The evening sun was still shining over the breezy Arabian Sea at around thirty-four degrees Celsius. Buddhist flags billowed above a boat near Kalamb Beach in Nallasopara, a coastal city in Maharashtra State. A procession of lay followers, dressed in white, gathered near the shore to see off a group of bhikshunis carrying a Bodhi sapling into a fishing boat, which continued to chant “Buddhang Saranang Gacchami,” which echoed across the coastline.
The event, held on 24 May 2026, was a small-scale reenactment of the historic journey of princess-turned-monastic Ven. Sanghamitra (282–03 BC) (Pali: Sanghamitta), daughter of Emperor Ashoka the Great (c. 304–232 BC). She famously travelled from the Indian subcontinent to the island of modern-day Sri Lanka along with eleven other bhikshunis in the 3rd century BC, carrying a sapling of the Bodhi tree and helping establish Buddhism and the Bhikshuni Sangha there.
Beyond simply a symbolic religious performance, the event brought together nuns, monks, lay Buddhists, and members of the local Agri-Koli fishing community in an effort to reclaim Buddhist women’s histories, revive public memory around ancient Buddhist maritime networks, and foreground the role of women in the spread of Buddhism beyond India.
Organised by the Sanghamitra Gandhakuti Bahuddeshiya Trust and the Indo-Sri Lanka Development Program Committee, the program was led by a 69-year-old bhikshuni, also called Ven. Sanghamitra. This Ven. Sanghamitra has spent nearly twenty-six years in Nallasopara working to preserve the region’s Buddhist heritage, particularly the ancient Sopara Stupa site. She has been consistently working to protect the site and sustain awareness around Nallasopara’s Buddhist past through public programs, teachings, and community engagement.
Reviving the Buddhist memory of Sopara
Known historically as Shurparaka or Sopara, present-day Nallasopara near Mumbai occupies an important place in Buddhist memory and ancient maritime trade history. Buddhist traditions associate the region with Punna Bhikshu, a merchant from Sopara who is believed to have met the Buddha and later joined the Sangha. Historical accounts and archaeological findings also point toward Sopara’s significance as a major trading port connected to Buddhist routes across the Arabian Sea.
The Sopara Stupa, located in the region, is regarded by many Buddhists as a site associated with relics of the Buddha and with Punna Bhikshu’s alms bowl. Despite its historical importance, the site remains relatively absent from mainstream conversations around Buddhist heritage in India.
According to Bhikshuni Sanghamitra, the reenactment was organised not simply as a remembrance of history, but as an attempt to revive awareness about the role of Buddhist women in shaping transnational Buddhist history. She emphasized that the ancient Sanghamitra’s journey represented courage, spiritual leadership, learning, and women’s participation in the spread of the Dharma, during a time when women’s contributions were frequently erased or marginalized in historical narratives. Recreating the sea voyage at Nallasopara, she told me, was also a way of reconnecting younger generations with the region’s Buddhist maritime heritage and with the routes through which Buddhism once travelled beyond the Indian subcontinent.
Procession, ritual, and reenactment
The program began with a public rally involving hundreds of people. They included laymen (upasakas) and laywomen (upasikas) dressed in white attire and bhikshunis and bhikshus from different parts of Maharashtra and other states. They carried Buddhist flags, banners, and beautiful crafted paper lotuses. Some were dressed as historical characters, like portraying Ashoka and members of the royal court, King Devanampiya Tissa (d. 267 BC or 207 BC), his sister-in-law Anula, and other members of ancient royalty.
By evening, the rally moved towards Kalamb Beach where the historical reenactment unfolded along the shoreline. Bhikshuni Sanghmitra played the role of her namesake, the ancient Ven. Sanghamitra carrying the Bodhi sapling in her hand to symbolically recreate the ancient voyage to Sri Lanka, while other bhikshunis and samaneris followed her to the boat. Members of the Agri-Koli fishing community assisted in navigating the boat into the sea, linking the performance directly to the coastal life and maritime traditions of the region.
Upon the symbolic arrival back to the shore, the Sri Lankan reception was reenacted through dance performances and ceremonial flower offerings representing Queen Anula. Anula was played by an upasika with the same name. Several women participating in the Sri Lankan segment wore sarees draped in Sri Lankan style attire. The event atmosphere moved between ritual, theater, and historical reconstruction. Elderly residents watched from the shore alongside young Buddhist followers documenting the event on their phones, while rows of participants stood facing the sea with joined palms.
