Dateline: 27 November 2025. Another daunting day of travel was ahead of us. We were told the night before that the coach would be leaving the Imperial Kushinagar at 5.30 in the morning. That ruled out any hope of a proper breakfast. Instead, food packs would be handed out before departure. The explanation was simple enough: Rajgir was our final destination for the day, and even under favourable conditions it would take close to nine hours of driving along India’s national highways. In theory, there would be stops along the way but anyone who has travelled these roads knows that schedules here are more aspiration than promise. As it turned out, we did not reach the Rajgir Residency until about 6.45 in the evening. Thirteen hours on the road.
To reach Kesariya, and indeed Vaishali and Rajgir, we crossed back into Bihar, arriving there around eight in the morning. The Kesariya Buddha Stupa is a site of immense historical and spiritual weight. It is often described as the largest Buddhist stupa in the world by circumference, and possibly once the tallest as well. Today it rises to about 104 feet, with a vast girth approaching 400 feet, but before the great earthquake of 1934 it is thought to have stood closer to 150 feet. Seen from above, its terraced form resembles a giant mandala. Only part of the structure has been fully excavated. Much of it still lies buried beneath earth and vegetation.Kesariya is bound to one of the most poignant episodes of the Buddha’s final journey. As he travelled from Vaishali towards Kushinagar, knowing that his parinibbāna was near, the Licchavis of Vaishali followed him in grief, unwilling to turn back. To persuade them to return home, the Buddha was said to have given them his alms bowl as a keepsake. Tradition held that an original mud stupa was raised here to enshrine it, and that successive generations added layer upon layer, until the monument grew to its monumental scale. The alms bowl itself has long since disappeared, its fate unknown.
After lunch at the Vaishali Residency, our next stop brought us deeper into Vaishali, to the Buddha Relic Stupa, among the most sacred sites in the Buddhist world. According to the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta, after the Buddha’s cremation at Kushinagar, his relics were divided into eight portions and distributed among eight clans. The Licchavis received one share and enshrined it here. For centuries, the stupa lay hidden as an unremarkable mud mound. Excavations in the twentieth century revealed, deep within its core, a small casket containing relic ash mixed with earth, along with a fragment of conch, two glass beads, a thin gold leaf and a copper punch-marked coin. These relics are now preserved nearby in the Buddha Samyak Darshan Museum and Memorial Stupa.
Next:
Nepal-India Day 8: Gridhakuta (Rajgir)
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