Tibetan Buddhist monks wearing face masks to protect from coronavirus are seen in McLeod Ganj, India, on 7 March 2020. File photo/Tibet Sun/Lobsang Wangyal
Tibet Sun Newsroom
McLEOD GANJ, India, 8 March 2020
Two people in Ladakh with travel history to Iran have tested positive for coronavirus on Saturday, taking the number of confirmed cases in India to 34.
The scare of coronavirus has started taking its toll on tourism in this newly formed Union Territory as advance bookings and queries have decreased significantly, even as the new season is set to start in April.
Ladakh is known for its Buddhist monasteries, breathtaking landscapes, blue skies, mountain passes, and trekking adventures.
The isolated Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan reported its first case of the coronavirus after a US tourist tested positive, on Friday. The country immediately closed its borders to foreign visitors for two weeks in an effort to limit the spread of the disease that has wreaked havoc around the world.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has directed all the government agencies to step up efforts to combat the spread of the virus. He has asked people to consult doctors if in doubt, rather than follow rumours.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) puts the number of confirmed cases at 105,523, with 3,584 deaths, in 101 countries, areas, or territories with cases. China, from where the virus originated, tops the list of cases in countries, areas, or territories with 80,859 cases.
South Korea trails China with 7,134 cases. Italy has 5883 cases, Iran 5,823, Germany 795, France 706, Japan 455, Spain 374, Switzerland 264, US 213, UK 210, Netherlands 188, Belgium 169, Sweden 161, Norway 147, Singapore 138, and Austria 104, as of 8 March 2020.
I believe Bhutan will not experience the kind of epidemic that is occuring in other countries. It’s because Bhutan is a འབྲུག་ཆོས་ལྡན་རྒྱལ་ཁབ་ (The Dharma country). For most Tibetans today this means very little, but for the older generation, it brings memories of our nation which was known as བོད་ཆོས་ལྡན་རྒྱལ་ཁབ་ until the Chinese occupation.
The reason why I believe Bhutan will be spared from the deadly coronavirus is that despite all the underdevelopment, being a land-locked nation, and also poor materially, the nation has something special like Tibet. It is a Mahayana Buddhist country. They follow Tibetan Buddhism that was brought to Bhutan from Tibet by Shabdung Ngawang Namgyal more than four hundred years ago in 1616. This form of Buddhism is often seen by some as exotic by some while others, especially the Theravadas, often cast aspersions about its originality.
However, one glaring difference between the two forms of Buddhism is the level of compassion each one exudes in their dealings with sentient beings. The Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese people are Buddhists, but their compassion for animals is minimal compared with Tibetan Mahayana followers.. Just look at how the Chinese treat animals in their so-called “wet meat” markets. It’s beyond belief that these people can treat the poor animals with such cruelty before they are slaughtered. Look at the tiny cages where they are stuffed like sardines without any space to move. Dogs, cats, and many endangered species of animals are kept in appalling conditions to be slaughtered. This goes to show that their hearts have not been moistened by the compassion taught by the Buddha.
Many Mahayana followers do eat meat but they would never treat animals the way the Chinese and other SE Asians treat. Bhutan has no bad karma to ripen.