The mysterious little Buddha
Ram Bahadur Banjan is 15 years old.
Motionless, his eyes closed, nestled in the lotus position - the classic
posture for Zen meditation - to the hollow of the roots of a tree in the Bara
jungle, to the south of Katmandu, he is meditating. He has allegedly remained
so since May 17th.
Idlers and believers come daily to
visit the young man. Facing this huge crowd, soldiers have been deployed in the
sector. Parkings have been improvised and tradesmen have set up near the
teenager’s place of meditation. It should be said that this place in Nepal is
usually lowly attended. The visitors are maintained by a cord at a distance of
25 meters from the meditating boy. They can only see him in full daylight.
According to the close relations and
the new “disciples” of the 15 year old teenager, he has allegedly remained in
this position for six months. Indeed, according to the Buddhist religion, only
one person, elected by the “spirits”, can achieve this miracle. On the other
hand, his disciples hide him from the sight of the public every night, by using
screens, which raises certain questions according to the skeptics.
The Nepalese police have opened an
investigation. "We have a team (...) which is studying these assertions
to find out how somebody could survive for such a long time without water nor
food", Police Inspector Chitra Bahadur Gurung explains. Unfortunately
for them, the young man remains absolutely quiet and so cannot answer their
questions. The authorities have selected scientists and Buddhist monks to study
the mystery. They have also required the Nepalese Royal Academy of Sciences and
of Technology to send scientists from Katmandu to examine the teenager.
Buddhism numbers approximately 325
million believers in the world, the majority of whom live in Asia. For those
who want to go more deeply into the matter, this religion teaches the art of
rectifying one’s thought and the art of controlling and to trying to reach
Nirvana, the divine state of peace and happiness which only a man “disencumbered
of any desire” can reach.
For several weeks, thousands of
persons have been daring to venture into this hostile jungle day after day, in
order to try to approach a boy who might be the reincarnation of Gautama
Siddaharta, first born in 500 BC, then venerated ever since under the name of
Buddha, “The Awakened”.