Allow us, the Buddhist monastics living and working in Lumbini, to strongly disagree with the following paragraph in Navin Singh Khadka's 'Saving what is left' (#208): 'There is no doubt that Buddhist countries are competing with each other to build monolithinc monasteries and temples in the masterplan area.' International Buddhist monastics of different traditions have not come to Lumbini to compete with each other but out of veneration for Nepal's most-eminent son, Siddhartha Gotama, the Buddha and his sacred birthplace. Facing tremendous difficulties, we are sacrificing our lives for the development of Lumbini, for peace and spiritual development of Nepal. There is no doubt that Mr Khadka's assumption that Buddhist countries are competing with each other is absolutely wrong, and the assertion creates the wrong impression about Lumbini. We invite anyone wishing to accurately investigate the real situation to visit and see the truth. All over the world and across the ages, people have built religious edifices as an expression of deep religious faith. This is also applies to the monasteries in Lumbini. 'Monolith' is defined as a 'large single, upright block of stone, especially one that was shaped into a column by people living in ancient times' or (often disapprovingly) as 'a single very large organisation that is very slow to change and not interested in individual people'. None of the monasteries here qualifies as 'monolithic'. If Lumbini were to be located in one of the traditional Buddhist countries such as Myanmar or Thailand the monasteries and temples would be much more magnificient. Except for that one paragraph, Mr Khadka's article as a whole is interesting and worth reading.

On behalf of the Lumbini sanga,
Ven. Bhadda Manika Panditarama International Vipassana Meditation Centre, Lumbini