No. 1248 (HạtCát dịch)

Buddhists unhappy with Dalai Lama on Mahabodhi temple

Patna, Nov 21 (IANS) Buddhist monks have questioned Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama's silence over the non-Buddhist control over the management of the 1,500-year-old Mahabodhi temple in Bihar's Bodh Gaya town.
Bhante Anand, president of the Bodh Gaya Mahabodhi Vihar All India Action Committee, said the Dalai Lama should put pressure on the Indian government to hand over the temple's management to Buddhists.
'But Dalai Lama's silence has pained us,' Anand told IANS from Bodh Gaya. 'We feel he fears he will lose support of the Hindu elite if he raises the issue.'

The temple, which attracts tens of thousands of Indians and foreigners, is located at the site where the Buddha attained enlightenment. UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site in June 2002.

According to Anand, it was because of the temple issue that the Dalai Lama was losing support of Buddhist monks across India.

Anand said millions of Buddhists across the world were upset that non-Buddhists were in control of the shrine's administration.

The monks want control over the shrine management by amending the Mahabodhi Temple Management Act of 1949.

'We have decided to lobby and mobilize support for Buddhist control. By early next year we will appeal to all world leaders - religious and political - to demand immediate dissolution of the temple management committee.

'If the management of (Hindu) temples, churches, mosques and gurdwaras are not under the control of other sects, then why not so in the case of the Mahabodhi temple?' asked Anand, who is also president of the Akhil Bharatiya Bhikkhu Mahasangh (ABBM), an influential body of Buddhist monks.

© 2006 Indo-Asian News Service