he foundation has requested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to do the honours, but it is yet to be confirmed whether he will attend the ceremony.
S N Goenka, who made the ancient Vipassana -- a technique of meditation traced back to the Buddha himself -- popular across the world, conceived the pagoda with the gigantic stone dome.
The pagoda will be a huge Vipassana centre that can accommodate around 8,000 people at a time. The land on which it stands was donated by media baron Subhash Chandra Goyal, himself a Vipassana practitioner.
Image: Monks at the function.
Also See:A travel feature on Gaya in Bihar