{"id":120211,"date":"2021-11-11T18:42:49","date_gmt":"2021-11-12T01:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=120211"},"modified":"2021-11-11T18:42:49","modified_gmt":"2021-11-12T01:42:49","slug":"buddhism-the-defining-characteristic-of-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/11\/11\/buddhism-the-defining-characteristic-of-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"Buddhism &#8211; the defining characteristic of Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Senaka Weeraratna<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Christianity\nis the defining characteristic of Europe. The European Union is a set of\ncountries bonded by Christian culture, heritage, and values. It is Christianity\nthat gives the collective identity of Europe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Islam\nis the defining characteristic of 57 countries that call themselves Islamic\ncountries and thereby have acquired membership of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation\n(OIC). &nbsp;&nbsp;Islam has been written into the Constitution of each\nof these countries. Islam is the State Religion of these Muslim countries but\nother religions may be followed provided it is done in harmony with Islam (see\nMalaysian Constitution) &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hinduism\nis the defining religion of India with over a 7, 500-year-old history of\nSanatana Dharma. The latter&nbsp;is a&nbsp;Hindu\nappellation for Hinduism itself which translates as&nbsp;<strong>&#8220;the eternal\ndharma<\/strong>.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Almost\nevery aspect of Indian Culture is permeated by Hinduism. Hindus of India have\nevery right to rename modern India in step with Hindu culture and tradition\njust as much as Muslims have exercised that privilege to rename the breakaway\nMuslim nation as Pakistan. The monumental lapse of Gandhi and Nehru in not\ncalling the remaining part of Mother India after Pakistan broke away, as a\nHindu country can still be undone. Hindus of India have a right to separate\nidentity and nationhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So\ndo Buddhists in any country if and when they are in a majority.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Buddhism\nis the defining characteristic of Sri Lanka, which has a track record of the\nlongest period of uninterrupted Buddhism (over 2, 300 years) in the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Senaka\nWeeraratna<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senaka Weeraratna Christianity is the defining characteristic of Europe. The European Union is a set of countries bonded by Christian culture, heritage, and values. It is Christianity that gives the collective identity of Europe. Islam is the defining characteristic of 57 countries that call themselves Islamic countries and thereby have acquired membership of the Organization [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-senaka-weeraratna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}