The Mystery of the Boy Buddha

Mir

ed in poverty and beset by civil war, Nepal could use a savior. And thousands of Nepalese thought they had found one in 16-year-old Ram Bahadur Bomjan, whom they believe to be a reincarnation of Buddha, born some 2,500 years ago in Nepal. On May 16, the so-called "boy Buddha" began what his followers claimed was a continuous meditation in his home village of Ratanpur, south of Kathmandu, sitting in a lotus position under a fig tree and refusing all food or water for 10 months. This apparently miraculous spectacle drew hundreds of pilgrims a day, turning Ratanpur into a boomtown as villagers built roads, hotels and restaurants to accommodate the visitors.

Then, before dawn on March 11, Bomjan disappeared. On March 19, Bed Bahadur Lama, Bomjan's chief disciple, claimed the teenager had reappeared to speak to a group of seven followers, telling them he had retreated into the forest to escape the crowds that were disturbing his meditation. Lama produced a videotape in which a disheveled Bomjan said he would return in six years and requested people stop looking for him.

Skeptics suspicious of Bomjan's sudden fame say he may have had more earthly reasons to retreat, and that signs of his divinity may not have been what they appeared.  In recent weeks, requests for a medical examination to discover whether Bomjan had really been fasting for months were refused by his followers, while villagers prevented others from studying him through binoculars to see if he ever moved from beneath the tree. Local government administrator Shantaram Subedi, who shares the concern, has frozen about $85,000 in an account set up by Bomjan's followers to collect donations. But none of this has swayed the faith of many Nepalese, now making do with the memory of a messiah who has come and, all to quickly, went away. As Ratanpur villager Raju Shah says: "We do not care what the world says." For now, however, believers and cynics alike must await a second coming.