{"id":66088,"date":"2017-05-13T15:32:30","date_gmt":"2017-05-13T22:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=66088"},"modified":"2017-05-13T15:32:30","modified_gmt":"2017-05-13T22:32:30","slug":"wesak-celebrations-in-malaysia-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/05\/13\/wesak-celebrations-in-malaysia-2\/","title":{"rendered":"WESAK CELEBRATIONS IN MALAYSIA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sumanananda Premseri\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Wesak was grandly commemorated througout Malaysia this last one week with thousands of devotees thronging temples and Buddhist centres\u00a0in all 14 states of the country, where\u00a0Wesak\u00a0is a national public holiday, offering flowers, incense, candles, oil lamps,\u00a0electric lights, etc\u00a0and receiving blessings from monks and nuns. Buddhists make up 19% of Malaysia’s population and all three major Buddhist traditions of Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana are present here.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri\u00a0Najib\u00a0Tun Abdul Razak attended a Wesak\u00a0Tea reception organized by the Joint Wesak Celebrations Committee which was attended by Ministers and also heads of various religious faiths.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Wesak candle light and float processions were also held throughout the country. In the capital, Kuala Lumpur, about 80,000 people headed towards the 122 year old Buddhist Maha Vihara which was founded by Sri Lankans\u00a0who had migrated to Malaysia. The temple was a hub of activity. At the Wesak Dansal, about\u00a015,000 packets of free vegetarian lunch\u00a0were distributed and\u00a0free cups of soya bean and juices were distributed throughout the\u00a0day.\u00a0An organ and blood donation campaign was held with more than 500 people successfully donating blood, after tests and checks by doctors.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thousands of free Buddhist books touching various aspects on Buddhism in 26 languages were distributed to the public which included\u00a0Asian, European, African and\u00a0South American languages.\u00a0Hundreds were queuing to blessed by monks in the Main Shrine Room, built in 1894 and outside the towering International Buddhist Pagoda, built in 1971\u00a0where a relic of the Buddha is enshrined\u00a0within a receptacle placed at the\u00a0pinnacle. An Eight precepts observance program was also held.<\/span><\/p>\n

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On Wesak night, Federal Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai launched the Wesak float procession which saw about 30,000 Malaysian Chinese, Indians, Sinhalese and Buddhist of\u00a0various countries such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodians, etc participating in a candle light and float procession of\u00a020 colourfully decorated floats. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sumanananda Premseri\u00a0 Wesak was grandly commemorated througout Malaysia this last one week with thousands of devotees thronging temples and Buddhist centres\u00a0in all 14 states of the country, where\u00a0Wesak\u00a0is a national public holiday, offering flowers, incense, candles, oil lamps,\u00a0electric lights, etc\u00a0and receiving blessings from monks and nuns. Buddhists make up 19% of Malaysia’s population and all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66088","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=66088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66088\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}