The Puskarini pond & Ashokan pillar

Just beside the Maya Devi Temple lie the two features that make Lumbini not only sacred but certain: the sacred pond, and the pillar that names the place.

The Puskarini

The Puskarini is a stepped, square tank of still water, its stone terraces descending to the surface. Tradition holds that Queen Maya bathed in this pool before giving birth, and that the infant was given his first bath here. Pilgrims walk its edge in the early morning, when the water holds the sky and the surrounding sal trees are loud with birds.

Eight words in Brahmi

A few steps away stands the Ashokan pillar, erected when the emperor Ashoka came on pilgrimage in 249 BCE. Its inscription, in the Brahmi script, records that Ashoka visited "because here the Buddha was born," and that he reduced the village's taxes in honour of the place. Rediscovered in 1896, this inscription is the single most important piece of evidence identifying Lumbini — the moment archaeology confirmed devotion. We walk the garden slowly, in the order Ashoka himself is thought to have walked it, and read the eight words that hold it all.