Kathmandu, Aug. 9 -- Among the many legends about the Boudhanath Stupa, one involves a poor poultry keeper Jhazima and the buffalo skin.

Boudhanatha is in fact the Sanskritised Panchayat-era renaming of the chaitya which was originally called Khasti Mahachaitya ('great stupa of the dew drops'). However, the chaitya had another name too according to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition -- the Great Jarung Kashor ('Let it be done, Slip of the tongue') Stupa.

Many years before the birth of the Shakyamuni Buddha, Jhazima, lived with her four sons in the village where Boudha sits today. After the demise of the Kasyapa Buddha, she petitioned the king to grant her land the size of a buffalo's skin to build a stupa and inter the Buddha's remains. The...