Team News Riveting
New Delhi, May 12
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay an official visit to Lumbini on May 16, 2022 on the occasion of Buddha Purnima at the invitation of Sher Bahadur Deuba, Prime Minister of Nepal.
This will be Prime Minister’s fifth visit to Nepal since 2014.
At Lumbini, Prime Minister will visit the sacred Mayadevi temple to offer prayers. Prime Minister will also deliver an address at a Buddha Jayanti event organized by the Lumbini Development Trust under the aegis of the Government of Nepal. Separately, Prime Minister will participate in the “Shilanyas” ceremony for the construction of a centre for Buddhist culture and heritage, in a plot belonging to the International Buddhist Confederation (IBC), New Delhi within the Lumbini Monastic Zone. Both Prime Ministers will hold a bilateral meeting.
Prime Minister Modi’s visit continues the tradition of regular high level exchanges between India and Nepal in furtherance of our Neighbourhood First policy. It underscores the shared civilizational heritage of the people of both countries.
Siddhartha Gautama, the Lord Buddha, was born in 623 B.C. in the famous gardens of Lumbini, which soon became a place of pilgrimage. Among the pilgrims was the Indian emperor Ashoka, who erected one of his commemorative pillars there. The site is now being developed as a Buddhist pilgrimage centre, where the archaeological remains associated with the birth of the Lord Buddha form a central feature.
