A mysterious 'Buddha Boy' who has reappeared before excited locals nine months after he went missing in Nepal's southern jungles says he has been meditating and surviving on herbs.
Among the faithful who flocked to see Ram Bahadur Banjan was his mother, 'her face half in tears and half in joy', but he did not acknowledge her.
The teenager, now 16, shot from the anonymity of village life to international celebrity when he meditated beneath a tree for 10 months, supposedly without food or water, drawing hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who believed he was a reincarnation of Buddha.
By the time he left the site in Bara, about 160km south of the capital Kathmandu, in March, a bus park and busy market had grown up to serve pilgrims. He slipped back into the jungle, preferring solitude and quiet to continue his mediations.
He reappeared on Christmas Eve, spotted by hunters in the forest 16km from his original meditation place. Upendra Lamichane, a local journalist who was among the first to reach the spot, said the young mystic was brandishing a curved sword almost a metre long.
'Even Gautama Buddha [the original Buddha] had to protect himself. I'm carrying this for my protection,' Lamichane quoted Ram as saying. He is apparently concerned about wild animals.