The Dragon Palace Temple, also known as the Lotus Temple of Nagpur, is a

Buddhist temple A Buddhist temple or Buddhist monastery is the place of worship for Buddhism, Buddhists, the followers of Buddhism. They include the structures called vihara, chaitya, stupa, wat, khurul and pagoda in different regions and languages. Temples in B ...

Kamptee Kamptee is a suburb of Nagpur city and a municipal council in Nagpur district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is part of the Nagpur metropolitan region development authority. It is the administrative center for Kamptee taluka. It is be ...

Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. The temple was established in 1999 with funds from the Japan-based Ogawa Society, a charitable trust.Nichiren Shu News The 4th Anniv. of Dragon Palace Temple in Nagpur, India Celebrated http://nichiren-shu.org/news/id11/ The temple complex encompassing the Dragon Palace houses a carved

sandalwood Sandalwood is a class of woods from trees in the genus ''Santalum''. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and, unlike many other aromatic woods, they retain their fragrance for decades. Sandalwood oil is extracted from the woods. Sanda ...

murti In the Hinduism, Hindu tradition, a ''murti'' (, ) is a devotional image, such as a statue or icon, of a Hindu deities, deity or Hindu saints, saint used during ''Puja (Hinduism), puja'' and/or in other customary forms of actively expressing d ...

that is associated with the

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legends, he was ...

, and the building is a pilgrimage site for practitioners of the faith.

History

The Dragon Palace Temple was founded in 1999 on land purchased by

Sulekha Kumbhare Sulekha Narayan Kumbhare (born 1962) is an Indian politician, lawyer and Ambedkarite-Buddhist activist. She is founder and president of the Bahujan Republican Ekta Manch. She served as cabinet minister from 1999 to 2014 in the Government of Ma ...

and Noriko Ogawa. Kumbhare was at the time serving as the mayor of Kamptee, while Ogawa was the president of a Japanese company with business connections in the area. Ogawa was also the head of the Ogawa Foundation, a charitable trust that contributed to Buddhist charitable causes. The foundation envisioned the Dragon Palace Temple as both a place for Buddhist education and meditation, as well as a symbol of Indo-Japanese friendship. This original plot of 10 acres was expanded by 40 acres in 2003.

References

{{Reflist Tourist attractions in Nagpur Buddhism in Maharashtra Buddhist temples in Maharashtra