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Leelarathna, raised in a Muslim family in Sri Lanka’s small Malay community, had converted to Buddhism and became devout, attending weekly meditation sessions at Maithree Vihara.

Bukhara was once home to a Buddhist community, part of that two-way traffic of monks and scholars, which would cease after the coming of Islam in the eighth and ninth centuries — its name was drawn from the Sanskrit word for monastery, vihara.

The head priest at the London Buddhist Vihara monastery has been invited primarily to show the royal family and the British government's respect for Buddhist tradition.

Among the oldest inscriptions discovered are those on the rock cells of the Vessagiri Vihara of Anuradhapura, cut in the old Brahma-lipi character.

It is possible that in these ruins we may recognize the Nan Vihara of the Chinese traveller Hs�an Tsang.