Namo Buddha is about 40km away from the heart of Kathmandu City. It is in Kavre District towards the southeast of the Valley. Driving from Kathmandu, it took us around 2 hours to get there. Namo Buddha is one of the most important religious sites in Nepal.
According to mythology, around 6000 years ago a prince Ngingdui Tshenpo, found a tigress lying near a rock at the top of the hill, overlooking the jungle. Very quickly, he realized that she was going to die. Her five babies were depended on their mother. Ngingdui was a young man who had his own kingdom but he decides to give his life to the tigress in a burst of love and compassion. The tigress refused. When the tigress refused to eat him, he decided to cut his arm to feed his warm blood to the tigress. The taste of blood gave the tigress an appetite and finally, she accepted the sacrifice from the prince. The tigress left only the bare bones of the prince which were brought back in the village and buried in a tomb which became the actual stupa of Namo Buddha. Some 3500 years later, the Gautam Buddha came to the village of Sange da Fyafulsa; he went around the Stupa three times and declared that he was the reincarnation of Prince Ngingdui Tshenpo. It was that moment that Gautam Buddha renamed this village and henceforth the name of Namo Buddha which means First Buddha.