Monarch Jigme Khesar Namgyel, Bhutan’s fifth Dragon King and an important figure in Buddhism, was waiting for the Extremadura delegation at one of his working palaces in Thimphu, the country’s capital, amid preparations for the Asian state’s National Day. This visit on December 4, 2022 with representatives from distant countries was not usual, nor was the project they had on hand to present to him: the construction in Cáceres of a macro Buddhist pilgrimage complex of approximately 110 hectares crowned by a statue of a Buddha of 47 meters on a pedestal of 20 others.
The delegation included the city’s socialist mayor, Luis Salaya, the president of the Extremadura Government Assembly, Blanca Martín, and José Manuel Vilanova, president of the Jardin Lumbini Foundation, promoter of the idea. The meeting lasted an hour and a half with Khesar Namgyel, an atypical monarch known for wearing an Elvis Presley-style toupee. The Bhutanese leader heard the details of the shrine. The large statue would be that of Mahar Karuna Buddha (symbolizing compassion) and would be covered in white jadeite from Burma. Around it, several temples and spaces dedicated to meditation, prayer and the celebration of rituals have been planned, as well as a residence for around twenty monks and with the exhibition of relics, some of Siddhartha Gautama, the first Buddha. Added to this is a center for Buddhist studies and “an embassy for countries strongly rooted in this philosophy, such as China, Japan, South Korea and Nepal”. All wrapped in oriental-style gardens with the presence of “native vegetation”.
This meeting resulted in a statement that the Council published on its website: “His Majesty the King of Bhutan has shown particular interest in the Cáceres project.” This meeting was another high moment of publicity for a project that landed at the Cáceres town hall in 2019. The promise was tempting: tens of thousands of tourists and pilgrims per year with the economic benefits that this meant for the inhabitants of the province, known colloquially as mangourines.
The initial cost of 25 million euros would be provided by Lumbini Garden (the promoting foundation) and for this it would use altruistic donations and Asian governments such as Bhutan. Salaya, 31, then declared that it would not cost the municipal council “one euro”, but would only forgo the use of municipally owned land for construction. Six years and dozens of meetings and hours of institutional work later, no trace remains of the shrine to the gigantic Buddha.
Ricardo Guerrero, representative of the Foundation, admits that the initiative is underway to wait forbecause “projects as large as this, with so many international players, are complex and obstacles arise”. To questions from this newspaper about the financing, the entity refused to answer: “It does not seem appropriate to us to make statements. We continue to work in silence.”
The current situation, with the uncertainty of the results of the next regional elections, confuses the future of this project. How did the chronology of the Mangurrine Buddha macro-shrine unfold?
Behind the project hides a man: José Manuel Vilanova Alemán, real estate and events developer, tourist consultant and businessman in the field of photoepilation and aesthetics, according to what appears on the Internet. Before arriving in Cáceres, he tried to place him in Madrid in 2018, during the tenure of Manuela Carmena, from Ahora Madrid. But the project collapsed with the coming to power of José Luis Martínez Almeida, of the PP, a year later. Vilanova, who had already created the company Buddha Lumbini Group SL and the Lumnini Garden Foundation to manage the works, convinced the capital of Cáceres to accept the project and, with it, the announcement of the mammoth sanctuary (including its presentation at Fitur in 2020) and the succession of trips to Asian countries in search of financing.
The promoter has obtained the support of foreign businessmen, such as Hong Kong philanthropist Alice Chiu or Buddhist leaders like Riponche Shyalpa, of the Dragon Temple in Thailand. This appears in a dozen reports in the local press, in which Vilanova appears photographed with these international personalities. He also forged the first trip of the mayor of Cáceres to Nepal, to the town of Lumani (where Buddha was born), to sign a protocol of commitment with the Nepalese advisor. Everything seemed to be going well. “I have been called crazy and enlightened, and I have been the victim of a political war within Madrid City Hall, but now I can say that the great Buddha is moving forward and will be realized in Cáceres,” the businessman told the local newspaper. Today.
Despite the pandemic, the project has made progress on an important issue: finding the space to build it. The town hall closed the transfer for the use of a municipal property of more than 110 hectares on Cerro Arropé, south of the city, but the start of the work was still not clear. Previously, a Nepalese delegation had to formalize on site the declaration of the land as “sacred land” to build the temple. The official visit arrived in spring 2021, led by the Speaker of the National Assembly of Nepal and the Mayor of Lumbini.
