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------------ BUDDHA BOY HAS NATION GUESSING: HOLY OR HOAX? By Connie Levett The Age February 11, 2006 http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/buddha-boy-has-nation-guessing-holy-or-h oax/2006/02/10/1139542406197.html IN SOME ways, Ram Bahadur Bomjan is a typical teenager: he loves his cricket, he sits with shoulders slumped, hair falling into his eyes, uninterested in the world. In other ways, he is definitely not. For the past nine months, the 15-year-old has sat, meditating at the base of a peepal tree in Nepal's Bara District, without food, water, sleep or the need to use the toilet. If that was not remarkable enough, on January 19, he spontaneously combusted, burning off the clothes he has worn for nine months but leaving no scars. Lest there be doubters, his followers caught that combustion on video and plan to present the footage, seen by The Age, at a news conference in Kathmandu, soon. The Buddha Boy, as he is known in Nepal, is a source of equal scepticism and reverence. To the doubters, it is an elaborate scam, which has drawn thousands of pilgrims, domestic and international, to a dirt poor area of Nepal's terrai region. To the pilgrims and merchants in the food bazaar that have sprung up to cater to them, there is no questioning the boy's legitimacy. He is the reincarnation of the Lord Buddha, despite the boy's own denials. Last November, he briefly emerged from his meditation to announce: "Tell people not to call me the Buddha, I do not have the Buddha's energy, I am only at tapaswi level." A tapaswi is a sage who practises austerities. To find the Buddha Boy's forest shrine, you travel 250 kilometres south of Kathmandu. The final kilometre of the pilgrimage is on foot, to prevent traffic disturbing the boy's meditative state. At the site, a series of fenced alleys loop through the forest, directing pilgrims in a one-way stream past the open front of the peepal tree where the boy, with distinctive sloping shoulders, sits slumped inside. Pilgrims are kept at 30 metres distance as they walk past the donation boxes stuffed full of Nepalese rupees. "We believe him, he has been meditating without food for the last six or seven months, (and) we cannot live for even one day without food," said Shesh Raj Lamichhane, 30, a member of the bazaar management committee. "Many people are staying through the night and nobody has seen him eating." At night the forest site is dark and only his supporters stand guard. Mr Lamichhane said on the most holy day of Dashain festival last year, there were 4800 vehicles in a single day. Those who grew up with Ram are surprised at his sudden fame. Prem Lama, his boyhood friend, said he had no sense during his childhood that Ram would be special. Prem is the only one who goes within five metres of the tapaswi and whom he very occasionally communicates through. "Whenever we talk, it's a one-way conversation. He doesn't ask questions," said Prem. Outside his own village, many are doubters. However, Upendra Lamichhane, a local reporter for the leading Nepalese paper Kantipur who has visited the site 10 times, believes the villagers are "too innocent" to pull off such a hoax. The local district administration, concerned about a fraud and whispers that the boy was in fact a statue or a corpse, sent in a medical team from nearby Kalaiya hospital. His colleagues went two months ago to investigate but were not allowed within five metres. The last message from the tapaswi, after he spontaneously combusted, was addressed to those who doubt him, saying the fire showed the reality of his power and he would use it another three times during his meditation. However, the fire has only raised new doubts. He had reportedly been sparking over several days before the fire. On January 19, at 8.30 in the evening, with 59 witnesses, fire erupted from his chest. Rasham K.C., the shrine's photographer happened to be sitting close by and ran to record it. The video is unlikely to convince the doubters and raises new questions. If the fire is a fraud then the boy himself and many of the "innocent" villagers are implicated in an increasingly elaborate hoax. -------------- PREVIOUS NHNE NEWS LIST ARTICLES: 'BUDDHA BOY' UPDATE 4 (1/27/2006): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10745 'BUDDHA BOY' UPDATE 3 (12/5/2006): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10493 MORE ON 'BUDDHA BOY' INVESTIGATION (12/02/2005): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10478 NEPAL TO PROBE MYSTERY 'BUDDHA BOY' (11/28/2005): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10439 PILGRIMS FLOCK TO SEE RAM BOMJON, THE 'BUDDHA BOY' (11/21/2005): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10393 ------------ NHNE News List: To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To review current posts: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/messages Published by David Sunfellow NewHeavenNewEarth (NHNE) eMail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] NHNE Website: http://www.nhne.com/ Phone: (928) 282-6120 Fax: (815) 642-0117 Appreciate what we are doing? 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