1960 Medical batch, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Sri Lanka agrees to provide land for Sita Temple

Bhopal: Deshdeep Saxena TNN May 17, 2016 Madhya Pradesh government will soon start the construction of a grand temple of Sita, wife of Lord Rama, in Sri Lanka at the place where she underwent agni pariksha (an ordeal of fire). The island nation has agreed to provide a piece of land for the purpose.An ambitious project of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, it has been hanging fire for the last five years. In the past, Chouhan himself had visited the places in the island nation associated with mythological characters of Rama and Sita. In the last week of April, a top bureaucrat of MP government visited Sri Lanka to finalise various issues related to the temple, including its architectural design among others. RSS leader Ram Madhav has also been evincing keen interest in the project, government sources claimed. Chouhan had first proposed the project in September 2012 when the then Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa visited Sanchi to inaugurate University of Buddhist-Indic Studies.

The temple is likely to be constructed at Divurumpola, a place which the Sri Lankan government claims to be the site where Sita underwent the agni pariksha. During the recent visit of Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena to Simhastha in Ujjain and later to Sanchi on May 14, the chief minister discussed the issue again. "The government is still working on various issues like who would maintain the temple after its construction is over. It is likely to be maintained by India Foundation, an organisation with which RSS leader Ram Madhav is involved," sources claimed