The Buddha Dhatu Jadi (Bengali: বুদ্ধ ধাতু জাদি; Burmese: ဗုဒ္ဓဓာတုစေတီ also known as the Bandarban Golden Temple) is located close to Balaghata town, in Bandarban City, in Bangladesh. Dhatu are the material remains of a holy person, and in this temple the relics belong to Buddha. It is the largest Theravada Buddhist temple in Bangladesh and has the second-largest Buddha statue in the country.
The Bandarban Golden Temple belongs to the Theravada Buddhism order, which is practiced by the Marma indigenous people, a dominant ethnic group of Bandarban. It was built in 2000 in Arakanese architecture, an adoption of the South East Asia style.
Bandarban has a large ethnic population of Buddhists. Buddhism is practiced by a small percentage of 0.7 in Bangladesh, predominantly a Muslim country. Buddhism is the third-largest religion in Bangladesh and the practice is of Theravada Buddhism; most Buddhists are from the south-eastern district of Chittagong and Chittagong Hill Tracts.[1][2][3]
In Bangladesh, the Theravada Buddhism, now practiced as "Sangharaj Nikaya", was introduced in the late 19th century, replacing many of the old forms of Buddhism practiced till then. The credit for this is given to Ven. Saramedha, known popularly as "Sangharaj".[4]
The ethnic population of the town belongs mostly to Marma, an indigenous group of the Chittagong hill region on the eastern end of the country. They are of Arakanese descent and Buddhists by religion, and are the second-largest indigenous group in the hill districts of Bangladesh.
Ven. U Pannya Jota Mahathera is the founder and chief priest of the temple. He belongs to the royal Bohmong family of Bandarban. He is a Theravada monk since 1991. He had served the government of Bangladesh for 8 years as a senior assistant judge. The Buddha's dhatu (relic), which is enshrined in the temple, was a gift given to Ven. U Pannya Jota Mahathera in 1994 by the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee of Myanmar.[5]
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