By Gopal Sharma Mon Dec 25, 11:02
AM ET
KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A mysterious teenaged boy believed by
some to be a reincarnation of Lord Buddha has reappeared in
eastern Nepal after vanishing for nine months, a witness and
a television channel said on Monday.
Sixteen-year-old Ram Bahadur Bamjon was spotted on Sunday by
villagers in the remote and dense forests near Piluwa
village in Bara district, 150 km (95 miles) east of
Kathmandu, local journalist Raju Shrestha, who visited the
boy, told Reuters.
Bamjon disappeared in March from the forests in nearby
Ratanpuri village where he had reportedly been meditating
without food or water for almost 10 months.
"I have been wandering in the forests since then," Shrestha
quoted Bamjon as telling him.
"I am engaged in devotion which will continue for six
years," the boy told Shrestha.
Hundreds of curious onlookers, including many Buddhists,
thronged the site to see the boy, sitting in a meditating
position.
A local TV station showed people pressing their palms
together and lowering their heads in devotion in front of
him.
"I don't think he is a Buddha. But he has some sort of extra
strength to meditate. He eats herbs," Shrestha said.
Before his disappearance, an estimated 100,000 people from
Hindu-majority Nepal and neighboring India flocked to see
him meditate. They were not allowed to get closer than 50
meters (165 feet).
Shrestha, who met the boy up close, said he had
shoulder-length hair and sat cross-legged under a small
tree.
"He has an ash-color shawl wrapped across his chest," he
said, adding the boy had a "flat-ended scimitar" next to
him.
Buddha was born a prince in Lumbini, a dusty village in
Nepal's rice-growing plains about 350 km (220 miles) west of
the capital Kathmandu more than 2,600 years ago.
He is believed to have attained enlightenment at Bodh Gaya
in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, which borders Nepal.
