Bangladesh has gifted Sri Lanka Lord Buddha’s sacred hair relic that a Tibetan monk had brought in the 1930s and was preserved in a monastery in the south-eastern port city of Chittagong.
It was given to Madampe Senanayake Aramaya by Bangladesh’s ancient monastery, Chittagong Buddhist Viharaya.
A high-powered ministerial delegation, led by Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama, came to Dhaka on Monday night to receive the relic which Bangladesh has given as a gesture of friendship and goodwill.
“It is a goodwill gesture to Sri Lanka,” said a Bangladesh official. “A large number of our Buddhist students go to Sri Lanka for higher studies,” he said.
The delegation, which was due to return to Colombo on Wednesday evening, received the sacred relic in a simple ceremony in Chittagong in the afternoon.
The Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, Rohitha Bogollagama, expressed his country’s gratitude and support to Bangladesh.
According to the Sri Lankan High Commission, Prime Minister Rathnasiri Wickramanayaka was to receive the relic on the tarmac of the Colombo Bandernaike International Airport on Wednesday night.
The relic will be taken to the Senanayake Aramaya in Madampe in a religious procession.
Pakistan had gifted Lord Buddha’s relics to the Senanayake Aramaya from Chittagong and Texilla in 1956 and 1960.
Earlier, Bangladesh gifted several strands of the sacred relic to Thailand and Japan.