ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018
The Politics of Buddhist
Relic Diplomacy Between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka
D. Mitra Barua
Cornell University
Buddhists in
Chittagong, Bangladesh claim to preserve a lock of hair believed to
be of Sakyamuni Buddha himself. This hair relic has become a magnet
for domestic and transnational politics; as such, it made journeys to
Colombo in 1960, 2007, and 2011. The states of independent Ceylon/Sri
Lanka and East Pakistan/Bangladesh facilitated all three
international journeys of the relic. Diplomats from both countries
were involved in extending state invitations, public exchanges of the
relic and a state-funded, grand scale display of the relic.
This article
explores the politics of such high profile diplomatic arrangements.
For the Bangladeshi Buddhist minority, these international relic
exchanges help them temporarily overcome their marginalized position
in a predominantly Muslim society and generate religious sympathy
among the Buddhist majority in Sri Lanka. Such Buddhist fellowship
and sympathy results in sponsorship for Bangladeshi Buddhist novices
to attend monastic trainings in Sri Lanka and the donation of Buddhist
ritual artifacts like Buddha statues, monastic robes, begging bowls,
and so forth, for Buddhist institutions in Bangladesh.
But how do the
relic exchanges benefit the Islamic state of Bangladesh and the Sri
Lankan government? That question leads to an analysis of the relic
exchanges in relation to global and trans-national politics. I argue
that the repeated exchanges of the relic are part and parcel of
creating “good” governance images for both Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi
governments for both a domestic and transnational audience
respectively.
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