Buddhist Assembly Hall to be opened in January

Bangalore, Nov 30 (UNI) Drepung Loseling Monastic Institute, a seat for advance Buddhist studies and intense practices, has completed a Rs ten crore Assembly Hall project to house ever expanding monk-students at Tibetan Colony in Mundgod in northern Karnataka.

Chairman of the Organising Committee of the Opening Ceremony T G Rinpoche told reporters here today that the Assembly Hall built in the Nalanda style of architecture will be opened on January seven with dignitaries from world-wide taking part in it.

The new Assembly Hall, which has a capacity to house more than 3000 monks for conducting prayers and other religious studies, would be opened by Spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet Dalai Lama, he said.

The dream project of the Institute was taken up in 2003 following the over congestion after the accelerated flow of fresh monks from around the globe for religious studies to the Colony, which was set up at Mundgod in Uttara Kannada district in 1959.

"This great Prayer Hall has the undisputed unique distinction of being the largest and the grandest Buddhist congregation hall in the whole world," he said.

"As it is in a completion stage, in accordance of Buddhist tradition, the Institution has invited qualified monks from Tantric monasteries to perform the purification rituals of the hall before the formal inauguration," he said.

UNI