Buddha's hair relic to be handed over tomorrow
Our Correspondent, Ctg
Most of the members of the Sri Lankan delegation including Foreign Minister Rohita Bogollagama and five other senior ministers are likely to arrive here in the port city today to collect hair relics of Lord Gautam Buddha in a ceremony tomorrow. The ministers are scheduled to join a grand prayer (Buddha Puja) at Chittagong Buddhist Monastery at Nandan Kanon this afternoon which will be participated by around 500 Sri Lankan people living in Chittagong, sources said. Senior Adviser to Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry Lal Kumar Gamaga and Director of South Asia Affairs to Foreign Ministry of Bangladesh Md Badiuzzaman visited the Chittagong Buddhist Monastery yesterday. Meanwhile leaders of Bangladesh Buddhist Association yesterday urged the government to declare Chittagong Buddhist Monastery as National Buddhist Monastery because the holy relics of Buddha's hair is being preserved here. The call came from a press conference organised by the association at Chittagong Press Club. Association Chairman Ajit Ranjan Barua and General Secretary Adarsha Kumar Barua spoke at the press conference. The speakers said beside Buddha's hair some other valuable relics like a part of Buddha's body and a few old religious books including Tripitak (written on palm-tree leaves) are being preserved in the century-old monastery. They said reconstruction of the monastery that was built in 1889 is essential to preserve these national historic objects properly and thus it might become a tourist spot. They hoped that the handing over of the hair relics to Sri Lanka would intensify the bi-lateral relationship between the two countries.
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