By Archana Giri
Namo Buddha is in Kavre district in the SouthEast of Kathmandu valley. It is 40 km far from Kathmandu. It is a historical place. Fora long time, I was planning to go there. I had heard many things about that place. Finally, at grade 10 I got a chance to visit that place called Namo Buddha . I was very excited to know about that place. I was expecting to get a chance to know more about historical place. Namo Buddha is one of the most important religious site in Nepal.
It was the time of winter. All student and teachers decided that to visit Namo Buddha as our picnic destination . We all decided to started our journey at 7 am in the morning. First of all we shared the responsibilities among us. Then started our journey at 7 am early in the morning. Some of us were sitting in the roof of the bus and some were inside the bus. We were enjoying a lot in the bus by singing and dancing on the way to Namo Buddha. We reached there at 11am in the morning . Then we found a small place for cooking We helped each other as planned then quickly completed our duty. After that we went to the temple. It took 45 min to reach the temple from where we were staying.
Namo Buddha is a beautiful and tiny hill top about 40 km from Kathmandu. Namo Buddha means ‘greeting to the Lord Buddha’. There is an interesting story associated with the child prince behind the place. A little prince saw a weak and hungry tigress laying on the ground with her cubs on the hunting tour in the area. The prince saw that the tigress were hungry but had nothing to offer immediately. Eventually he fed his own flesh and blood to that striving tigers family. That young prince off course little Buddha. Therefore, Namobuddha is also regarded as a great symbol of human sacrifice at its highest level.
When I heard that I was extremely amazed that how can a person feed his own flesh to the tiger. I feel so humble when I heard that story of the prince. I think that nothing in this world is greater than sacrifice . I learnt that being able to offer something meaningful to someone in need gives the ultimate happiness in life. we went round all the temple and noticed that in every there was different deities Some rules like no taking photo, not making noise and many more could be seen everywhere. Therefore We took a lot of photos of that temple from outside. Inside we could see a statue of the prince and the tiger with cubs just like it was in the myth.
So we came back to the picnic spot after collecting a lot of information about that place. Teachers were waiting for us to have a breakfast together. We all had our breakfast together. After having breakfast, we all start playing music and dancing. I got chance to develop friendly relationships with other friends who were from another group. They came for picnic as well. And they also there for picnic. We all decided to returned at 4:00 pm in the evening . We reached home at 8 in the evening. We helped each other to take out of the thing from bus. We were very tired so we all went home immediately. I think that had the roads been build there, the poverty would be no more. They can develop tourism in that area so the will get employment opportunity.
It was so informative for me as well as I enjoyed fantastic aerial views too. It was one of the most memorable moment of my life. One thing I realized about myself is that I love travelling because I get to know about history and more information. So it was the one day that I remember frequently.
If anyone speaks the word Buddha, I will immediately remember about that prince who give his flesh and blood to hungry tiger.