OWN CORRESPONDENT, Allahabad, India | Saturday
THE Dalai Lama, the supreme spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, has urged Christians and Muslims to accept that there is more than one valid religion.
“Christianity and Islam have a very strong concept of one religion. I think that should change. I hope that will change,” he told reporters at the Kumbh Mela, the world’s largest religious gathering in Allahabad, in Uttar Pradesh.
“We need a variety of religions because there is a variety of human beings. I respect Christianity … [but] there is a missionary effort for conversion. That is wrong, that is no good,” the Dalai Lama said. “Conversion is not only outdated but harmful.”
The Dalai Lama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, said he slightly differed with the perception of his hosts – the right-wing World Hindu Council – that Islam was an aggressive religion that historically had provoked violent campaigns against other religions.
“I don’t entirely agree. In the past sad events have happened. But that is the past,” he said.
Earlier, millions of Hindus at the gathering felt the ground sway under them when a major earthquake rolled across the Indian subcontinent on Friday, killing more than 500 people as it rocked buildings from western Pakistan to Nepal and Bangladesh.
Allahabad is more than 1 600km east of the epicentre of the earthquake, which measured 7.9 in magnitude.
Thousands trooped into the festival area, holding each other so they didn’t get lost as they headed to the sandy banks of the Ganges, where organisers say more than 50 million people have bathed since the Hindu bathing festival started on January 9.
The Dalai Lama, whose followers believe the exiled leader of Tibetan Buddhists is the reincarnation of Buddha, arrived at the Kumbh Mela for a two-day trip on Thursday, his second visit to the once-in-12-years festival.
Allahabad is the site of the confluence of the dark blue waters of the Yamuna River, the gray sandy currents of the Ganges and the mythical Saraswati. According to Hindu astrologers, this particular alignment of planets and stars over Allahabad occurs once every 144 years. They said that makes the festival, held every 12 years, especially auspicious this year.