PESHAWAR, March 26: A 13-member delegation of South Korean monks led by Chief Executive Monk Jeon Woon Deok would start a three-day tour of NWFP from Sunday. The delegation, arriving here in connection with Gandhara Civilisation Week, is scheduled to visit Takht Bhai and Swat to see archaeological sites there. On March 29, it would visit the Archaeology Department of the Peshawar University and hold brief meetings with the university authorities. It would also visit Peshawar Museum, sources told Dawn on Saturday. During their week-long visit, the Korean monks will call on President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. However, it would meet neither Governor Khalilur Rehman nor Chief Minister Akram Durrani for the reasons best known to bureaucracy. An officer at the NWFP secretariat said that Islamabad had directed them to skip over any proposal by the provincial leadership to hold a meeting with Korean delegation. He said the NWFP, with a large number of sacred archaeological sites for Buddhists, was considered origin of Buddhism and in case the visit of the Korean delegation was properly utilized it would boost the tourism industry.

Local tours operator Yousaf, when contacted for comments, said as Hasanabdal is for Sikhs, the Swat valley and Takht Bhai are sacred for the followers of Buddhism.

The Koreans are not new in Swat. In 5th century AD Monk Haoiuchio of Korea visited the area and, on his return, told his country-fellows about sacred sites in Swat, Takht Bhai and other parts of Gandhara civilization, an archaeologist told Dawn.

He said Swat, anciently called Odayana (meaning garden) is famous Mahayana origin and is considered as a sacred place in Budhism where, according to some Chinese historians, 14,000 Stupas and Monasteries were located in the ancient times. Successive invaders and ecological changes damaged most of these sites but still many places like Saidu Stupa, Najigram, Nimogram Kara are intact, he said and added that all these sites were very sacred for the Buddhists and if proper arrangements were made, every year a large number of Buddhists could visit them as pilgrims.

He said that in Korea there were two major sects of Buddhism, one follows tradition of Mahayana while the other is called Cheont. Mahayana tradition originated in Swat and spread into China, Korea and Japan later through Silk route. According to statistics, half of the South Korean population belong to Mahayana school of thought.