The South Asian Buddhist Forum was established at Baurinagar Buddhist Maha Vihara, Maharashtra State of India on January 07.
More than 25,000 people participated in this two-day event, whilst Ven. Athuraliye Rathana Thero was appointed as the President of the South Asian Buddhist Forum.
During the conference, a special convention consisting of 09 points has also been declared.
At this convention, it was agreed to create exemplars of the Buddhist philosophy of life, move towards zero-emission energy, and dedicate to the creation of a green world. It also pledged to work for promoting the cooperative system and fair trade in the world in order to create social justice.
Accordingly, a South Asian Buddhist Council will be established consisting of South Asian representatives, who agree to the relevant objectives of the convention, in order to achieve the relevant objectives.
A bilingual website that offers content in both Hindi and English languages will be launched in order to achieve those objectives, while a dialogue required to identify the common religious identity of the three main branches of Buddhism is slated to be initiated through a quarterly magazine.
Meanwhile, it has also been discussed to hold a Buddhist conference in each state of India and Buddhist countries representing this conference, while relationships will be built with Buddhist leaders in all the other Buddhist countries which do not represent the conference and to connect those countries to the international Buddhist community.
They will also work towards developing arts and literature that brings about the spiritual awakening and harmony of humans and to promote and popularize the existing Buddhist arts, in order to achieve the goals agreed upon at this convention.
