Imran Shaukat, a businessman and a \u2018global citizen\u2019 has been advocating Buddhist tourism in Pakistan through projection of rich and ancient Gandhara civilization and this he has been doing for the last ten years. All the Buddhist countries\u2019 missions in Pakistan (ASEAN countries, Nepal and Sri Lanka) have also acknowledged his efforts in this regard.
\nImran Shaukat was one of the prominent participants in the recently held International Gandhara Symposium and expressed his views giving suggestions how Pakistan can harness Gandhara potential as in his opinion this sector (Buddhist tourism) alone can earn US$20 billion for the country.
\nImran says there are around 30 Buddhist countries with an estimated 500 million population. He urged the Pakistan government and authorities to target and bring at least 1pc of them to Pakistan in 10 years. That would alone make 5 million visitors and create massive revenue of $20 billion for Pakistan.
\nWhile giving a background on how he came towards promotion of Buddhist tourism in Pakistan, Imran Shaukat said it was back in 2016, he went to the Pakistan Embassy in Bangkok to help get visas for his business friends whom he had invited to Pakistan. There he ended up meeting with the Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmed who is currently Ambassador of Pakistan to France who requested him to coordinate a trip for the Chief Monk of Thailand Arayawangso to Pakistan as he wished to to study Gandhara.
\nMost Venerable Arayawangso, was also at the faculty of the historic Thammasat University of Bangkok and the Vice Rector of the University was his disciple.
\nIn order to get some more details, Imran visited the university and was surprised to see \u201cPakistan Corner\u201d there.
\nImran said he was moved to see that the university had given such an honour to Pakistan. At that moment, I took upon myself to do all I can for the university and the monk.
\nAnd from then on his journey to discover Gandhara and its importance for the Buddhist countries, particularly, Thailand (which has a 99pc Buddhist population) began.
\nSince 2016 till now, five Pakistan Days have been celebrated at Thammasat University and the Pakistan Corner has become a living space with around 400 volumes of books donated to the library. Moreover, Pakistan\u2019s cultural show featuring \u2018Alhamra Arts council\u2019s artists and Khumariyan was one of the highlights of those Pakistan Days. In Imran\u2019s endeavours, he was supported by Prince Adnan Aurangzeb (late). Besides three faculty trips from Thailand to study Gandhara, a filming and launch of the docudrama \u201cTipitaka \u2013 The Man of Gandhara\u201d in Thailand and the world were also on the list of achievements. A business-to-business (b-to-b) conference of tour operators was also organized and in total, around 30 activities have so far taken place since his first interaction and many more are planned for the coming months.
\nMV Arayawangso first visited Pakistan in 2019 for a week and met many dignitaries including President Arif Alvi. He loved Pakistan so much that he came again last year in 2022 for the three-month (mid-July to mid-October) Rains Retreat (Vassa) when he did a thorough study of Gandhara and visited many sites.
\nMV Arayawangso has become the biggest promoter of Pakistan in the Buddhist world, said Imran.
\nImran thinks the recently held Gandhara Symposium was also a result of MV Arayawangso\u2019s efforts. Not only Buddhists from all over the world including monks but the visitors from Thailand have increased by 10 fold. Now Imran has been invited by Ambassador of Pakistan in Cambodia, Babar Thaheem to visit Phnom Penh to expand and extend his Gandhara promotional activities.
\n \u201cI will be visiting Cambodia in September for the first time to meet our Ambassador and the monks and scholars of Cambodia there. We shall talk about Gandhara and Pakistan and I will extend an invitation to them to come and see our rich Gandhara sites. I would love to copy the Thailand model of engagement with Cambodia, and later Malaysia, Vietnam, Korea, Myanmar and many other countries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Imran Shaukat, a businessman and a \u2018global citizen\u2019 has been advocating Buddhist tourism in Pakistan through projection of rich and ancient Gandhara civilization and this he has been doing for the last ten years. All the Buddhist countries\u2019 missions in Pakistan (ASEAN countries, Nepal and Sri Lanka) have also acknowledged his efforts in this regard. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347343,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-347342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-national"},"yoast_head":"\n