Abhanagri, or Abhaneri, the medieval capital of the Gujar Pratihara Kings

its the year 1120,and you are a resident of theThe village of Abhaneri  established by the Gurjar Pratihar king Samrat  Bhoj.the legendry Mihir Raja Bhoj, the fabled King Raja Chand, is now no more, he has been dead for a century, and the city,once the very epitome of civilization and culture has seen its glory fade.
the year has been good, that is to say that the harvest has been good, the Gods have been kind, the  baoli fills up with rain water every year and the Gods are placated at the annual festival in spring,held in honour of Harshat mata, the goddess of wealth and happiness whose temple is where the village gathers every eve. the temple and its forecourt, as well as the the two adjacent temples are the hub of the city, everything happens here,worship, commerce,  love and festivity, the goddess, in her happiness ensures that the village stays happy too.the baoli with its five story deep well, is where everyone meets and all sorts of stories transpire. There are three ways to reach the water using the steps, which are divided into stories. This colossal, delicately carved well is located in front of the Harshat Mata Temple. It was a ritual to wash the hands and feet at the well before visiting the adjoining temple. ...life is good and happy and peace reigns.. indeed the city is called Abhanagri, the city of glory...

dark clouds however are gathering in the distance. the wealth of the city has attracted scavengers, the hordes gather to loot and pillage.the might of the Gujar Pratihars has kept the invading, looting, molesting, armies of the Sultan of Ghazni at bay. but this year is different, one can sense that the city's defenses are gone and the horde threatens to attack again. the Sultan, Mohammad Ghazni, is particularly rapacious they say, and the wealth of the city is too big a temptation to ignore. you've served in the army before , have tasted blood and felt the weight of the sword, you know the strengths of the invading forces and are fearful of what awaits. what is to be done?

the king sends out a call to join the forces and some amongst the village do. honour is at stake, as is wealth and the lives of families, women and children. you weigh your options and with a heavy heart flee, your gold and your family with you, heading west and south ,as far away as you can...desperate...

you stay away three moons, you know that your city was attacked, you know all is lost, you mourn you despair...you come back to find the city in ruins, you've returned to devastation.the temples all three, razed to the ground, the Gods disfigured, the city empty of living souls, the stench of death everywhere. you hear that the women and the children were enslaved, carted off to far away Ghazni to be sold in the bazaars there, the men all dead..

you go back to your ruined hamlet..and begin picking up the pieces of your life...the city will never be what it was again..its time is past. you hear stories of the fate that your neighbors met, that there is now a stone installed in the bazars of Ghor indicating the place where 'dukhtar e hinds' (daughters of India) can be bought, to enslave, and you offer a daily prayer to the gods who saved you and your family from such a fate...life does go on, but it is never quite the same again

 Chand Baoli...

 

 

 the restored Harshat Mata temple, restored by the king of Jaipur, the dome is from recent times. ( Abhaneri is about 90 kilometers from Jaipur, in Rajasthan, in the District of Dausa.)

the richly carved stones, tell a story of prosperity..

this curious phallic figure, obviously associated with some sort of fertility rite, it depicts a dominant man, pllaus extended, and three women, one kneeling face down on the ground, the man bears down upon her...

this pavillion at the entrance of the baoli was added by the Mughal emperor Jahangir , who undertook the restoration and recharging of the step well

kapilavastu

Sharing some pictures of the UNESCO excavation site in Nepal of the ancient city of Kapilavastu...the capital of the Shakas, where Prince Siddharta spent the first 29 years of his life with his family..., the excavations are currently on, and the question that they seek to answer is whether this site at Tilaurakot is Kapilvastu or the site at Piprawa in India, located 15 kilometers away. both belonged to Sakya territory. a large Stupa with relics and fabulous offerings were discovered at Piprawa. here at the site in Nepal, they have dug up remains of what were the western gate ,the central complex and the eastern gateway of the ancient city. they can be carbon dated however only to Mauryan times, and no Asokan pillar, marking the site as Kapilavastu has been discovered thus far...

the remains of the western gate of the city

the central complex...

the excavated Eastern gate of the city, through which the Buddha left, to commence his journey of self discovery...

lumbini

The Buddhist tradition regards Lumbini, in present-day Nepal to be the birthplace of the Buddha. He grew up in Kapilavastu. The exact site of ancient Kapilavastu is unknown. It may have been either Piprahwa, Uttar Pradesh, present-day India,or Tilaurakot, present-day Nepal. Both places belonged to the Sakya territory, and are located only 15 miles apart from each other.

Siddharta Gautama was born as a Kshatriya,the son of Śuddhodana, "an elected chief of the Shakya clan", whose capital was Kapilavastu, and who were later annexed by the growing Kingdom of Kosala during the Buddha's lifetime. Gautama was the family name. His mother, Queen Maha Maya (Māyādevī) and Suddhodana's wife, was a Koliyan princess. Legend has it that, on the night Siddhartha was conceived, Queen Maya dreamt that a white elephant with six white tusks entered her right side,and ten months later Siddhartha was born. As was the Shakya tradition, when his mother Queen Maya became pregnant, she left Kapilvastu for her father's kingdom to give birth. However, her son is said to have been born on the way, at Lumbini, in a garden beneath a sal tree.

The day of the Buddha's birth is widely celebrated in Theravada countries as Vesak. the Buddha's birth anniversary holiday is called "Buddha Purnima" in Nepal and India as the Buddha is believed to have been born on a full moon day. Various sources hold that the Buddha's mother died at his birth, a few days or seven days later. The infant was given the name Siddhartha (Pāli: Siddhattha), meaning "he who achieves his aim". During the birth celebrations, the hermit seer Asita journeyed from his mountain abode and announced that the child would either become a great king (chakravartin) or a great holy man. By traditional account,this occurred after Siddhartha placed his feet in Asita's hair and Asita examined the birthmarks. Suddhodana held a naming ceremony on the fifth day, and invited eight Brahmin scholars to read the future. All gave a dual prediction that the baby would either become a great king or a great holy man. Kaundinya (Pali: Kondañña), the youngest, and later to be the first arahant other than the Buddha, was reputed to be the only one who unequivocally predicted that Siddhartha would become a Buddha.

While later tradition and legend characterized Śuddhodana as a hereditary monarch, the descendant of the Solar Dynasty of Ikṣvāku (Pāli: Okkāka), many scholars think that Śuddhodana was the elected chief of a tribal confederacy.

Early texts suggest that Gautama was not familiar with the dominant religious teachings of his time until he left on his religious quest, which is said to have been motivated by existential concern for the human condition.The state of the Shakya clan was not a monarchy, and seems to have been structured either as an oligarchy, or as a form of republic.The more egalitarian gana-sangha form of government, as a political alternative to the strongly hierarchical kingdoms, may have influenced the development of the Shramana-type Jain and Buddhist sanghas, where monarchies tended toward Vedic Brahmanism. 

the site of lumbini, where the Buddha was born was lost early in antiquity. it was lost when Asoka went searching for it.he was lead to a place by the locals , who had memory of it and there he erected a pillar and a stupa, marking the place. the village was exempted from tax by the emperor. the site was lost again however and has been excavated painstakingly by amateur British archeologists , who have done excellent workin reestablishing the archeology of Budhisinm. today Lumbini is well marked and revered, and lies 34 kilometers in nepal from the border beyond Gorakhpur.

the stupa surrounded by a white painted wall..inside lie the remains of the stupa built by Asoka and the stone marking the actual place of birth of the Buddha.

the Asokan Pillar with its Pali inscription, exempting the village from tax as this was the Buddhas place of birth.