Sri Lankan-Tibetan Buddhist Brotherhood Founder President Damenda Porage described Indian PM Narendra Modi a 'great leader' and said the revival of Buddhism took place after he became the Prime Minister of India in 2014.

Porage recalled PM Modi's visit to Sri Lanka in 2017 when he attended the Vesak Day celebrations, which is observed as one of the biggest festivals among Buddhists, reported ANI news agency.

Speaking to ANI, Damenda Porage said, "The Prime Minister of India, PM Modi, is a great leader, I should say. After his appointment as the PM of India, we can see a revival in Buddhism took place. He is so generous not only to India, but to the neighbouring countries. Like, recently, we saw the Buddha's relics travel to Thailand. The Buddhist people of Thailand were overjoyed by this gesture."

"And before that, in his time the holy Buddha relics from India travelled to Mongolia and they travelled to Sri Lanka too. We remember PM Modi came to Sri Lanka in 2017 as the chief guest of the UN Vesak Day. He started his speech with a Buddhist chanting with a verse from the Dhammapada. We have seen him speaking, addressing to Buddhist communities worldwide every time, he selected an appropriate phrase from the Buddhist doctrine," he added.

He praised Modi for referring to Buddhist teachings in his speeches, which according to him is a rare practice among world leaders.

He lauded the Indian government's decision to donate USD 15 million to Sri Lanka to improve Buddhist activities.

"No one in the world, no country in the world has done such a meritorious deed to gift us this amount of grant to improve to promote Buddhism in Sri Lanka. And the Mahasangha of Sri Lanka love him that I know. They respect him. They appreciate him. They appreciate his mission towards Buddhism and they appreciate PM Modi's work to promote Buddhism in India and also helping the Buddhist nations neighbouring India," he added.

In March, the Indian government took initiatives in sending the  relics of Lord Buddha and those of his two main disciples, Arahant Sariputta and Maha Moggallana for a 25-day  exposition across four cities in Thailand.