The weekend disappearance of a Nepalese boy whom supporters hail as a reincarnation of the Buddha has sparked a nationwide search. Supporters have showered 16-year old Ram Bahadur Bomjan with money and gifts for allegedly sitting in motionless meditation in the roots of a pipal tree without taking food or water, or using the toilet, since May 16 last year.
The youth, dubbed "Buddha Boy" by the media, left the site in southern Nepal because the thousands of devotees who flocked there had disturbed his meditation, media reported Sunday.
"He left as there was a lot of noise in the meditation area," his friend Prem Lama told the Kathmandu Post.
A search using plain-clothes police and civilians failed to find the boy, but he had been glimpsed in the jungle surrounding the meditation site at Bara district 250 kilometres (150 miles) south of Kathmandu, the Himalayan Times reported.
Inspector Kamal Acharya told AFP he was "90 percent sure" the boy disappeared voluntarily. "It does not seem likely that it was an abduction," said Acharya. a police inspector from Bara.
Police believed the youth had left the site with a close friend Sahila Tamang, who was also missing, Acharya said.
"The boy disappeared at around three in the morning Saturday while the people who guard the site were sleeping," Shankar Acharya, a journalist from Bara, told AFP.
The thousands of visitors who have flocked to see the boy were kept at least 15 metres (50 feet) away.
The boy's followers did not permit visitors to see him during the night, raising scepticism about claims that he had been surviving without food and water.
Ram's meditation spawned a mini-industry with the site jammed with food and souvenir vendors.
Rupees were stuffed in collection boxes around the site and a member of a committee looking after the site said foreign Buddhist groups had donated 40,000 dollars for its upkeep.
The boy had told supporters through a friend that he was not a reincarnation of Buddha but was an "austere sage."
Gautama Siddhartha, who later became known as Buddha or the Enlightened One, is believed to have been born in the same region near the border with India in around 500 BC.
