Most of us know that Sri Lanka is a Buddhist country, but we don’t know much about the Buddhist culture and Buddhist history of Sri Lanka. So, from this article, I hope to tell you something more about the Buddhism in Sri Lanka which will explain you Sri Lankan Buddhist culture and history. Buddhist history says that Buddha came to the island nation several times, however at that time Sri Lanka didn’t get Buddhism. According to the Sri Lankan history, one Indian monk called Mahinda gifted Buddhism to Sri Lanka after long time of Buddha’s parinirvana. The king ruled Sri Lanka at that time accepted the gift with honour and declared it as the state religion. This marks the birth of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. At the present, Buddhists in Sri Lanka celebrate Poson festival by remembering this historical incident. temples in Sri Lanka Since then, all kings ruled Sri Lanka were Buddhists and they built number of temples in many different cities. Most of these temples are still remaining and majority of them are situated in northern part of Sri Lanka. Once I visited a Sri Lankan northern city called Anuradhapura to see these ancient temples and it was a great journey. Even you can see lot of ruins of ancient temples there. If you ever get a chance to go to Sri Lanka, you should visit its northern cities, because most of Sri Lankan ancient cultures you can see there only. Buddhism influenced Sri Lankan culture a lot for centuries. But in 19th and 20th centuries some local people converted to other religions like Christianity, Hinduism and Islam because of many reasons. So at the present only 70% of Sri Lankans are Buddhists. But still Buddhism plays a great role in every major event, festival or ritual in Sri Lanka. Every full moon day is a Buddhist public holiday there. Before on Exinkai, I wrote two articles about Wesak and Poson festivals in Sri Lanka. You can read them to get more information about two of these main Buddhist full moon day festivals. Buddhism in Sri Lanka Buddhism in Sri Lanka As we know Buddhism is a great philosophy, but most of Sri Lankans follow it as a religion and they think it as a religion. Usually Sri Lankan Buddhists offer flowers, incense, food, drinks and lightings to Buddha statues in temples with great honour. In Sri Lanka, I did that too. Among world wide Buddhist people, it is a great way to honour their spiritual leader lord Buddha. Not only that, but Buddhists are also following the path of Buddha’s teachings which will lead them to find inner peace and sanity. At the present times, Buddhism in Sri Lanka is little bit influenced by Hinduism. That’s why we can see Hindu Kovils inside of some Buddhist temples. Even many Sri Lankan Buddhists are now used to offer incense and lightings to these Hindu kovils. However pure Buddhism has no god concepts as I know. It is just a great path to lead our lives to Nirvana. According to Buddhism, everything changes with time, nothing is permanent. It is possible that Buddhism we follow now is not the same Buddhism what Buddha taught before 2500 years ago. Anyway I believe that Buddhism will remain on earth for many centuries from now on specially in Sri Lanka.
Posted on: Sat, 24 Aug 2013 17:25:20 +0000
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