Buddhist Heritage
Bharat is the sixth century BC was characterized buy a mental stir and spiritual urge of an unusual nature. During this period, more that three hundred religious orders and their philosophies were float. Most of them stood in strong opposition to the Vedic system, especially the element of brahmanical sacrifice and the monistic theories of the Upanishads.
Buddha middle path triumphed in a big way. The essential point about Him and His teaching is that He never claimed any connection with the God. The essence of His teaching is the universal question of suffering and the way to seek its eradication. The solution He advocated was individual effort and not reliance on superhuman or external agency- save your self by yourself. Buddha introduced four noble truths as the central point of his doctrine. The first of these is about unhappiness that exits everywhere ; the second that there is a cause of this unhappiness-mainly due to craving, born of ignorance; the third state that there can be an end to this unhappiness; the fourth, that it is to be achieved by following the middle course to perpetual bliss. The summation of His teaching is to refrain from all evil, to do good and to purify the mind.

Siddhartha Gautama was born to king Shddhodhana in Kapilavastu in 623 BC . He bore 32 signs of a great man and a sardine by the seers . He was destined to conquer the world. It all began when He renounced the royal ease and decided to wander in search of answers to His questions on human existence and sufferings. After six long years, he discarded practicing austerities and penance and opted for a new path. He produced the shroud of a dead woman, washed it and donned it as monastic robe, and seated Himself under a Pipal tree with a vow to get up only after acquiring the supreme knowledge or to die. His efforts were finally rewarded on the 49th night when He attained enlightenment. Thereon He came to be know as Buddha or the enlightened One.

This is the birthplace of Lord Buddha, a Royal Prince and heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Kapilvastu. At the time of His birth His mother was enroute to her parent's home but she gave birth at Lumbini which was meant to be resting-place for the night. Here there still exits a small pond where the Queen bathed her new born child. And it is believed that 7 lotus flowers blossomed and on these He took 7 steps.

The holiest of spots of Buddhism, as it was here under the bodhi tree, that Gautama, prince of Kapilvastu, attained Nirvana and became the Buddha, the enlighten one. The tree that stands today is believed to have grown from the original one under which Lord Buddha meditated. The Mahabodhi Temple is in a complex surrounded by relief's of the jataka tales immortalizing stories of Blessed one's life and His previous incarnations, monasteries and shrines, which are offerings of devotees from Japan, Thailand, Burma, China, Tibet and Srilanka. It is also believed that original Bodhi tree sprand up the day of Siddharthas birth.

Rajgir is closely associated with the life and teaching of Buddha. Buddha commenced his first alms begging mission while staying in a cave on one of the hills. It was at Rajgir that BUddha had commended His monks neither sing nor hear any songs, beside other do's and don'ts.

10 kms from Vananasi, it was in quiet grove here, in the 6th century BC, that Siddhartha Gautama - who came to be known as the Buddha, the "awakened One "- gave His first sermon, and set in motion the Wheel of Law, the dharmachakra. During the rainy season, when the Buddha and followers sought respite from the rounds of itinerant teaching, they would retire to Sarnath.

It is the place where Buddha confounded His critics with a million fold manifestation of Himself, seated on a thousands petalled  lotus, as fire and water emanated from his body.

The lord Buddha visited here more that once during His lifetime and announced his approaching mahanirvana to the great followers . He had there. According to one belief, the Jain Tirthankar, Lord Mahavir was born at Vaishali.

It is revered as the site of the Buddha's mahaparinirvana, His death and cremation has marked His final liberation from cycle of death or rebirth.