footstepsofthebuddha

Footsteps of the Buddha for Google Earth

Home - In-Browser Version

What's New

See the update blog for the latest information on new locations or changes.

Check out the new In-Browser Version that uses the new Google Earth browser plugin!

Download

Download Footsteps of the Buddha

Download Google Earth

Tips

Right-Click on the top level Footsteps of the Buddha folder and select Save to My Places
Enable the Terrain Layer
Enable the Panaramo layer under Geographic Web so you can view photos of each site.
Disable most other layers.
Google Earth will automatically update FOTB on a daily basis or when you right click on the folder and select Refresh.

Sources

A Pilgrim's Guide to Buddhist India by Ven. S. Dhammika (blog)

Access to Insight maintained by John Bullitt (sutta translations by Thanissaro Bhikkhu)

Buddhist Pilgrimage (Wikipedia article)

Wikimapia (confirmation of some locations)

Credits

In addition to the sources above, a special thanks goes out to the following people for their personal assistance:

Contact

Please contact footstepsotb@gmail.com with comments or suggestions!

About

Footsteps of the Buddha for Google Earth is a geo-biography of the life of Siddhartha Gotama, the Historical Buddha. He was the real person who founded Buddhism 2,500 years ago.

FotB is implemented using Google Earth which is free. Using the Google Earth application you can fly virtually around the major sites visited by the Buddha, zoom in, rotate around them, view descriptions, and read some of the more famous things he spoke at or about each site.

FotB is a work in progress; I'm continually adding new things and improving on it. Any feedback or other assistance will be greatly appreciated. In particular I could use suggestions for books containing maps and very detailed historical information.

Sample Screenshot of Vulture Peak near Rajagaha (Rajgir)

Usage

To use FotB, first you must install Google Earth (if you don't already have it installed) and then select the download link for Footsteps of the Buddha (top of sidebar on the left). If you have Google Earth installed properly then your web browser will ask you if you'd like to load the file in Google Earth. Answer yes or select the option to load the file in Google Earth and hit the OK button.

Locations will be loaded in your Temporary Places folder on the left of the Google Earth window. To take a tour of the locations, highlight Lumbini (the first location) in the Places pane on the left of the Google Earth window and click the "play" icon. These things are shown in the screenshot on the left.

Note: If you want to keep Footsteps of the Buddha permanently in My Places, then you must right click on it's folder icon and select Save to My Places. Otherwise it will disappear once you quit Google Earth. For other tips, see the sidebar on the left of this page.

If you stop the playback and click on a location, a description will appear which, for many places, begins with a sutta excerpt of something that the Buddha said in that location. Descriptions also contain links to sources of material included therein.

Footsteps of the Buddha for Google Earth is free for non-commercial use.