Nepal’s Buddha Boy Goes Missing

“I need six years of deep meditation.”

Thousands flock to see meditating boy 'Buddha'

Vernal Equinox Update: Buddha Boy & the Celtic Nagas

The 16-year-old boy who had been meditating and fasting in a Nepal forest for 10 months has been missing since Saturday morning, police say. Locals and police searched the area in the southern district of Bara but have not been able to locate him so far.

Police have rejected reports that the young boy, popularly known as "Little Buddha", may have been abducted. His followers say Ram Bomjan may have moved deep inside the forest looking for a quieter place to meditate.

Hundreds of people used to visit the area every day where the young boy was meditating. Make-shift shops had been set up by the locals to cater to the visitors who came from different parts of Nepal and neighbouring India.

Buddhist flags were erected around the site where Bomjan was meditating. Booklets carrying his photo and CDs sold like hotcakes in Kathmandu and other parts of the country.

'No food or water'

His followers claimed that Bomjan did not take food or even water throughout his 10 month-long meditation. They refused, however, to allow any independent investigation about the health conditions of Bomjan saying that "it would disturb him."

The authorities also did not intervene to avoid hurting local feeling. While critics accused Bomjan's followers of fooling people, the young boy continued to hog media headlines.

Tired from the decade-old armed conflict that has already claimed more than 13,000 lives, followers of Bomjan claimed that he was an incarnation of Lord Buddha who was born in Nepal more than 2,500 years ago. They are still hoping that Bomjan will reappear somewhere deep in the forest and continue his meditation.

BBC News

Nepal's 'Buddha Boy' vanishes

KATHMANDU: A Nepali teenager who created a sensation as the new "Buddha Boy" of the Himalayan kingdom has been reported missing from his place of meditation in southern Nepal after a mysterious fire.

Dubbed the "Little Buddha', "Boy Buddha" and "Namo Buddha", many believed 15-year-old Ram Bahadur Bomjan was the reincarnation of the Buddha. Earlier this month, a mysterious fire broke out at the site. It was not clear immediately if Bomjan had been injured in the blaze.

As a committee of villagers formed to safeguard Bomjan arrived here to show a video of the fire, claiming he was not harmed, the boy has vanished. His clothes were found near the tree but there is no trace of him.

...Bomjan, a fifth grader from Ratanpur village in Bara district in southern Nepal, hit the headlines last year when the local media said he had been found sitting in the same meditation posture as Lord Buddha under a peepal tree.

Like the Buddha, Bomjan's mother was also called Maya and, according to media reports, she had told people her son refused to eat meat from an early age and would wander from one monastery to another. Bed Bahadur Thing, who heads the Om Namo Buddha Meditating Forest Conversation Committee, told the media Bomjan had forecast it would take him six years' meditation to attain enlightenment.

Bomjan is said to have begun meditation in the Char Koshe Jhadi in Bara about eight months ago, when he stopped eating and even drinking. He is said to have been sitting in the same position throughout the day, clad in a single piece of unstitched cloth, even during the harsh winter.

...As curious onlookers and devotees as well as journalists from outside Nepal started thronging the meditation site, villagers formed a committee to "look after" Bomjan.

There was mounting speculation that the boy could have been forcibly taken away either by security forces or Maoist guerrillas or gangs from neighbouring India.

The crowds flocking to catch a glimpse of the "wonder boy" were reportedly posing a problem for the security forces. There were also reports saying security forces believed the lion's share of the money donated by devotees went to the Maoist coffers.

There was no immediate comment from the authorities.

Last year, the district administration had asked the Lumbini Development Board, a state agency entrusted with developing Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha, and the Royal Nepal Academy of Science and Technology to investigate the Boy Buddha's mystery.

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© 2006 by St.Clair