HYDERABAD – A comprehensive Buddhist cultural complex reflecting the true Buddhist ambience incorporating a Buddhist shrine, museum and library will be inaugurated by Dalai Lama at Mahendra Hills here on April 6.
Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu will lay the corner stone for Bodhisatva Bhavan there.
Ananda Buddha Vihara adopting the same old architectural features is located on a 3 acre land at Mahendra Hills. It is executed at a cost of Rs 10 crore with the first phase being completed and the rest of the project to be completed in about three years.
The present phase which includes main shrine will be used for undertaking discourses had cost Rs 3 crore. There would be a well equipped library with multi-media animation facilities in English and all other Indian languages besides books of 23 different publications.
A guest house for the stay of monks and other resident scholars will also come up soon.
Earlier, at a press conference Ananda Buddha Vihara Trust (ABVT) vice-chairman C Anjaneya Reddy said that the project is an effort to revive, protect and propagate Buddhist culture.
It has been taken care to recreate the Vihar in same style and medium, he added. The 2.5 billion old rocks have also been retained in the premises of the Vihar to give the natural look.
The 6.5-feet gold-plated Buddha statue installed in the Vihara has been brought from Tibet. He said the project also includes plan to built dispensary with traditional Indian medicines and orphanage for the poor children.
Dalai Lama will also inaugurate National seminar on `social and cultural aspects of Nagarjuna’s philosophy and Vihara and construction of the shrines’ on April 6 said Reddy.
About 28 delegates from across the country are expected to participate in the seminar.
ABVT Ven K Sangharakshita Mahathera, Salar Jung Museum director A K V S Reddy and museum keeper J Kedareshwari were also present during the conference.
