The Bodh Gaya-based Budh Avsesh Abhiyan (Save Buddhist Relics Campaign) has demanded that the Union government set up a national museum at Sannati in Chittapur taluk in Kalaburagi district and to protect the excavated artefacts and findings.
Bhante Tissavro, who heads the campaign, recently expressed his displeasure at the neglect of history at one of the important Buddhist sites in the country.
He said that even the State government had done little to attract tourists and Buddhist pilgrims to Sannati.
The Tourism Department should take up development works at Sannati by improving infrastructure and constructing a museum to display the sculptures and other historical evidence recovered from various Buddhist sites in the State, the monk added.
He urged the government to form an expert committee comprising historians to search for the tomb of Emperor Ashoka.
Though history speaks volumes about Ashok’s achievements, there is complete silence on where he died and where his mortal remains were interred. He said that his research over the years and visits to several Buddhist centres in India and outside had made him suspect that Ashoka, who had visited Sannati during his second sojourn to south India, had died somewhere there. “I believe that his tomb could be somewhere among the mounds at the Sannati site,” he said and added that history was silent on whether Ashoka returned to north India after his second visit to the south part, giving credence to the belief that Ashoka may have died at Sannati.
