Sid­dhartha Gau­ta­ma, the Lord Bud­dha, was born in 623 B.C. in the famous gar­dens of Lumbi­ni, which soon became a place of pil­grim­age. Among the pil­grims was the Indi­an emper­or Ashoka, who erect­ed one of his com­mem­o­ra­tive pil­lars there. The site is now being devel­oped as a Bud­dhist pil­grim­age cen­tre, where the archae­o­log­i­cal remains asso­ci­at­ed with the birth of the Lord Bud­dha form a cen­tral fea­ture.