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VHP to rope in Buddhist monks from Nepal for Shaktipeeth project

George Iype in New Delhi

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad has decided to invoke the name of Gautama Buddha to build the controversial Shaktipeeth (seat of strength) for the goddess Shakti to celebrate India's nuclear tests at Pokhran.

VHP leaders have written to the king of Nepal, Birendra Bir Vikram Shah, seeking his permission for a meeting of Hindus and Buddhists in Lumbini in Nepal, as a precursor to building the controversial Shakti temple at the nuclear test site. Lumbini is the birthplace of the Buddha.

VHP sources said the king has agreed to the proposal; at least 500 Hindu leaders will participate in the Hindu-Buddhist meet, to be held in the first week of November.

A Hindu-Buddhist sadbhavana yatra across the nearly 1,500-km Indo-Nepal border from November 1 to 20 will precede the Lumbini convention.

"We thought it prudent to involve Buddhists in the Pokhran temple project because the nuclear tests were conducted on Buddha Purnima," a senior VHP official told Rediff On The NeT.

VHP sources disclosed that the Bharatiya Janata Party government and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have given the go-ahead to set up a trust that will construct the Shaktipeeth at Pokhran.

A number of Buddhist monks from India and Nepal will be included in the trust, the VHP official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

The VHP leadership points out that there is nothing unusual about making Buddhist monks members of the Pokhran temple trust. They point out that the Sangh Parivar included Bhante Guru Jhan Jagat, a Buddhist monk, as a member on the Ram Janambhoomi Ayodhya Trust that is planning to build the controversial temple at Ayodhya.

The VHP leadership also plans to send letters to Buddhist organisations in Cambodia, Holland, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Surinam, Thailand and Trinidad, seeking support for the Pokhran temple.

The VHP's efforts to cultivate Buddhists is not new. In April, VHP working president Ashok Singhal and RSS chief Professor Rajendra Singh visited the Komaoto hills in Japan at the invitation of a Buddhist cultural foundation. They reportedly visited the proposed site for a temple to herald the unity between Hindu and Buddhist faiths.

The RSS and VHP also organised the first Hindu-Buddhist 'unity meeting' in Sarnath in the 1980s. In October 1997, the VHP conducted a Hindu-Buddhist religious workshop in Hardwar. More than 500 Buddhists monks from Nepal attended the meeting.

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