Lumbini is one of the key sites associated with the life of the Buddha; others are Bodh Gaya, where he became a Buddha or enlightened one; Sarnath, where he first preached; and Kusinagara, where he passed away.
Yeah, it's true.
At his passing at the age of 80, the Buddha is recorded as having recommended that all Buddhists visit "Lumbini."
I've read the Pali Mahaparinibbana Sutta, which purports to include the Buddhas' last discourse. I don't recall the Buddha recommending pilgrimages, but it's possible it's in there. I'm not very good at memorizing that stuff. Or maybe it's recorded somewhere else.
There are different accounts of the Buddha's death scattered around. Perhaps the Vinaya has something about him recommending pilgrimages. The Chinese Tripitaka records all kinds of early material in the Agamas, and there are various Mahayana accounts with varying historicity, I guess.
The shrine was still popular in the middle of the first millennium A.D. and was recorded by Chinese pilgrims as having a shrine beside a tree.
Yeah, it survived for at least a thousand years, with a succession of structures built on the site. They all seem to have had the same general form, a large square-shaped structure (the later versions that were already known to archaeology were built in stone) with a large uncovered court in the center, with the tree in the center of that.
Apparently it was eventually destroyed by invaders, possibly the Muslims, or perhaps the earlier White Huns. It may have been destroyed and rebuilt several times, gradually declining in importance.
This newest discovery is extremely important for several reasons. Most important is its 6th century BCE date.
There has been a long standing scholarly debate about the precise date of the Buddha's life. In the last few decades, academic opinion has tended to the belief that the Buddha lived about 100 years later than once thought, dying in the late 400's BCE. That latter date has kind of become 'received opinion' among scholars.
This new discovery shows that there was a wooden structure on the site before the first known stone building was later built in the same place. The site was farm fields before that initial wooden structure was built and the later stone structures, which were definitely Buddhist, had the same general architectural plan as the wooden predecessor. And most importantly, the wooden structure has been dated by several methods to the 500's BCE. That means that the earlier dates for the Buddha's life were probably right after all.
The discovery shows that pilgrimages to the site of the Buddha's birth were taking place very early. It's conceivable that the wooden structure was built during the Buddha's life, but I'm guessing that it was probably constructed after his death. If so, that might push his lifetime back even further. It also shows that even though the earliest monastic sangha was an order of wandering ascetics, fixed structures of considerable size were being constructed very early. That's very interesting to historians of Buddhism. It also suggests that the Buddhists may have had significant lay patronage from earliest times. The Pali suttas depict the Buddha advising kings, and maybe this is evidence it was true.
