Thousands of pilgrims rushed the other day into the impenetrable forests of Nepal to witness with their own eyes the slender 17-year-old boy Rama Bahadur Bandjan, unofficially announced back in 2005 as the next reincarnation of Buddha. Then eyewitnesses claimed that the living incarnation of God spent in prayers exactly ten months without food and water
Last year, Banjan sat in some kind of underground bunker for three years to meditate. However, the other day the young man unexpectedly appeared next to a temple lost in the jungle near the Nepalese capital Kathmandu. He delivers 45-minute sermons calling for universal equality. The face of the "living Buddha" is hidden by long hair.
Charters with pilgrims from India, China, Thailand and Vietnam will land at the tiny airport of Kathmandu. But the authorities are in no hurry to greet the newly-minted Buddha. What if it's a swindler! The police are embarrassed that at the sermons some cunning people are collecting donations with might and main.
The last article on the Buddha's incarnation was written in 2006:
Promotional video:
“A boy from Nepal, they want to investigate for a long time. At the same time, scientists want to carry out their work in such a way as not to detach him from meditation. According to friends, relatives and “officials” of the teenager Ram Bahadur Bamzhan, he spent six months in meditation without drinking water. Now he is going to continue cultivating for another six years until enlightenment comes.
The BBC notes that most people can survive several weeks without food, taking advantage of the body's stored protein and fat. However, the average person can survive without water for only a few days. Believers are convinced that saints and hermits have supernatural powers, but such abilities rarely become the object of scientific research.
However, the number of people who want to receive valid evidence of the "divinity" of the child is constantly growing. Under their pressure, the village administration decided to admit scientists to the child, who will conduct an examination so as not to disrupt his meditation.
The child is called the new Siddhartha Gautama. This is a key figure in Buddhism, this is the name of the Indian spiritual teacher, who was born about five and a half centuries before our era and, as believers believe, reached nirvana - the highest stage of spiritual enlightenment.
Recall that world fame overtook Ram Bamjan very quickly - people learned about a fifteen-year-old teenager who continuously sits under a tree in the Nepalese village of Ratanapuri and meditates in the lotus position. For six months the boy's hair has grown back and now hangs over his eyes. The villagers claim that in six months he has become very weak. The boy's mother says that sometimes she comes up to her son to talk, but he does not answer her. “I don’t know what is happening to him, but I’m sure God is helping him,” the woman says. When she first found out that her son wanted to begin such a long meditation, she fainted.
The photo of the "little Buddha" is regularly printed in the newspapers, and how he has changed can be easily seen, the BBC notes.
The meditation site attracts tourists and enriches the entire region
The tree under which Ram Bamjan is meditating is decorated, and incense is constantly burned near this place. Moreover, the Air Force concludes, a whole infrastructure has grown around this place. The constant influx of people has led to economic growth in the region and opened up new opportunities for it. Shops were opened everywhere, and money turnover increased.
Authorities say the local bank has collected nearly half a million rupees ($ 7,000) in donations from believers. This is not counting the money that is not invested in the bank, but made as donations on the spot. The villagers have created a special committee, which, on the one hand, must guard the meditation of the new Buddha, and on the other hand, control the flow of visitors to him and consider the “proposals they make”.
The most frequent questions that one can hear from tourists are quite predictable: is it true that a child always sits like this and meditates even at night? Is it true that he does not eat or drink at all? According to various sources, from the beginning of his meditation, he either did not take food at all, or nevertheless ate for some time the plant liquid from the tree under which he sits.
The boy's relatives say that he was different from his brothers since childhood. He spoke little and always stayed away from business. At the same time, Ram Bamzhan “never touched alcohol,” says his school teacher.
Relatives say that Bamjan began meditation after traveling to India to the place where the former Buddha was born. At the same time, he was always against being called the current Buddha, since he reached only the first stage of enlightenment. Since his meditation began, he has interacted with people only a few times.
For the first time, he spoke a few words five days after he was bitten by a snake right at the place of meditation. Apparently, this incident did not affect his health, but they decided to surround the place of his meditation with a screen. Five days later, the boy came out of the hiding place and said that he did not need medical attention or a screen. „
The boy disappeared shortly after this article and reappeared two years later.