Bid to find Buddha’s maternal home: Devdaha excavation unearths new facets
Excavations carried out in Devdaha in Lumbini to verify the place as Lord Buddha’s maternal home have brought to light new facets of the area.
The excavations were carried out from October to December 2011 by the Lumbini Development Trust (LDT) and the Department of Archaeology (DoA).
Of the four areas—Kanyamai, Bairimai, Bhawanipur and Khayar Danda—identified by archaeologists as potential spots that could surface a palace that was home to Buddha’s maternal relatives and in-laws, an excavation was carried out at Kanyamai in 2011. The “unverified ruins” of old bricks running vertical and horizontal below the surface can be found in all the four locations.
Chief of National Archives under the DoA Prakash Darnal said the area in Kanyamai was dug three feet. “A layer of natural soil surfaced after digging three feet down, ruling out the possibility of a palace at Kanyamai,” he said.
“However, excavations at Devdaha have not left us empty handed. A structure hinting at the existence of a religious Buddhist monument has been found in the area,” he said. “More interesting is the finding of a well and a stone inscription—supposedly evincing civilisation dating back to around the 2nd to 3rd century AD.”
The inscription has three numbers. Archaeologists were able to identify the last two numbers as 5 and 7 respectively, however, they could not recognise the first number as it has faded. “We are working to identify the first number as well,” he said, adding that the details, if decoded, are sure to help excavations in three other areas in the future.
The well excavated at Kanyamai, according to Darnal, is larger compared to today’s wells. “The well has a five-metre outer wall, which is too high for normal wells,” he said. “This year, since only up to one-and-a-half feet could be dug, we were unable to find the exact depth of the well.” Although there are a number of folklore and travelogues pontificating that Devdaha was the place where Buddha and his father King Suddhodhan got married, no inscription or coin have ever been found to establish the claim.
The matter has been shrouded in mystery since the fifth century after an archaeologist named Fasyan first mentioned in his travelogue that the maternal kingdom of Buddha and Suhdhodhan was the Kwaliyar state (the present-day Devdaha).
According to Darnal, archaeologists and travellers, including Fasyan (fifth century), When Sang (seventh century) and Hoey (1962) have mentioned this fact in their writings. As cross-cousin marriage was popular then, some archaeologists have also dropped a hint that Buddha’s mother Mayadevi and wife Yasodhara came from the same family in Kwaliyar. Kwaliyar was a neighbouring state of Kapilvastu between Lumbini’s Rohini River in the east and Narayani River in the west—an area that matches up with Devdaha.
Posted on: 2012-02-12 08:04
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