Buddha Jayanti Park

Buddha Jayanti Park lies in New Delhi, inside the Central Ridge Reserve Forest, and was created to mark the 2,500th birth anniversary of Gautam Buddha. It is a large, quiet green space on the southern stretch of the Delhi Ridge.

Its most valued tree is an offshoot of the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi in Sri Lanka, itself descended from the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya. Sri Lankan Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike presented the sapling in 1964 and Lal Bahadur Shastri planted it. At the centre of the park, a Buddha statue given by the Tibetan people stands on an island in a network of waterways, ringed by a circumambulation path and coloured stone bands that represent the elements of the Kalachakra Mandala.