Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Shesha Shayana Maha Vishnu, Budhanilkantha



023/366 Ok! This was one of my "dream come true" moments...
I first saw this beautiful Shesha Shayana Maha Vishnu's lovely statue in a travel show 'musafir hoon yaron' in Star Plus hosted by Deepti Bhatnagar many years back. Ever since I saw this huge 18 feet statue of Lord Vishnu on TV, I wanted to visit this place...

And what I saw in reality was more mesmerizing than what I saw in TV...
Beautiful calm face of Vishnu is seriously infectious!

Lord Vishnu is known as "Budhanilkantha" is also located in place called Budhanilkantha, which is situated 10km north of Kathmandu.
Though exact date of this statue is unknown, it is believed to be at least 1300 year old as inscription dated 641 AD by Vishnu Gupta is found in this area.
This beautiful statue is set in the middle of pond and Lord Vishnu appears to float on water.

Since main deity is in horizontal position & is surrounded by water, preist has to walk over the statue to decorate, which probably is unique in the world!

Legend
Legend has that King Suryaketu had it constructed during his reign but it lay buried for many centuries after an earthquake. Later, King Dharmagat saw the image and the location of the Budhanikantha in a dream and he excavated the ground. The people believe that the excavation caused the unparalleled image small damage on its nose. Others believe it was an old farmer(buddha in hindi) who discovered the image while working on his field.

For beautiful pics & more info:
http://sacredsites.com/asia/nepal/budhanilkantha_statue.html
http://www.trailblazertrekking.com/budhanilkantha.htm

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