The Buddha evokes feelings of peace and harmony, but a plan to boost the profile of his birthplace as an international tourist site has outraged followers and prompted protests.
The reason? Buddhist organisations are questioning the involvement of a man mired in the politics of violence as the head of that initiative, contrary to their religion's path of peace and non-violence.
Lumbini in modern-day Nepal is revered as Buddha's birthplace, and was designated as a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1997.
But despite its religious and cultural importance, it has never been seriously developed as an independent tourist site. Hotels are few and road access limited. It is often the last hop for Buddhist tours coming from India via Sarnath and important sites such as Bodh Gaya and Kushinagar.
Nepalese tour operators complain that pilgrims on such tours are returned back to India after a brief visit to Lumbini.
Now high-profile people such as United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon and as many as four heads of states are apparently involved in an effort to push it into the international tourism spotlight.
But the initiative is being spearheaded by former Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal, better known as "Prachanda" or "The Fierce One'. From 1996 to 2006, he led a bloody insurgency against the state's monarchy that resulted in the deaths of more than 15,000.
A 2006 peace pact ended the civil war, and the Maoists won an election in 2008, paving the way for Dahal to take over as prime minister. But he resigned in 2009, and is now chairman of The Greater Lumbini National Development Committee, much to the concern of prominent Buddhist monks, including abbots of major monasteries in Nepal.
Dahal's project, however, is not the first one on Lumbini and neither is his interest in the holy site new.
Another initiative called the Lumbini Development Project is already being implemented as part of a vision shared by former UN secretary-general U Thant, a practising Buddhist, and the late King Birendra of Nepal. Noted Japanese architect Kenzo Tange was also involved in it.
But the pace of this project, which began in 1978, has been slow. Members of this project said they have no idea what Dahal's committee intends to do or implement. "We really don't know how the new project is going to add to the previous plan," a member, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Sunday Times.
In November last year, Dahal visited New York as chairman of the Lumbini National Development Committee to invite Ban to a conference on the holy site scheduled to be held late next month. According to Dahal, Ban readily accepted.
A spokesman for the office of the UN Secretary-General said it could not confirm the trip, and an announcement would be made much closer to the date if it happens.
Nevertheless, given Dahal's history and the concerns of Nepal's Buddhist community, Ban's alleged involvement in the initiative is already drawing controversy.
"It would be untimely and inauspicious for the Secretary-General to visit Lumbini under present circumstances," wrote Kul Chandra Gautam, a Nepali national who unsuccessfully contested for the chair of the UN General Assembly last year, a few years after he retired as assistant secretary-general of the world body.
"Nepal is at a critical juncture, struggling to overcome the legacy of a decade-long civil war that killed 15,000. Genuine peace has not yet dawned, the drafting of the new Constitution has been delayed by two years, and there is rampant lawlessness and impunity," he said in his blog, a posting that has since been carried by many Nepali papers.
Gautam wrote that the current government led by the Maoists has granted mass amnesty to Maoist cadres and leaders involved in cases like murders and abduction during the years of insurgency.
"Should Ban be chairing the international conference on Lumbini as the guest of Prachanda with that reputation?" he asked.
Ban had earlier planned to visit Nepal this month, some reports in the Nepalese press said, but cancelled that visit in the face of a series of protests by Buddhist organisations, with some of them submitting petitions to different embassies on how the development of Lumbini is being politicised, and how Buddhists - the real stakeholders - were being excluded from Dahal's initiatives.
This time, Ban is expected to be joined by the heads of Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and possibly Bhutan, foreign ministry officials said, on condition of anonymity as the plans have not yet been confirmed.
But Gautam said: "The Secretary-General co-chairing such a conference at a holy site would be a sacrilege, insulting not just peace-loving Nepalis but also millions of Buddhists around the world."
