Developing Buddhist tourism in Bangladesh:

Opportunities And Challenges

 

PROF. C. UPENDER RAO
Professor of Sanskrit And Pali,
School of Sanskrit and Indic Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi 110067, India

Tourism is one of the very important sectors to boost economy of any country. Today some countries in the world are seen developing their economy based on cultural tourism. Cultural tourism can be beneficial in various aspects.  It can provide Jobs in  hotel, tour services, food production and housing construction etc. The important aim of cultural tourism is to bring sustainable economic and cultural development in the country. The ancient Bangladesh was culturally rich with its Buddhist monasteries, it was a magnifying eastern part of undivided India with its great culture richness. The ruins of various Buddhist monasteries situated at ‘Paharpur’ are standing as an evidence for the presence of Mahayana Buddhism in Bangladesh.

There are other Buddhist sites in Naogaon district, Mahasthangarh in Bogra district, Mainamati in Comilla district and Bikrampur in Dhaka district. These are the most spectacular ancient Buddhist monuments in Bangladesh. According to some scholars the great Buddhist teacher Atisha hailed from this region. Some of the Viharas like Somapura are renowned intellectual places till the 12^th century A.D. This monastery with its unique Buddhist artistic architecture and many carved decorations had influenced many far off regions, like Cambodia in the past.

It is very important to define the responsibility of developing cultural tourism on ministerial level and to adopt a document of strategy on cultural tourism. The nation has to procure and provide more support of historical and architectural monuments, create financial instruments with tax policies which stimulate tourism in cultural perspective, make tough policies to be adopted in order to save the cultural heritage, introduce policies and positive measures to develop the access to public and private sites of cultural tourism-interest in the country. It has to make sites more accessible for all people, including the people with physical disabilities, provide information in many languages and to develop a group of young people to perform very smoothly when they handle Buddhist tourists.