Hair relics of Buddha handed over to Lankan representatives
Dwaipayan Barua, Ctg
The handing over ceremony of Gautam Buddha's hair relics yesterday afternoon assumed a festive look as a large number of devotees from different places of the port city and outside gathered at Chittagong Buddhist Monastery. When the relics were handed over to the representatives of Sri Lankan government, the nationals of the country residing in the port city seemed to be in an ecstatic mood as they became thankful to their Bangladeshi counterparts, who donated the relics as a gesture of fraternity. Meanwhile, the Buddhist devotees in Chittagong, most of whom were unaware of Buddha's sacred hair relics that have been preserved in the monastery for 77 years until newspapers published the matter recently, have urged the authorities to arrange regular display of the relics. Swapna Barua, a service holder living in the port city for 30 years, did not even hear the existence of the relics in her hometown. "Reading the news published in different newspapers during the last few days, I came to know about the hair of Lord Gautam Buddha. This is an amazing experience for me," said Swapna who often comes to the monastery to offer her prayer. Krishanu Barua, working in a private organisation, echoed the similar views and said that none of his family members had any idea of the relics although they frequent the monastery for prayer. He criticised the monastery authorities for failure to make devotees aware of the presence of such sacred historic object. It should be opened for display to enable the Buddhist devotees as well as people from other communities to see and pay tribute, Krishanu said. President of Bangladesh Buddhist Association Ajit Ranjan Barua, however, said they arrange display of the relics on the occasion of Buddha Purnima, albeit once in a year. "The relics are a precious thing having great historic significance and so we think it should be preserved through maintaining its dignity and security," he said. Over one hundred Sri Lankan nationals living in Chittagong and Dhaka joined yesterday's ceremony. "We are really grateful to the Bangladesh government and people as well as local devotees for giving us the relics as gifts," said Rohita De Silva and Ruwan Kumara, who came from Dhaka. "It's a great pride for us to be a owning country of the sacred relics of Lord Buddha, a great human being of the history, who has been respected for last 2550 years by millions of devotees around the world," said Devika Jayasekera, a fourth year MBBS student of University of Science and Technology, Chittagong.
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