BUDDIST TOURISN
Last year, Jessica, then 27, had a fledgling career as a nurse in boston after a bachelor’s from the university of Michigan. That’s when her ‘buddha moment’ happened. She dropped it all, includeing her surname – “to achieve oneness with all,as the budhha had preacheed’’-and landed in bodh gaya,bihar.jessica is now a health programme volunteer with institute,a medication centre.’’I have been able to understand the true meaning of life only after coming to bodhgaya,’’she says. Not everyone stays on.but an increasing number of buddhists are headed for india and now the land where Buddhism was born os pulling out all stops to harness the tourism potential of its 500million adherents.thebod gaya – rajagir – nalanda circuit figures among the 45 mega tourist destinations in the country and has enabled bihar to leap ahead of goa and himachal Pradesh to eight spot among states when it comes to foreign tourist arrivals. Now, a series of archaeological excavations in vadnagar promises to make Gujarat a permanent fixture on the Buddhist circuit. The Gujarat government is plainning on the adding nearly a dozen other Buddhist sites to vadnagar to woo tourists from southeast asia, srilanka and the fareast, espically japan.