Largest Buddha to be built in India, tourists hoped for

[dArKeR]

THE GUARDIAN , NEW DELHI
Friday, Jul 16, 2004,Page 5

The world's biggest statue of the Buddha is to be built in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, dwarfing other colossal representations of the religious leader in Japan and China.

The 150m-high Buddha Maitreya, or Buddha of the Future, will be installed on a massive 267-hectare site at Kushinagar, a town on the border with Nepal, where the Buddha died, or attained nirvana, 2,500 years ago.

Cast from bronze, the soaring Buddha will sit on a throne which itself will be a 17-storey building housing a smaller, 12-m statue and a vast prayer hall, shrine rooms and terraced gardens.

The US$222 million project is the brainchild of the Maitreyi Project Trust, based in Go-rkhpur city, and is supported by the state government and a Japanese religious group.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/asia/archives/2004/07/16/2003179173

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1. Didn't the Buddha preach moderation in all things?

[soothsayer]

2. I still miss the Bamiyan Buddhas, and wish we had stopped the Taliban

that summer of 2001. Bastards. I guess a real Buddhist would just laugh tho.