Go Without Fear : Revival of a Buddhist Pilgrimage Through India and Nepal

By: Maarten Olthof

This book, illustrated with over 130 photographs, is an inspiring literary account of a journey both spiritual and adventurous. As a travelogue it guides the reader along a rediscovered pilgrim trail, once the most important in Asia. It predates by many centuries the well-known European pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela. The path as taken by the Buddha himself was followed by millions of pilgrims over succeeding centuries. The path links the earliest Buddhist pilgrimage sites: - Lumbini , where Siddhartha Gautama was born - Bodhgaya , where Siddhartha attained enlightenment and became a Buddha or 'awakened one' - Sarnath , where the Buddha shared his insights - Kushinagara , where the Buddha passed away Buddhism largely disappeared from India after 1200 ce and the pilgrim trail gradually fell into obscurity. Maarten Olthof has drawn on Chinese monastic manuscripts to reconstruct the 600-mile route through India and Nepal, which he completed in 2003 on foot as a pilgrim. That journey, beginning as a one-man project, gradually developed into a spiritual adventure involving dozens of people and culminating in a demonstration for peace in Nepal, a country at the time torn apart by civil war. The pilgrimage helps the author face key moments in his life and offers him the healing power to achieve thorough acceptance of the past as it was and of the future as it will be. By literally following in Buddha's footsteps, he discovers that our life does not differ essentially from Siddhartha's. He comes to realize that the four pilgrimage sites are symbolic of crucial stages in life that each one of us goes through. As a biologist, he notes striking parallels between Buddhism and contemporary ecological thinking.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1541210891
• ISBN13: 9781541210899
• Release Date: December 2016
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 410 Pages
• Weight: 1.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"