The mishandling of this whole affair is quite unbelievable, but what is even more unbelievable is the recall of the Ambassador Jayantha Palipana, apparently because he has refused to be a party to an unscrupulous racket organized by a Japanese Buddhist temple.

The Nenbutsushu temple in Kobe was holding an exhibition of Buddha relics from Sri Lanka. The relics were from a temple in Pelmadulla, which the organizers claimed, in their hugely costly Supplement in the Yomuri Shinbun on 23rd August, were "the Buddha relics, the most sacred relics of the Sri Lanka state"-need we say more ? This is the sort of racket that these unscrupulous people indulge in; unsuspecting political leaders are duped into lending patronage to these money making events. These naïve politicians should stand advised by people who know instead of letting themselves be used and duped by unscrupulous scoundrels.

The Ambassador had been asked by the charlatans who organized this event to lend his name to an advertisement publicizing the event. The advertisement stated that the event was being organized by government of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka Embassy in Japan. He had also been told that if he was asked who was paying for the costly advertisement he should say that it was the Sri Lanka government . He had quite correctly refused and is now recalled for not stating an untruth. He has been victimized for safeguarding the interests of the country and its image.

Anyone who has lived in Japan would tell you that Japanese Buddhist temples are in fact places of business. What is not known in this country is that these huge events which are organized by these Japanese temples are in fact to make money; they have no religious significance as such.

Their principal source of income comes from undertaking funeral ceremonies. They charge a fee for reciting verses from Mahayana Texts for departed souls. The more verses they chant the higher the fee, yes, the fee charged is dependent on the number of verses recited. The Japanese also observe an All Souls Day like Christians. The temples also charge an annual fee from families for keeping the ashes of departed family members in their temples. The temples compete to increase their income. In Japan weddings are according to Shinto rites and funerals according to ‘Buddhist’ rites, their rites are entirely in keeping with the Mahayana tradition and quite alien to us. Their so-called monks marry and have children. It is only the monks of the Eheiji temple and those belong to that order who do not marry. These so-called monks do not observe ‘Pansil’ and indulge in good drinking sessions on occasions. they are really ‘priests’ presiding over rituals not monks !

Some of our so- called monks who have gone to Japan are not very different from their Japanese counterparts. In the recent past 3 of them married Japanese women and abandoned robes. The ‘man’ who has sought to hitch himself to unsuspecting Chamal Rajapakse’s delegation and re-enter Japan and was deported is just one case. One of them is an exporter of reconditioned cars. To write of their activities is to ‘look up and spit’, so I shall not list their misdemeanours but only ask why and what the so-called Theravada monks are doing in Mahayana Japan? Are they spreading Theravada Buddhism? In recent years with the influx of a large number of JVP supporters into Japan the Sri Lanka temples provide them a place to meet and indulge in fellowship.

The President has only to ask his Sri Lankan friends, who have lived in Japan and they would brief him on who these people really are. This Kobe temple had, in the advertisement, sought to make out that it was the centre of 370 million Buddhists worldwide! Our naïve politicians should exercise greater caution to ensure that they are not made suckers by these unscrupulous racketeers.