Cáceres saw a twinning between two cultures. The image of a group of monks dressed in orange robes and crested hats strolling among the medieval palaces of the old town stands out. Or that of members of the municipal government joining in Buddhist rituals in front of a replica of the Buddha transported to Cáceres, at the Casa Pedrilla museum. Among the authorities present in April was the socialist Carmen Calvo, then vice-president of the government.
Indeed, on Mont Arropé, a group of monks planted an oak and a bodhi (sort of fig tree where the Buddha is located Siddhartha meditated and attained nirvana) with the sacred land of Lumbini and the newly blessed land of Cáceres. Then they lit a fire and performed the Soothing Fire Rite, during which the clerics and many participants threw aromatic herbs, a prayer for abundance and to ward off evil. The Authority contributed almost 300,000 euros for the celebration of the events of this trip, entitled “Day of activities and work in Cáceres within the framework of the Gran Buddah project”, as indicated in the Official Gazette of Extremadura.
Salaya remembers that, despite the exoticism of the project, it arrived at his table after having been supported by Manuela Carmena and a large number of international institutions (it would total 15 collaborating countries). On the other hand, he says “it had no opportunity cost,” since the property where it was going to be built was not going to be used for another initiative. “The role of the municipal council and the board of directors was more symbolic than anything else, hence the trips we made,” says the former mayor, who only made three trips, two to Nepal and one to Bhutan, which also passed through India. They were paid with public money and were of short duration, “four days with up to 15 hours of work”.
Salaya says the focus of meetings in Asian countries has been on land use transfer, as this demonstrates institutional support. “I’m really sorry it didn’t happen. It brought a lot of exposure to the city and it was also beautiful. It was achievable at the time.”
Project termination
A few months later, the first break came. The land is part of the Llanos de Cáceres and Sierra de Fuentes ZPS and its land is “non-developable with special protection of the forest mass”. In other words, to build the sanctuary and plant the gigantic statue, an environmental impact study was necessary. The resolution, arrived in February 2022, was strong: the proposed project had to be outside the ZPS. Vilanova and his team insisted on looking for an alternative: installing one of the wooden display stand that Nepal used at the 2015 Milan Expo and uses it as an interpretation center. In the meantime, the City Council has committed to redefining the SPA zone and that the Council will prepare a file with a proposal for the EU to give its approval. But this could extend the start of work by several years.
While this issue was being clarified, representatives of the foundation traveled to gather support, but their efforts were not always successful. One of them was in Burma, where the white jadeite with which it was planned to cover the great Buddha is extracted. There, in addition to visiting the mines, Vilanova met with members of the government of the Burmese military dictatorship. “The image conveyed of Cáceres is very negative,” declared the Popular Party during the project monitoring commission convened after the scandal.
The foundation explained that the meeting with the military was coincidental and not planned, and that its contact with the country predated the 2021 military coup, which ended with the arrest of, among others, activist Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and then state counselor in the country.
Salaya and Vilanova insisted that the project continue. It was then that the Extremadura delegation and the foundation took a plane to Bhutan at the end of that year, to meet the king, several ministers of the country and the foundation of the nuns of Bhutan, collaborators of the project and also promoters of the trip.
The necessary funds, according to the Foundation, have already been raised. Furthermore, the Board of Directors, although it had not initially planned to contribute financially, allocated an additional 50,000 euros to the foundation in the 2023 budget. Despite this, plans to locate the complex on Cerro Arropé disappeared and the foundation was left without land. Shortly after, the 2023 municipal elections brought the PP to power and, although from the start the mayor, Rafael Martos, promised to “save the project,” he recommended that the foundation use private property. The same line marked by the newly appointed regional president, María Guardiola, who assured that “another location” would be sought.
The new “location” was not on municipal land, but on private land. The Foundation contacted several farm owners in Cerro de los Romanos, near the former mining town of Aldea Moret. What seemed like a step forward was actually a huge step backwards. Investors did not see the change of location with the same eyes and, added to the increase in land prices and constant delays, they abandoned the project this summer.
The foundation reveals to EL PAÍS that the project is in to wait for, so “there is not much to say”. Ricardo Garrido says he is waiting for “important meetings” for decision-making, which he will report on in due time. “There are changes within the Foundation which are not at all negative and which should not affect the future of the Project, on which we continue to work with optimism,” he explained. Vilanova, he replied, “is still the president of the Lumbini Garden Foundation.”
About The Author
