilgrims as markers
for their path. Other early pilgrims came from countries as far-flung as
Korea, Japan, Tibet, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Thailand,
Malaysia, Uzbekistan, and Greece.

This sacred journey in the footsteps of the Buddha is the way we can
experience the very places the Buddha inhabited. We can still meet the sort
of people he met, see what he saw, and come to understand his teachings in
the context of the time in which he lived. Let’s take this sacred journey
together.

SarnathSarnath is a place located 10 kilometres north-east of Varanasi near the

confluence of the Ganges and the Varuna rivers in Uttar Pradesh, India. The deer park

inSarnath is where Gautama Buddha first taught the Dhamma, and where the Buddhist

Sangha came into existence through the enlightenment of Kondanna.

The brick and stone Dhamek Stupa in Sarnath stands where the Buddha first taught and established his sangha.
Giannis Papanikos / shutterstock

We begin our pilgrimage in Sarnath, entering the Deer Park with its old
majestic neem trees. As we make our way toward the 150-foot-high
cylindrical brick and stone stupa, we take each step mindfully, aware that
we are walking in the Buddha’s own footsteps.

The Buddha had come here as soon as he left his place of enlightenment in
Bodhgaya because he wanted to share the dharma with his former ascetic
companions. Since Sarnath is 150 miles away from Bodhgaya, it took him a
fortnight to walk here.
When the Buddha finally arrived, his former companions recognized him
but decided not to greet him, as they felt he had fallen off the true path. But
the luminosity of his presence was so overpowering that, despite
themselves, they offered him water and a place to sit, and their skepticism
fell away as they listened to the Buddha share what he had discovered. This
was the first time he offered his revolutionary teachings on the middle way,
the four noble truths, and the eightfold path, and it’s recorded that the
eldest of the ascetics, Kondanna, immediately became fully awakened.

The Buddha stayed in Sarnath for the rest of that rainy season, allowing
scores of people to hear him and become his disciples. It was also here
where he offered his second crucial teaching on nonself, revolutionizing the
spiritual thinking of his time. When finally leaving the area, he instructed
his monks to each go in a different direction in order to carry his teachings
far and wide.

Bodhgaya 佛陀伽耶
菩提耶
菩提伽耶
菩提迦那
The ancient Mahabodhi Temple in Bodhgaya, India, marks the spot where the Buddha is said to have attained
enlightenment. It was highly influential in the development of later Buddhist architectural traditions, including
the pagodas of East and Southeast Asia. Photo by Cecolussi / iStock.com

The Buddha himself then returned to Bodhgaya, the site of his

enlightenment. Here, the most important place for the modern-day pilgrim
is the stone slab under the Bodhi Tree, marking the exact spot where the
Buddha awakened. The brick Mahabodhi temple was built at the site about
1,600 years ago and is visited every year by millions of pilgrims from all
over the world. It’s a beautiful, 180-foot-high, pyramidal temple with a
stupa finial. In the sanctum sanctorum there’s a ten-foot gold-painted
Buddha statue from the tenth century, the base of which depicts the earth
goddess whom the Buddha invoked to witness his awakening.

It’s said that after the Buddha’s awakening, he spent a week sitting under
the Bodhi Tree, just enjoying his new sense of freedom, and after that he
spent a week each at six other sites that we can visit in the Mahabodhi
temple complex: a place now known as the unblinking shrine, from which
the Buddha gazed at the Bodhi Tree in gratitude and contemplation; a path
where he regularly practiced walking meditation; a jeweled shrine in the
place where he developed the understanding of dependent origination; the
lake near where a king cobra is said to have protected the Buddha through a
storm; and a tree under which he met merchants, who offered him food.

This temple complex is alive with multitudes of devout pilgrims, all

practicing in their own unique traditions—prostrating, meditating,
chanting, circumambulating, reciting texts, studying, praying, turning
prayer wheels, using mala beads for meditation or recitation, lighting butter
lamps and candles, and making offerings in the form of flowers, perfumes,
mandalas, water, or even money. In the midst of this, we can hear the call
to prayer from the mosque next door and the chanting from the nearby
Hindu Jagannatha temple. There are also Hindu Shaivite shrines inside the
Mahabodhi complex, which a Hindu priest tends to. It’s all somehow a
harmonious melee.

Near the temple flows the Niranjana river, and you can walk along the
banks as the Buddha did. The children you meet here and in the village are
probably not very different from the children the Buddha met.

Rajgir 拉杰吉尔
王舍城

 rajgir hill: 灵鹫山

 rajgir hills: 拉杰吉尔丘陵
It’s believed that at Vulture Peak in Rajgir the Buddha gave many important sermons, including those described
in the Heart Sutra and Lotus Sutra. Dymov / iStock.com

Traveling fifty miles farther along a chain of ancient hills is Rajgir. In this
once ancient city the Buddha was offered his first gift of land, a bamboo
grove, by the Magadhan king Bimbisara. BIMBISARA :Bimbisara 婆娑羅王
Remains of the fortified city are still here, as are the hot springs where the
Buddha bathed, and the cave where the first Buddhist Council was held a
few months after his demise. But the most startling reminder of the
Buddha’s presence in Rajgir is Vulture Peak, where he gave many
important dharma talks. The area around it is a protected forest, so it still
looks very much the same as it did 2,600 years ago.

