Over the last few years, India has been aggressively marketing itself as a Buddhist tourism destination. The results have begun to show, but a lot more needs to be done to optimise the potential.
For centuries, India has attracted tourists from Asia, keen on visiting the numerous sites and centres of Buddhism, spread across the country. Back in the 3rd century AD, Fa Hien (or Faxian) became the first Chinese Buddhist monk to visit India in search of greater knowledge about Buddha and to visit the monasteries to learn more about Buddhism from the monks in India. Over several years, he travelled extensively all over India, visiting key centres of Buddhism, which was flourishing at the moment, and he penned his experiences which have today become a great source of information about India and Buddhism in that era.
Fa Hien was followed by many other visitors from various parts of Asia, notably his own countryman, Hiuen Tsang (or Xuanzang) in the 7th century AD, who spent nearly 20 years tracing the path of Buddhism and learning in great centres such as the Nalanda university in today’s Bihar. His travelogues have also become a global source of information about Buddhism of the period as well as the state of the Indian society.
But barring these famous and scholarly visitors, India has not really been flooded by a mass of Buddhists, living mainly all over Asia. This was partly due to the fact that India woke up to Buddhist tourism rather late in the day, only about a decade ago, when the idea that Buddhism could be a strong marketing plank for promoting tourism to India.
This story is from the September - October 2016 edition of India & You.
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This story is from the September - October 2016 edition of India & You.
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