By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 19 Apr: A two-day Buddhist Summit is being organised by the Union Ministry of Culture in collaboration with the International Buddhist Confederation (IBC) on 20 & 21 April.
The theme of this Summit is “Responses to Contemporary Challenges: Philosophy to Praxis”. More than 170 delegates from foreign countries including Mexico, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Japan and 150 delegates from India will participate in the summit.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the inaugural session of this Global Buddhist Summit.
It is first of its kind International Global Buddhist Summit which is being organised in the country under the “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav” by the Government of India. The Global Buddhist Summit is an effort towards engaging the global Buddhist Dhamma leadership and scholars on matters of Buddhist and universal concerns. The discussion in the Summit will explore how the Buddha Dhamma’s fundamental values can provide inspiration and guidance in the contemporary world.
The discussions will fall under the following four themes – Buddha Dhamma and Peace; Buddha Dhamma: Environmental Crisis, Health and Sustainability; Preservation of Nalanda Buddhist Tradition; Buddha Dhamma Pilgrimage, Living heritage and Buddha Relics: a resilient foundation to India’s centuries-old cultural links to countries in South, Southeast and East Asia.
Deepankar Aron, Commissioner, Central Goods and Services Tax Commissionerate, Uttarakhand, has been invited by the Union Ministry of Culture to participate in this two-day Global Buddhist Summit as a scholar of Buddhist philosophy. Deepankar Aron has been conferred the Presidential Award for his distinguished service record as an Indian Revenue Service officer. He has keen interest in Buddhist philosophy.
During his diplomatic assignment in Hong Kong as Consul in the Consulate General of India, he did research on the Buddhist cultural heritage of East Asian countries, which is the basis of his book – “On the Trail of Buddha: A journey to the East”. This book is a unique sojourn in search of the spiritual, philosophical, and cultural linkages that bind India to the East Asian civilisations. The book was released by the Vice President (the then Governor of West Bengal) Jagdeep Dhankhar at the Raj Bhawan.
Apart from this, Deepankar Aron has written the book, “World Heritage Sites of Uttarakhand: Nanda Devi National Park – Valley of Flowers National Park”. It is perhaps the first time that the pictorial depiction of two world heritage sites of Uttarakhand has been attempted. This book is an endeavour to introduce the world the beauty and bounty of these two world heritage sites of Uttarakhand. It was released in 2010 during an international conference on World Heritage Sites for the Asia Pacific region in the presence of the Secretary General of UNESCO by Uttarakhand’s Minister for Tourism and Culture and the Union Minister in Charge of Culture.
Recently, under India’s leadership of SCO, the first of its kind Global Buddhist Summit was held bringing together the Central Asian, East Asian, South Asian and Arab countries on a common platform to discuss “Shared Buddhist Heritage”. Aron was invited by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India to represent India at this Buddhist conference. He presented his research paper on the subject. Two Buddhist scholars from each SCO member country attended this Buddhist conference.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation has eight member states – China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, four observer states – Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia. Along with this, there are six “dialogue partner” countries which include- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey.
The objective of the Conference was to re-establish trans-cultural links, seek out commonalities between Buddhist art, art styles, archaeological sites of Central Asia and antiquity in various museum collections of the SCO countries.
