Thousands flock to see ‘teenage Buddha’

AUTHORITIES in Nepal urged religious groups and scientists yesterday to help solve the mystery of a meditating teenage boy who some believe is an incarnation of Buddha.

At least 100,000 devotees from Nepal and neighbouring India have flocked in recent weeks to a dense forest in south-eastern Nepal to see 15-year-old Ram Bahadur Bamjon, who, his associates say, has been meditating without food or water for six months.

Shanta Raj Subedi, district administrator of Bara, 150km south-east of Kathmandu and where the boy is meditating, said he had requested the Lumbini Development Trust, a Buddhist panel, and the Royal Nepal Academy of Science and Technology to get to the bottom of the mystery.