Bhikshunis gather from across India
The gathering also reflected the growing visibility and expansion of contemporary Bhikshuni Sangha networks within Ambedkarite Buddhist movements in India. As noted above, hundreds of bhikshunis, samaneries, and bhikshus from different parts of the country participated in the program. 350–400 lay followers attended the procession, reenactment, and public speeches that followed. Among the prominent monastics present were Ven. Dhamma Darshana Mahatheri, Bhante Suniti Bhikshuni, Ven. Vijaya Maitriya, Ven. Nimmal Metta, and Ven. Shakya Dhamma Dina, among others.
For many participants, the presence of women monastics itself carried historical and political significance. The growing number of bhikshunis in India is seen as evidence that the Bhikshuni Sangha not only continues to exist, but remains actively engaged in the spread of the Dharma through teaching, social work, public engagement, and community organizing.
Bhikshuni Sanghamitra’s journey to Sri Lanka is regarded as one of the earliest and most influential moments in the global transmission of Buddhism. By travelling across the sea and helping establish Buddhism and the Bhikshuni lineage beyond the Indian subcontinent, she played a foundational role in transforming Buddhism from a regional tradition into a transnational one.
Within this context, it is also seen as how both the historical legacy of Sanghamitra and the contemporary growth of the Bhikshuni Sangha challenge the long-circulated “half-age” mythical narrative which claims that the ordination of women would reduce the lifespan of the Dharma from a thousand years to five hundred years. Many modern Buddhist scholars have already questioned the authenticity of this passage in the Vinaya Cullavagga, arguing that it may have emerged from later patriarchal monastic interpretations rather than from the Buddha himself.
For the Nallasopara community, the event continued to deconstruct the myth through the ongoing presence and expansion of women-led Buddhist movements: a living contradiction to the idea that women weaken or shorten the life of the Dharma.
Agri-Koli participation and maritime identity
An important aspect of the program was its collaboration with the Agri-Koli fishing community of Nallasopara, whose members played a central role in facilitating the symbolic sea journey. The Agri-Koli community, which forms a significant population around Kalamb Beach, not only supported the reenactment through providing boats, but also accommodated visiting bhikshunis in their guest houses and attended to them in a hospitable and welcoming environment.
Speaking at the event, Koli community leader Rajaram Patil reflected on the relationship between coastal communities and Buddhism. He argued that many within the Agri-Koli community reject being viewed through a Hindu framework, instead tracing their cultural memory to the Koliyas, the clan associated with Siddhartha Gautama’s maternal lineage.
Patil described the “Sagarputra” (children of the sea) as carriers of older matriarchal traditions that, in his view, retain echoes of ancient Buddhist culture. Referring to the regional deity Ekvira that was worshipped among Agri-Koli communities, he proposed an interpretation linking the figure symbolically to Queen Mahamaya, mother of Siddhartha Gautama. His remarks reflected broader efforts within sections of Ambedkarite Buddhist discourse to reinterpret regional histories, caste identities, and folk traditions through Buddhist frameworks while recovering histories outside dominant Brahmanical narratives.
The cultural segment also included a group dance performance by young Koli girls dedicated to the local goddess Ekveera, connecting folk traditions with the evening’s broader exploration of Buddhist memory and identity.
Buddhism, public memory, and cultural reassertion
Beyond its ceremonial dimensions, the reenactment demonstrated how contemporary Ambedkarite Buddhist communities are using public performance, ritual, and collective memory work to reclaim histories frequently excluded from mainstream discourse. At Kalamb Beach, Buddhist history was not confined to archaeology, textbooks, or state heritage narratives. Instead, it emerged through bodies, movement, costume, sea routes, ritual gestures, and community participation. For many attendees, the Arabian Sea itself became a site of historical memory, recalling routes through which Buddhism once travelled between regions, cultures, and communities long before modern political borders existed.
In an era where Buddhist heritage in India is often reduced either to tourism sanitized of religious sentiments, or symbolic sites that serve a political or nationalist agenda, the Nallasopara reenactment offered a different vision: one rooted in grassroots Buddhist revival, Dalit-Bahujan assertion, and the recovery of women-centered Buddhist histories.
Related features from BDG
From Enlightenment to Ashes and Awakening Again: The Rise, Fall, and Renewal of Buddhism in India
The Legacy of Emperor Aśoka the Great: The Spread of Buddhism Beyond India
Anula Stupa Relics Unearthed: New Excavations Illuminate the Women’s Order in Sri Lanka and Around the World
