India dismissed a controversy over the birthplace of Gautam Buddha, they said a comment by S Jaishankar, external affairs minister on the shared Buddhist heritage of the two neighbours was actually misunderstood in the Himalayan country.
Now the clarification came just after Jaishankar referred about teachings of Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi in event . Remark triggered the controversy in Nepal with political parties saying that Buddha, the philosopher and religious teacher who founded Buddhism, was born in Nepal and not India.
“There is no doubt that Gautam Buddha was born in Lumbini, which is in Nepal,”Anurag Srivastava, external affairs ministry spokesperson said. Anurag said Jaishankar’s remarks only referred to common Buddhist heritage .
The spokesperson added, “It is true that Buddhism spread from Nepal to other parts of the world in the subsequent period. The matter remains beyond doubt and controversy and thus cannot be subject to debate. The entire international community is aware of this.”
“It is a well-established and undeniable fact proven by historical and archaeological evidences that Gautam Buddha was born in Lumbini, Nepal. Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha and the fountain of Buddhism, is one of the UNESCO world heritage sites,” a statement by the ministry’s spokesperson read.
There were also protests by political parties mainly by opposition Nepali Congress and individuals such as former foreign secretary Madhu Raman Acharya and former prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal.
Last month, Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli sparked a controversy saying that the “real” Ayodhya is in Nepal and that Lord Ram was Nepalese.
Oli had said the “real Ayodhya lies at Thori in the west of Birgunj”, adding that Lord Ram wasn’t born in the Ayodhya of Uttar Pradesh.
