bouddhanath

Participants will then go to Bouddhanath where they will be given the opportunity to learn about the cultural history behind the highly revered and extremely large Buddhist stupa. Emerging from the three dimensional mandala base, the dome of the stupa- the largest in Nepal- opens to the peaceful eyes of the Buddha looking over the valley in four directions.   Legend says that a wealthy landowner offered to gift a poor man all the land that could be covered by a single cowhide for the construction of the stupa.   The man thus cut the hide into thin strips and formed a large circle that now marks the inner sanctum of Bouddhanath stupa, 100 m in diameter and 40 m in height.

  A famous Buddhist pilgrimage site, Bouddhanath is also home to the largest concentrated population of Tibetan Refugees in Nepal.   The compound is commonly full of pilgrims, devotees and tourists taking a clockwise tour around the stupa while turning the prayer wheels and observing the 108 Buddhist deity images that surround the base.   Throughout and beyond the compound, monasteries from all four schools of Mahayana Buddhism are present training initiate monks in their philosophies.   With evening comes the glow of butter lamps bought in offering, a smell that mixes strongly with juniper and other Himalayan plants as the ever present olfactory marker of Tibetan Buddhism.