New Delhi plays host to Shared Buddhist Heritage meet

An international conference on "Shared Buddhist Heritage" will be held on 14-15 March, with a focus on India's civilizational connection with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) nations 2023 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.

The event, a first of its kind, under India's leadership of SCO (for a period of one year, from 17 September, 2022 until September 2023) will bring together Central Asian, East Asian, South Asian and Arab countries on a common platform to discuss "Shared Buddhist Heritage". The SCO countries comprise Member States, Observer States and Dialogue Partners, including China, Russia and Mongolia. More than 15 scholars and delegates from China's Dunhuang Research Academy, Kyrgyzstan's Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnology, Russia's State Museum of the History of Religion, Tajikistan's National Museum of Antiquities, Belarusian State University and Myanmar's International Theravada Buddhist Missionary University, etc will be presenting research papers on the topic.

The two-day programme is being organized by the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of External Affairs and the International Buddhist Confederation, as a grantee body of the Ministry of Culture. A number of Indian scholars of Buddhism will also participate in the event. Participants will also have the opportunity to tour some of the historical sites of Delhi.

The aim of the Conference is to re-establish trans-cultural links and seek out commonalities, between Buddhist art of Central Asia, art styles, archaeological sites and antiquity in various museums' collections of the SCO countries.

(ANI)