My Visit to World Peace Pagoda, Pokhara

The word ‘Buddha’ is a title, which means ‘one who is awake’ — in the sense of having ‘woken up to reality’. The Buddha was born as Siddhartha Gautama in Nepal around 2,500 years ago. He was a human being who became Enlightened, understanding life in the deepest way possible. The Buddha who is the founder of the Buddhist religion is called Buddha Shakyamuni “Shakya” is the name of the royal family into which he was born, and “Muni” means “Able One.” Buddha explains how to attain liberation from suffering for oneself alone, and in the Mahayana teaching he explains how to attain full enlightenment, or Buddhahood, for the sake of others.
Buddha is considered as ‘Light of Asia’ and ‘a symbol of Peace’. In recent days, we find many temples, monuments and statues of Buddha and he is worshiped as Lord. Since, he is considered as ‘Symbol of Peace’, many places were targeted with the statue of Buddha in a belief that Peace will be maintained. The principles and beliefs of Buddha quickly spread from country to country as there was a time of war and selfishness among people was on peak. Buddha always believed in love and sacrifices and main thing was facing the truth. With this belief, during World War II, when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombarded, Nichidatsu Fujii (a Japanese Buddhist monk, and founder of the Nipponzan-Myōhōji in 1918)  declared himself in favor of pacifism and went round Japan actively promoting Peace. He thought of creating Peace Pagodas(temple) all over the world so that peace can be maintained. For this pleasant work, he went country to country even met Mahatma Gandhi at his ashram in Wardha in 1933. To strengthen his peace keeping process, first ‘World Peace Pagoda’ was constructed in Han Okasa during 1954.
To give continuity to his work, an organization Nipponzan-Myōhōji planned to construct the World Peace Pagoda in Pokhara ( a city of lake sufficient with natural beauties and one of the most touristic place). Nipponzan-Myōhōji and locals of Pokhara built Shanti Stupa. Morioka Sonin, Dharmashilla Guruma (nun) and Min Bahadur Gurung were the key people in constructing the pagoda. During the construction of Shanti Stupa, Nepal government had arrested them several times with false accusations. Morioka Sonin took the initiative of building the Shanti Stupa in Pokhara. Dharmashilla Guruma of Dhamashilla Buddha Bihar, Pokhara was very positive about the proposal from Nipponzan-Myōhōji and was involved in creating active participation from the locals in Pokhara. The statue of first elected deputy defense minister Min Bahadur Gurung,congress party member is placed in front of the Shanti Stupa to honor his role in building the hilltop monument by donating the land. On 28 November 1973, the prayer hall with the statue of Buddha and the Guest House was set up. On bhadra 27, 2030 it was first inaugurated by Nichidatsu Fujii. When the construction of the pagoda had reached 35 feet, on Shrawan 13, 2031, Panchayati and Royal Nepal government requested to the concerned party to destroy the pagoda and the buildings showing town-planning and security reasons. The building was not officially "passed" by the local government. Even though building the pagoda was off-limits, with the continuous support from Nipponzan-Myōhōji, the supporters and the monks were constantly working to rebuild the pagoda. Nichidatsu Fujii had prophesized that one day the Shanti Stupa would be rebuilt. Finally, with continuous effort, it was re-inaugurated by honorable Prime Minister Girija Prasadh Koirala on Jestha 8, 2049.
Above mentioned all information is written on the board kept in front of the World Peace Pagoda situated in PumdiBhumdi-1, VDC of Kaski district. The Pagoda is surrounded in total area of 21 Ropani 8 aana 1 paisa 2 daam and the height of the Stupa is 115 feet and the round of Stupa is 344 feet. I gathered all these information during my visit to Pokhara in ‘Nepali New Year 2074’ by reaching to the Stupa. Observing Stupa, I got overwhelmed and felt excited. The view from the Pagoda is awesome, one can see whole Pokhara city and the lakes clearly as well as mountainous scenes are clearly visible.  I felt peace in me for moment when I visited it. All the forms of Buddha are on shown in each four direction of the round pagoda in the form of statue. 

Visiting it, I felt like beauty is what that creates peace in mind and seeing the peaceful crowd, I came to know that within small land, many creatures can be adjusted happily if the surrounding is natural, healthy and peaceful.