Thousands of Buddhists celebrate Gautam Buddha’s birth anniversary in Lumbini

Lumbini: Thousands of devotees and monks celebrated the 2568th birth anniversary of Gautama Buddha at his birthplace in Lumbini on Thursday.

Nearly 100 monks, half of them from the International Buddhist Confederation (IBC) joined the event. India also held a special pooja next to the pond in the Maya Devi Temple premises for world peace.

“This morning the Lumbini Development Trust had organized a peace chanting which started early in the morning. The IBC component had 50 monks from both the traditions that are Theravada and Bhayala, after that, we participated in a peace march which was from the site of chanting to the conference hall,” Vijayant Thapa, Director (Project) at International Buddhist Confederation told ANI.

Joined by hundreds of others, the monks then rallied to the International Buddhist Conference to celebrate the birth anniversary of the “Light of Asia” Gautam Buddha.

The event was organized by the International Buddhist Confederation (IBC) in cooperation with Lumbini Development Trust and was attended by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Foreign Minister Narayan Kaji Shrestha, and Tourism Minister Hit Bahadur Tamang.

Indian Ambassador to Nepal Naveen Srivastava along with the Secretary General of BIMSTEC, Indra Mani Pandey and ambassadors as well as Deputy Chief of Mission of various diplomatic missions in Nepal.

Buddha, regarded as the ninth incarnation of Lord Vishnu, was born on Shukla Purnima of Baisakh month in the lunar calendar. There is a coincidence that the dates (lunar calendar) the Buddha got birth, wisdom, and Mahaparinirvan (passing away) fall on the same. (ANI)

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