India celebrates the 'Buddha Purnima' or the birth anniversary of Buddha with a national holiday. indiayogi commemorates it this year with a selection of Buddhist paintings and artefacts which you can gift to yourself or to someone you love. Take your pick from Wall Hangings depicting the Buddha, delicate Leaf Paintings, exquisite Brass Statues, imposing Buddha Heads in crystal and other precious stones and fragrant Tibetan Incense. For those who would like to listen and meditate on the Buddha, there are 2 melodious Music CDs. The 'Buddha Nature' by the world renowned flautist C.G. Deuter and the 'Sacred Chants of Buddha' by Craig Pruess and other vocalists. Books also make an ideal gift and there are several books on Buddhism for you to pick.

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Over 2500 years ago on the day of the full moon, Mahamaya, a queen of the royal clan of the Shakyas ruling in the northern regions of the Himalayan ranges in Nepal, was traveling with her retinue through a lush forest on the path to Devdaha. Following traditional custom, she was going to her parents' home to give birth to her first-born who had been conceived after almost twenty years of a childless marriage to King Suddhodan Gautama, the ruler of Kapilavastu.

Passing through a beautiful grove, Mahamaya expressed a desire to rest under the shade of two 'sal' trees in a natural park at Lumbini. The spring air was heavy with the scent of flowers and as the Princess reached out to pluck an asoka blossom, she gave birth to her child in the lap of nature.

According to some sources, Queen Mahamaya's son was born on the eighth day of Vaisakha, which is the month of April. The King, on the anointed day, named his son 'Siddhartha' which means 'every wish fulfilled'. A hermit who lived high up in the mountains came down the path leading to the palace to bless the child. While blessing the newborn, the hermit predicted that "if this child remains in the palace till He is well past His youth, He will become a great king. But, if He forsakes the palace and a life of riches and luxury - then He will become a great sage".

As fate had preordained, the child grew into a youth and the youth grew into manhood shielded from the outside world in His palace at Taulihawa. The royal prince married the beautiful princess Yashodhara who bore Him a son whom they named Rahul. But, according to the hermit's prophecy, the day came when Siddhartha decided to renounce all worldly ties and left the palace to lead the life of an ascetic. After years of meditation, He gained 'nirvana' or 'enlightenment' when He was around 35 years of age, while meditating under the shade of the 'Bodhi' tree at Gaya in Bihar. Henceforth, known as Buddha, He prescribed the 8-fold path to anyone seeking to lead a righteous and peaceful life.

On this auspicious May 26, we also bring you an interesting article on the Buddha Avtaar - who while being born in India, is revered across all Asia and the Far East. His teachings are spreading the message of hope and salvation all over the world.

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There is a tradition in Tibet that on the night of Buddha Purnima, 500 masters gather in a field near the sacred mountain of Kailash, and through the combined power of their meditation manifest the Buddha in his bodily form for one hour every year. The masters must number 500, even one less will not do. If the number falls short, the physical manifestation does not occur. That was the reason every Tibetan family used to send at least one child to become a monk. The greater the number of monks, the better the chances were for the necessary number to be present, every year. Today, of course, the cultural fabric of Tibet has been eroded irretrievably and no such ceremonies are allowed. This vivid story is but one facet of the immense impact made by the Buddha on the psyche of Asia.

The Buddha is one of the most influential and venerated Indians who ever lived. That influence is paradoxically almost by default in the land of his birth. It is as an export that Buddhism has been spectacularly successful. There are many reasons for that but one of the overlooked ones is that in a land where spirituality was automatically equated with the ability to work miracles, He stood out as a beacon of rationality. This may seem strange in a country that produced the Upanishads, but they were a rearguard action against a country that demanded magic, or a reasonable facsimile of it, from holy men. The Buddha, therefore, is not only among India's foremost religious figures, He is also the first in demanding a grounded view of life, which may yet be his major contribution.

We all know the famous story of Gautami, who had come to him with her dead child, with the usual hope for the miracle of resurrection. Was He not the 'Tathagatha', the 'Ford-Crosser', and the most famous holy man of the age? Ergo, miracles were expected. He did perform one, by assuring her the child could indeed be brought back to life, if she got Him some mustard seeds from a house in which death had not occurred. Her wanderings within the city brought the distraught mother to her senses, as she realized that spiritual masters can offer another sort of immortal life, not the impossible one she was asking for.

He had no greater miracle to offer than the realization of the inevitable truth - "Decay is inherent in all component things. Work out your salvation with diligence."