The Kingdom of the Queen’s Birth
The women who shaped the Buddha’s life — his mother, his stepmother, his wife — were all born here, in the ancient Koliya capital of Devadaha, seven kilometres east of Lumbini.
To understand Devadaha is to understand something about the geography of the Buddha’s birth. Queen Maya Devi did not give birth at Lumbini by intention. She was travelling from Kapilavastu, her husband’s city, to Devadaha, her father’s city, to deliver her child in the tradition of her time and clan. Lumbini was the garden where she stopped to rest. The birth of the Buddha was, in that sense, a moment between two kingdoms — between the Shakya capital of Kapilavastu and the Koliya capital of Devadaha.
Devadaha was the homeland of the Koliya people. The name itself derives from Deva, meaning god, and Daha, meaning pond — the pond of the gods, a body of water so pure it was believed to have come into existence without human agency. The Koliyas and the Shakyas were dynastic allies, their families bound by generations of marriage. Maya Devi was a Koliya princess who became the Shakya queen. Her sister Prajapati Gautami — who raised Siddhartha after Maya’s death seven days after his birth — was also from Devadaha. And Yasodhara, who became Siddhartha’s wife and the mother of his son Rahula, was the daughter of Devadaha’s king.
The Buddhist texts also tell us that Siddhartha himself visited Devadaha as a child, spending time with his aunt and stepmother Prajapati Gautami. After his enlightenment, the Buddha returned to Devadaha and preached to the monks there — several discourses in the Pali Canon are specifically set at Devadaha.
Today, Devadaha is a municipality in Rupandehi District, about seven kilometres east of Lumbini. The historical site of Bhawanipur, four kilometres south of the main road, is believed to be ancient Devadaha proper. Archaeological work here has revealed a long stone column (possibly an Ashokan pillar), a stone image of the Sun God, an ancient brick well, and structural walls of ancient construction visible at the surface. The Kanya Mai Temple in Devadaha Municipality is believed to have been built in memory of Queen Prajapati Gautami; its standing image of Lokeshvara holding a lotus remains a centre of worship.
The sacred pond of Devadaha — the daha from which the ancient city took its name — is believed to be the one from which the royal household drew water and in which the divine is said to have bathed. Prince Siddhartha himself is said to have bathed in this pond during his childhood visits. An enormous peepal tree of the Ficus benjamina species, with a trunk circumference of roughly 25 metres and a height of nearly 30 metres, stands as one of the oldest living landmarks of the area.
