Dragon Palace Temple, Kamptee

The Dragon Palace Temple, a Buddhist temple in Kamptee, Maharashtra, also goes by the name Lotus Temple of Nagpur. It was founded in 1999 on land bought by Sulekha Kumbhare, then mayor of Kamptee, and Noriko Ogawa, president of a Japanese company with business links in the area, with money from the Ogawa Society, a charitable trust based in Japan. Ogawa also headed the Ogawa Foundation, which gave to Buddhist causes.

That foundation meant the temple to serve both as a place for Buddhist learning and meditation and as a symbol of friendship between India and Japan. The first 10-acre plot was enlarged by another 40 acres in 2003. Within the complex, the Dragon Palace holds a carved sandalwood murti associated with the Buddha, and the temple is a place of pilgrimage for Buddhists.