Kapilvastu Day (December 1, 2009) Celebration

[Bhanu Poudyal]

Dear Friends,

  Nepali compatriots worldwide and friends of Nepal are celebrating Kapilvastu Day on December 1, 2009. It was December 1, 1896, when German Archaeologist Anton Fuhrer identified Ashok Pillar, which was already unearthed by Khadga Shamsher, in Kapilvastu --  a kingdom at Buddha's time -- located in southern Nepal that proved this place as birthplace of Lord Buddha. Buddha spent his life till he was 29 at this place as crown prince.  This program is instrumental to spread Buddha’s message of peace while promoting Nepali patriotism and pride of Nepali nation worldwide. The goal of this program is to expand popularity of Kapilvastu -- the birthplace of Lord Buddha -- among global general masses and help them understand Buddhism and its message of peace and harmony.

Nepalis have been expressing their commitment to peace and harmony by involving in peacekeeping missions at different parts of the globe for decades. Positive experiences and experiments observed in Nepal on peaceful conflict management prove that Nepalis are peace-loving people. Moreover, we are thrilled by expectation of  positive outcomes of recent unanimous decision made by UN Security Council on reducing nuclear weapons globally. Hence, this program is also expression of our support to all types of initiatives for long lasting peace built on principles of human rights, social justice and equality. 

Birthplace of Lord Buddha, the founder of Buddhism and messenger of peace, has international significance when international armed conflicts and social unrest are prevailing in different parts of the world. Furthermore, the significance of peace and birthplace of first credible promoter of it never diminishes. Considering this fact, UNESCO has listed Lumbini, -- proper place in Kapilvastu -- where Buddha was born, as world heritage site. The credit of making Kapilvastu internationally known goes to Anton Fuhrer and the date he identified Ashok pillar. Thus, we have decided to celebrate December 1, 2009 as Kapilvastu day to honor Archaeologist Fuhrer, to express our solidarity to peace initiatives worldwide, to spread Buddha's message of peace and harmony, and to promote pilgrimage tourism in Kapilvastu.

We have included materials that provide detailed information on Kapilvastu, Anton Fuhrer and his contribution resulted in making Kapilvastu known to the world, and our programs on this day with this letter. Hence, we humbly request you to support this program by all possible means in your capacity, including organizing programs, to make this celebration a success. 

This programme is volunteer initiative of ours and everybody is free to mark this day at his/her convenience. Some of possible positive activities one can involve can be:

1. Organizing talk programmes and meetings locally
2. Printing and distributing leaflets that educates people on key facts and figures about Buddha and his teachings, Lumbini and Kapilvastu
3. Circulating emails containing key information on Buddha and his teachings, Lumbini and Kapilvastu among friends
4. Using social networking sites like facebook, twitter, orkut, hi5, etc., to spread message of Kapilvastu day and its significance

Materials for our own information and for collection and distribution are available at (All website links are provided by Madhusudan Rimal – who used to teach Buddhism at Mahendra Sanskrit University and currently living in Germany. Mr. Rimal is trying to organize a programme at Munich, Germany):

About Kapilbastu

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/666 (world heritage site from UNESCO-UN)
http://www.ddckapilvastu.gov.np/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapilvastu_District
http://www.buddhist-temples.com/uttar-pradesh/kapilvastu.html

some pictures http://www.picsearch.com/pictures/travel/cities/asia/northeast%20asia/nepal/kapilvastu.html

About Lumbini

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumbini
Academic site http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/buddhistworld/lumbini.htm

informative site

http://www.buddhist-temples.com/lumbini.html
http://www.lumbini.org.uk/
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/nepal/lumbini

About Buddha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhahood
http://www.aboutbuddha.org/

Encyclopedia Britannica

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/83105/Buddha

In Canada

http://www.synaptic.bc.ca/ejournal/buddhist.htm

Ashoka Pillar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillars_of_Ashoka

About Buddhism

Academic site

http://www.buddhanet.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism
 http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/index.htm

Responses available till today:

1. Madhusudan Rimal and friends at Germany are trying to organize a programme at their location.
2. Friends at Toronto (Ontario, Canada), including Subas BK, Ashok Khadka, Govinda Siwakoti, etc., are trying to organize a talk programme at their location.
3. Rajendra Neupane and other friends at Victoria (British Columbia, Canada) are trying to organize a talk programme to mark this day.
4. Reading Revellers’ Club at Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada) has selected Buddha, Kapilvastu and Lumbini as theme of their next meeting on December 5, 2009 to express its solidarity to Kapilvastu day.
5. Ram Kumar Shrestha – located at London (UK) is mobilizing his more than 500 friends through emails and social networking websites. He has already made the day popular by publishing materials online at http://nepalisamachar.com/?p=4975, http://www.nepalarab.com/articles_view.php?id=509 and http://nepalarab.com/press_view.php?id=112. He also has written to Ambassadors and Consul Generals requesting their solidarity in this programme.
6. Some friends decided to write poems for this programme. Relevant poems, songs, bhajans and articles most well come. I would like to request again to include the logo with them while keeping them as note. Use of logo will have lots of importance and one of the advantages is to make impact study job very easy and time saving.
7. North American Nepali Students’ Association (NANSA) is also in process of expressing its solidarity to the programme and possibly involving in activities of that day.

I will keep you posted whenever I receive new information.  I humbly request you to keep me informed on your activities so that we can circulate it among media and friends to spread the message and boost enthusiasm of our friends.

 

Sincerely,

 

Bhanu Poudyal

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