According to the sacred texts of the Buddhist Commentaries, Maya Devi gave birth to Siddhartha Gautama in Lumbini in c. 624 BCE.

Many monuments, monasteries, stupas, a museum, and the Lumbini International Research Institute are also near to the holy site.

At other sites near Lumbini, earlier Buddhas were born, then achieved ultimate Enlightenment and finally relinquished their earthly forms.

[2][3][note 1] In the time of the Buddha, Lumbini was situated east of Kapilavastu and south-west of Devadaha of Shakya, an oligarchic republic.

[15] The translation of inscription (by Paranavitana) reads: When King Devanampriya Priyadarsin had been anointed twenty years, he came himself and worshipped (this spot) because the Buddha Shakyamuni was born here.

[20] In 1896, former Commander-In-Chief of the Nepalese Army General Khadga Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana and Alois Anton Führer discovered a great stone pillar at Rupandehi, according to the crucial historical records made by the ancient Chinese monk-pilgrim Xuanzang in the 7th century CE and by another ancient Chinese monk-pilgrim Faxian in the early 5th century CE.

The Brahmi inscription on the pillar gives evidence that Ashoka, emperor of the Maurya Empire, visited the place in 3rd-century BCE and identified it as the birth-place of the Buddha.

The holy site of Lumbini is bordered by a large monastic zone in which only monasteries can be built, no shops, hotels or restaurants.

There is a long water filled canal separating the western and eastern zones, with a series of brick arch bridges joining the two sides along the length.

The Sacred Garden remains the epicenter of the Lumbini area and consists of the birthplace of Buddha and other monuments of archaeological and spiritual importance such as the Mayadevi Temple, the Ashoka Pillar, the Marker Stone, the Nativity Sculpture, Puskarini Sacred Pond and other structural ruins of Buddhist stupas and viharas.

[21] New excavations in the Mayadevi temple in Lumbini in 2013 revealed a series of the most ancient Buddhist shrines in South Asia extending the history of the site to a much earlier date.

[24][25] Before parinirvana at the age of eighty, Gautama Buddha gave a sermon to his disciples on the significance of Lumbini as a place of pilgrimage (Dīghanikāya, 16; Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta):[26] There are, O monks, four places on earth which a believing householder's son or a believing householder's daughter should commemorate as long as they live.

[27] Nipponzan Myohoji decided to build a Peace Pagoda in the park in 2001, which is visited by many different cultures and religions every day.

[30] António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations made a visit to Lumbini in the October of 2023 and "urged everyone to reflect on the core teachings of Buddhism and their relevance in today’s troubled world ", highlighting conflicts around the world from Middle East to Ukraine to Africa, undermining of global rules and their devastating impacts on ordinary people, especially women and children.