KATHMANDU: This is another fantastic Buddhist Stupa at a place known as Boudha, about seven kilometers east of Kathmandu. The largest spherical stupa is held in great veneration both by Lamas of Nepal and tibetans and also by nepali Hindus. Legend has it that a king in ancient time built a pond with stone water spouts near the present Royal Palace. Since water did not come out of the water spout, the King began to worry about it.

After deep meditatio,it dawned upon him that water would not flow out of the water spouts unless a person endowed with all the 32 virtues was sacrificed to the water spouts. There were none save himself endowed with the 32 virtues. Determined as he was to make the water flow out of the water spouts, he asked his son to be where he had built the pond with the water spouts at mid-night and chop off the head of a person he would see lying there wrapped in white cloth.

The Prince did as he was ordered by his father King. No sooner than the head of the king was severed, water started flowing out of the spouts. The scene was so ghastly that one of the carved water spouts turned its face towards the sky. The pond and the water spouts are there near the Royal Palace. The water spouts which looked towards they sky in now replaced.

The Prince stood aghast at the sight because, the head which he had severed was that of his father. The Prince with soul smitten, went somewhere near the shrine of Goddess Bajrajogeni in Shankhu east of Kathmandu in penance for the horrible sin of patricide which he had committed, though unknowingly. He lived an austere life praying to Goddess Bajrajogeni for several years.

The Goddess pleased with his prayer, asked the Prince to build a temple of the Buddha to atone for his sin. The Prince started building the Stupa, but because of the 12-year drought that followed, he had to collect dew from cloth kept in the open throughout the night.

This delayed the completion of the Stupa as dew could be collected only in winter. The Stupa being built by a Hindu king for the Bhuddhists is held in great veneration both by the Buddhists and the Hindus. The Stupa is regarded as sacrosanct as the Soyambhunath Stupa surrounded by houses with shops offering sundry items made by Lamas and Tibetan refugees.