Western observers called it the world’s largest development initiative, by far surpassing the Marshall Plan of the US which helped reconstruct Europe after World War II.

who got Buddhism from us. Or from East Asia who again in the 5th century got from us, their nuns’-order. Or from further east who got aspects of their Tantric Buddhism in the circa 8th century through Amoghavajra from our Abhayagiri.

All these soft power exports to Asia from Sri Lanka mainly occurred through Anuradhapura and later Polonnaruwa. The importance of this ancient soft power for foreign relations for the modern period was such that when Burma got her Independence, the first country they wanted to have foreign relations with was us. But unfortunately, at that time our government was not interested in following these historical connections. Neither did the current or the previous government. MR visited and invited the Pope but not the Buddhist luminaries in Theravada countries. The then military leader of Myanmar and later the Princess of Thailand did visit the Dalada Maligawa and were received by MR. Both leaders at MR’s request were given two booklets on our connections with these countries and the author urged MR to connect with these countries. To no avail, but Kadirgamar would have definitely followed up. Strategic interests lost.

For Vesak, we did not invite any leaders from Buddhist countries. Our invitations went to two Hindu leaders, BJP’s Modi from India and Bhandari from Nepal. Modern “Hinduism” is a relatively recent amalgam but it was against its more basic tenets that the Buddha spoke. Shortly before BJP’s Modi visit, our government had invited the Indian Congress’s former minister Shashi Tharoor. He had written a book Pax Indica, reminiscent of the Pax Britannica through which Britain controlled her colonial world. In Tharoor’s book, India’s future would be as our controller, “a regional hegemon”. The Hindu newspaper commented that the book ignored “India’s intrusive manipulations” in Nepal, in Afghanistan and the support to the LTTE. Tharoor spoke in double tongue, so did Modi.

India’s Constitution regards Buddhism as only a part of Hinduism. This, despite Ambedkar the leader of the Dalits (“untouchable” caste) and the principal author of that Constitution declaring, “I was born a Hindu but will not die a Hindu”. In 1956, Ambedkar converted to Buddhism. But very much earlier, Anagaraika Dharmapala had formed the Maha Bodhi Society to reclaim the