Namo Buddha

Namo Buddha, also known in Tibetan as Takmo Lujin, is a Buddhist pilgrimage place in a municipality of Kavrepalanchok District in Bagmati Province, Nepal, about 52 kilometres southeast of Kathmandu. The name recalls the story of an earlier incarnation of Shakyamuni Buddha who gave his body to feed a starving tigress and her cubs. The Namo Buddha Stupa is said to house his bone relics and is counted among the three most important pilgrimage sites and main stupas of the Kathmandu Valley. A stairway through the woods links it to the place where the sacrifice is said to have happened, beside the Namo Buddha Monastery of the Karma Kagyu tradition. The town of Panauti, eight kilometres downhill, hosts the annual Namo Buddha Mela festival each November. At the 2011 census Namobuddha Municipality had 29,926 residents, mostly Tamang, Hill Brahmin and Newar.