Sri Lankans in Indonesia came together last Saturday (10 November) at the Chancery premises at Jalan Diponegoro, Jakarta to celebrate Deepawali – one of the most important and colourful festivals in Sri Lanka’s and the worlds religious calendar.
The celebration included Hindu religious observances including the Pooja led by Swami Surya, Bajan and some delightful traditional dances with guests being served traditional Tamil cuisine amidst colourful Deepawali decorations.
Ambassador Dharshana M. Perera in his remarks emphasized the relevance of the universal message of Deepawali as elaborated in President Maithripala Srisena’s special Deepawali Message – ‘the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance to inculcate noble values such as spiritual wisdom and discipline in the hearts of the people’ and emphasized the importance of ‘good overcoming evil, knowledge and wisdom overcoming ignorance to pave the way for a better world for ourselves and our children.’ The Ambassador, referring to the Celebration of Diversity’ initiative launched in 2016 by the Embassy where the Sri Lankan community in Indonesia comes together to celebrate each others festivals of Vesak, Ramazan, Deepawali and Christmas noted, ‘while each of us are grounded faithfully in our own respective spiritual traditions, we as individuals and as a community come together through this initiative to share the joys of what is important and special to each other thus strengthening unity within our diversity’.
As with past events, this year Deepawali celebrations had the involved partnership of the Sri Lankan community and in this instance especially the Hindu community living in Indonesia and joined by those belonging to all other religions of Buddhism, Christianity and Islam.
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