Title - Buddhist tourism gets a new push

By Express News Service - JAIPUR 23rd January 2013 10:34 AM
The Mahaparinirvana Express chugged into Haridaspur railway station near Chandikhol on Tuesday morning.

The 89 visitors comprising tour operators, artists, monks, scribes and others were accorded a warm welcome by the locals at the station. Of them, 16 are tourists from Thailand, Indonesia and France.  They were taken to Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Udayagiri which are dotted with stupas, chaityas and Ashokan edicts dating back to the 6th century BC. These sites are considered a seat of the study of Vajrayana Buddhism.

“I am overwhelmed to see such magnificent and beautiful treasures of Buddhism here. My words fail to express such inherent beauty embedded in these historical structures at Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Udayagiri,” said Phillippe, a tourist from Indonesia. The Odisha Tourism Development Corporation (OTDC) had made special arrangements at the sites for the tourists.

Besides Odisha, the Buddhist train will touch sites in Bodh Gaya, Rajgir, Nalanda, Varanasi, Sarnath, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Lumbini and Sravasti in a seven-night, eight-day odyssey. It was flagged off in New Delhi on Sunday.