Photographs featuring murals by Solis Mendis to be presented to India

Inauguration of Kushinagar airport:

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the Kushinagar International Airport on Oct. 20 and will also lay the foundation stone for a medical college there. Namal Rajapaksa, Minister of Youth and Sports and Development Coordination and Monitoring and State Minister of Digital Technology and Enterprise Development will be in Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar at the inauguration of its international airport.

The Sri Lankan High Commission in New Delhi issued the following statement: “The first flight during the inaugural ceremony will arrive carrying the 125 delegates with Maha Sanga as the first Buddhist pilgrims.  On the occasion of the opening of the Kushinagar International Airport, two photographs would also be declared open and presented to the people of India by the people of Sri Lanka with the blessings of the Sri Lankan Maha Sangha. The High Commission has taken steps to install these photographs on a proposal by Lankan High Commissioner to India, Milinda Moragoda. These photographs feature two murals painted by the eminent Sri Lankan painter Solis Mendis (1897-1975) in the Kelaniya Rajamaha Vihara, which is the Buddhist temple believed to be the venue of the third visit of the Buddha to Sri Lanka.

India’s greatest emperor, the Buddhist ruler Dharmashoka, sent both his son and daughter to Sri Lanka as emissaries to introduce and spread the teachings of the Buddha. The first mural depicts Arahat Bhikkhu Mahinda, son of Emperor Ashoka delivering the message of the Buddha to King Devanampiyatissa of Sri Lanka upon arriving on the island. The second mural depicts the arrival to Sri Lanka of There Bhikkhuni Sanghamitta, the daughter of the emperor, bearing the right-hand branch sapling of the Sri Maha Bodhi tree under which Gotama Siddhartha attained enlightenment. The sapling which was planted in the ancient capital of Anuradhapura of Sri Lanka in 249 BCE, has survived for over two millennia. The tree bears the distinction of being the oldest historically recorded living tree in the world and is revered by Buddhists worldwide.

These two historical events that occurred in the 3rd century BCE marked the commencement of Buddhist civilisation in Sri Lanka and epitomise the strong and unbreakable civilizational bonds that exist between Sri Lanka and India.”