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The most revered Buddha relics from Sarnath in Sri Lanka for first time
Lord Buddha’s most revered relics, from Sarnath, were brought to Sri Lanka yesterday for public exposition on the occasion of Vesak. The relics, carried by the General Secretary of the Maha Bodhi Society of India, Ven. P. Seewali Thera were received by India’s High Commissioner Taranjit Singh Sandhu inside the Air India aircraft and presented to Speaker Karu Jayasuriya at the foot of the gangway.
This is the first time these sacred relics have been brought to Sri Lanka from India, and special arrangements have been made by the Government of India for this purpose with the concurrence of the Maha Bodhi Society of India, the High Commission of India said in a release this week.
Speaker Karu Jayasuriya seen carrying the sacred Buddha relics from Sarnath to the VVIP Lounge of BIA where a brief religious ceremony was held before the relics were transported to the Prime Minister’s official residence in a special motorcade. Also in the picture are Lands and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Gayantha Karunatillake, Indian High Commissioner Taranjit Singh Sandhu and Maha Bodhi Society of India General Secretary Ven. P. Seewali Thera. Pic by Indika Handuwala
The public can pay homage to these relics at Temple Trees in Colombo from today (Sunday) till Wednesday (May 2).
These relics are enshrined at the Mulagandhakuti Vihara at Sarnath in India. Sarnath is historically significant since Lord Buddha preached his first sermon in a deer park in the area after attaining Buddhahood. Anagarika Dharmapala, founder of the Maha Bodhi Society of India, built the Mulagandhakuti Vihara to restore the glory of Sarnath. The land and the sacred relics were gifted to the Maha Bodhi Society of India by the Government of India.
A specially-made casket secures these two most revered and authentic relics. The first relics, enclosed within the silver casket enshrined in the Vihara, were found by Sir John Marshall in 1913-14 near the ancient city of Taxila (Takshasila). They were found in a small Buddhist chapel close to the Dharmarajika Stupa in, a silver reliquary with inscriptions dating the year 136 (circa 79 A.D). They were recorded as the relics of the Blessed One.
The second relic enshrined at Sarnath was found by A. H. Longhurst of the Archaeological Survey of India in 1929 in a large Stupa at Nagarjunakonda in the Guntur District of the then Madras Presidency. The Stupa in which the relic was found is described as the Maha Chetiyaor viz. the ‘Great Stupa’ of the Blessed One.
The High Commission of India thanked the Mahabodhi Society of India for loaning these sacred relics for exposition in Colombo and said the sacred relics of Sarnath are “yet another manifestation of the shared Buddhist heritage of India and Sri Lanka, which forms a spiritual bond between our two nations”.
Several monks and lay members from the Maha Bodhi Society of India and officials of the Indian Archeological Department have accompanied the relics. Speaking at the brief ceremony, Ven. Seewali Thera said that on the instructions of the Anagarika Dharmapala, resident monks at the Mulaghandakuti Vihara at Sarnath have been reciting the Dhammachakka Sutra – the first sermon of Lord Buddha enunciating the Doctrine of the Middle Path, every evening for the past nearly one hundred years at the Vihara.