Guide to Buddhist Sites in the Indian Subcontinent

<p>The Indian subcontinent is the birthplace of Buddhism and the landscape still carries its memory. Under a fig tree in Bihar a prince became the Buddha. In a deer park near Varanasi he gave his first teaching. In the sal groves of Kushinagar he breathed his last. These places still exist. You can sit beneath the Bodhi tree's descendant. You can walk the meditation path he walked.</p><p>Guide to Buddhist Sites in the Indian Subcontinent is a practical companion for pilgrims and travellers who want to visit not just the four great sites: Bodhgaya Lumbini Sarnath Kushinagar but the full sweep of Buddhist sacred geography: the painted caves of Ajanta the carved gateways of Sanchi the drowned stupas of Nagarjunakonda the cliff-top monasteries of Ladakh the ancient university ruins of Nalanda the rock temples of Sri Lanka the jungle shrines of Nepal and Bhutan.</p><p>For each site the authors provide what a pilgrim actually needs: how to get there where to stay what to see and how to experience it. A chapter on visiting Buddhist sites as a practitioner not merely a tourist sets this guide apart from any ordinary travel book. It assumes nothing about the reader's tradition and speaks equally to Theravada Mahayana and Vajrayana practitioners and to anyone drawn to these places by curiosity history or the quiet pull of something larger.</p><p>The path is still there. This book shows you how to walk it.</p>