The Buddhists in the city and elsewhere in the country on Friday celebrated Ashari Purnima, one of their major religious festivals, with solemn devotion and traditional enthusiasm.
Ashari Purnima is celebrated by the members of the Buddhist community to commemorate three significant incidences of Buddha’s life which took place on this single day.
On this day, restless and dissatisfied with his opulent, prince Siddhartha renounced his kingdom, even his wife and son when he was just 29 years old in quest of eternal truth.
The festival is mostly important that Siddhartha Gautama after attaining supreme enlightenment in six years of rigorous meditation as Buddha preached his first sermon among his five disciples at Banaras of Sarnath in India.
The purnima is thirdly important as the Buddhist monks will go for three months long seclusion inside their monasteries for atonement of their defilement from the following day if any till another festival Prabarana Purnima.
Commemorating those events, the Buddhists all over the world have been observing the rites and rituals on the same day for ages. The festivals on the occasion of full moon are universally observed by the Buddhists.
These performances delight and purify the minds, encouraging doing good deeds that eventually, bring peace and happiness in the lives, and progress in society and the state as well.
The festival was celebrated in all monasteries through daylong programmes.
The day’s programmes were heralded with the hoisting of the national and religious flags atop all monasteries and chanting of the sacred verses from the Tripitaka.
