Tallest Buddha to come up in Kushinagar

MUMBAI: Despite China''s bid to outdo India, it looks like India will still get to house world''s tallest Buddha.
The 500-foot statue of the Maitreya Buddha, will be three times as tall as the Statue of Liberty. It will come up in Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh and not in Bodhgaya in Bihar as proposed earlier.
The complex will come up a few km away from the Buddhist stupa in Kushinagar.
The statue will form the centrepiece of a $300 million 700-acre peace memorial complex in Kushinagar, the place where the Buddha died.
The statue, of the Buddha seated on a throne, will be made of bronze. An international research team of scientists has developed a special alloy with aluminium and nickel on outer surface that will ensure that the statue lasts at least 1,000 years.
The throne building will hold shrines, meditation centres, exhibition galleries, a museum, a library and an auditiorium. The rest of the complex will contain a secluded monastery and nunnery, guest houses, a school and a state-of-the-art hospital.