Vaishali 毗舍离

Crossing the expansive Ganga river with its sandy islands, we come to
Vaishali, where the Buddha met the courtesan Amrapali and accepted a
meal at her mango grove. She then gave the grove to the Buddha. It was
also here that he overturned his earlier decision not to admit women and
welcomed about fifty nuns into the sangha, led by his stepmother, Queen
Maha Prajapati Gautami. A hundred years after his death, the second
Buddhist council was held in Vaishali, and much later—in 1958—
archeologists found here the remains of a stupa that housed relics of the
Buddha. T《阿含经》内《杂阿含经》之《第六二二经》记载当时菴摩罗听说释迦摩尼
佛在毘舍离国的菴罗园（巴利文：Ambapālivana）就决定去恭敬供养。《佛所行赞》内
“菴摩罗女见佛品第二十二”提到菴摩罗去供养释迦摩尼佛时，出门与众侍女陪从，穿着
打扮带花香，仪容好似天女。hey are now at the museum in nearby Patna.

The Buddha had his last rain retreat in Vaishali, and it was during this
retreat that he confided to Ananda that he would die in three months. Then
they started to walk north. The people of Vaishali followed, trailing them
for thirty-five miles to Kesariya. To persuade the people to go back to their
homes, the Buddha stopped and gave them his alms bowl. Today, there’s a
huge stupa at Kesariya, which is said to have been the model for the
Borobudur stupa in Java.

Kushinagar 克什那加尔被选中是因为它是第四大佛教圣地。
释迦佛讲了最后一次道，饮了最后一口水，圆寂并火葬在这里。
The Parinirvana Stupa in Kushnigar was built by the Indian Government in 1956 to commemorate the 2,500-
year anniversary of the Buddha’s death. Photo by Aeypix / shutterstock

Another seventy-five miles north we come to Kushinagar, where the

Buddha lay down to die in a forest, between twin sal trees, while flowers
showered over him. Three times he asked the hundreds who had assembled
if there was anything unclear about the teachings and practice, and each
time there was silence, which implied that his teachings had been well
understood. He closed his eyes, then he opened them one last time as the
sun was setting. “All conditioned reality is subject to decay, strive on
diligently,” he said. Those were his final words.
News of the Buddha’s passing spread and people kept arriving in large
numbers. After a week, the Buddha’s body was taken to the Hiranyavati
river bank to be cremated. As the cremation was about to start, a messenger
came to say that the elder Maha Kashyapa was coming north with five
hundred monks. Maha Kashyapa arrived, circumambulated the body three
times, and then lit the pyre. There is now a beautiful stupa to mark that
spot.

Even before the pyre had cooled down, a war almost broke out over the
relics, until a local Brahmin priest suggested that they be divided so that
each could get a share. Today, it’s poignant to sit by the eighteen-foot
reclining Buddha statue in Kushinagar while contemplating his profound
teachings on “no birth and no death.”

 Lumbini 蓝毗尼园

Traveling farther north, a few miles across the border from India into
Nepal, we come to Lumbini, the Buddha’s birthplace. Late in her
pregnancy, the Buddha’s mother, Queen Maha Maya, was traveling from
her marital home to her mother’s home to deliver the baby. Midway into
the journey, she stopped to rest in the beautiful pleasure garden at
Lumbini, which bordered the Koliya and Shakya kingdoms. It’s said that as
she rested in the garden, the labor pains began, and she walked over to a
flowering tree and held onto one of its branches with her right arm while
the baby was delivered. This image mirrors the tribal tradition of tree
nymphs. Incidentally, all the Buddha’s major life events—his birth,
awakening, and death—happened under trees and occurred on the full
moon of the month of Baisakh, which is usually in May.

About a hundred miles east of Lumbini is Sravasti .

sravasti in Chinese : 舍城 ||| 舍卫 ||| 舍卫城... Here we find
the remains of an ancient city and a beautiful park, the Jetavana 祗树给
孤独园, another parcel of land donated to the Buddha’s sangha in his
lifetime. This place is significant as the Buddha spent more time here than
anywhere else. It’s where he offered his largest body of teachings and
converted the dreaded serial killer Angulimala. 央掘魔羅
When we go on a pilgrimage like this, it is more than just travel. It is also an
inner journey. We find that seeds are watered in our store consciousness
that usually lie dormant inside us. It’s a wonderful way to know ourselves,
as we have the opportunity to be more attentive to all that is going on inside
and outside of us.

When we contemplate the Buddha’s teachings in the places he delivered

them, they acquire a deeper meaning. We experience moments of
awakening that renew our faith in the practices and teachings of the
Buddha. We breathe with him. We walk with him. We meet the Buddha.

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ABOUT SHANTUM SETH

Shantum Seth has been leading pilgrimages and other transformative journeys across India and Asia since
1988.