TAXILA: A 16-member delegation from South Korea comprising of monks, scholars and religious tourists on Tuesday visited Taxila Museum and different ancient Buddhist civilisation sites including Sirkap and Dharmarajika Stupa.

The delegation was received by Anjum Dara, Deputy Director Directorate General of Archaeology Department, and curator of the museum Humera Naz.

While briefing the delegation, Mr Dara said the artifacts were more than 2,000 years old when Buddhist monks used to live in Taxila, the centre of the ancient Gandhara civilisation. He added that the Taxila site and the museum had great potential to attract national and international visitors who enjoy the firsthand experience of being at the unique historical sites of antiquities and human settlements of Gandhara Buddhist heritage.

Head of the delegation Son Tae Ho, while talking to newsmen, said that Pakistan is also of great significance to the Korean people as the land is the birthplace of Buddhism and the first Monk Marananatha, who brought Buddhism to Korea in 384 AD, belonged to Pakistan.

He said as a Buddhist place, we will highly encourage our people to come to Pakistan and visit Taxila from where they can get vast knowledge about the mix of cultures.

“I am visiting Pakistan for the first time and am glad to come here,” said Sung Junga, a monk.

“Gandhara is a wellspring of research for soul-searching. It is my hope that we see Buddha’s message through these objects of art: the love of humanity over divinity,” he added.

Lady Monk Cho Seohyun said Korea’s Buddhism traces its roots to the Gandharan civilisation that thrived 2,000 years ago in the territories of today’s northern Pakistan.

“To this day, stupas, shrines and courtyards stand to represent the holy land of Buddhism,” she said, adding that the University of Lahore would also establish an international Gandhara research centre in Taxila so that future Pakistani students do not go to Europe to learn about the civilisation and world scholars come to this institute to teach and study together.

Project Director Gandhara International Research Centre University of Lahore Dr Kyosoon Park said that for two decades she had worked to build a bridge between Korean Buddhists and Pakistan and this visit of Korean monks and scholars would help not only promote a soft image of Pakistan but also attract religious tourists.

She said that the statue of the Fasting Buddha can become as famous as Mona Lisa in France which is viewed by more than six million people every year. “Therefore, in this 21st century, we can revive the pilgrimage link between Pakistan, China, and Korea similar to the CPEC project which will boost religious tourism,” she said.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2024