Since 2008, a very special gift is looking out over the wide planes of Swedish Lapland. Perched atop a small hill stands the statue of the Buddha. It was the gift from a Thai monk intended to bring a bevy of converts in Europe's far North. But the purpose built parking for 500 cars remained empty. That was not the statue's fault, but missing money has prevented the building of a monastery so far.
In 2003, a diminutive Thai monk was standing on a reindeer skin on that selfsame hillock looking over a magnificent Swedish landscape of forests and lakes. The highest Buddhist monk in Sweden was on a winter sleigh ride through Lapland. It was the beginning of this most unusual of gifts.
Lapland is the largest province of Sweden. It is three times the size of New Jersey but with less than 300,000 inhabitants. Inside this province on the Arctic Circle are numerous small towns. One of them is Fredrika, named after a Swedish queen and today home to around 200 people. If you want to travel to Fredrika, you have a long way and that mostly through forests. The town lies halfway between Umea and Dorotea near the Björnlandet National Park.
But once there, the landscape will grip you. The landscape is a large plain dotted with small hills from where you get a majestic view. Long before monk Phramahaboontin came here on his sleigh-ride, a Thai girl called Noi was picking berries while taking in the views of Lapland. More than that: Noi fell in love with a local farmer and stayed.
As a devout Buddhist, she invited the head of the Buddhists in Sweden for a visit. That was the start of the story of the gift: Monk Phramahaboontin was immediately convinced that this place needed a ten meter high Buddha statue. And he promised more: Fredrika should receive a Buddhist temple, a center of learning and contemplation to attract people from all over northern Europe.
The surprising gift convinced Mayor Bert-Rune Dahlberg to declared himself willing in local media to convert to Buddhism. The local pastor was less enthusiastic. He warned that the graceful Buddha statue could turn his dwindling flock from the righteous path of dull Lutheran teaching. For months, the gift dominated the letter columns of northern Swedish newspapers.
But all religions cook with water. Buddha didn't work a miracle. Although it only took a few months until a four meter high statue was delivered and placed, it wasn't a statue of the Buddha. It was a statue of Sweden's highest monk Phramahaboontin as modest guard and placeholder. Five years later in 2008, the planned for statue of Buddha was brought in by a heavy freight lorry and placed on the hill overlooking Fredrika. In 2010, it was followed by the figures of two elephants.
They stand guard over the remote town in the far North of Sweden that is still looking forward to the boom to be brought on by the Buddhist monastery. The latter, however, has not materialized due to lack of money. Lacking the monastery, the visit of believers has remained elusive despite the fact that parking spaces had been built for them. Buddha teaches patience. And maybe, as the statues are still there unharmed and resplendent in their exotic finery, the Lutheran god teaches tolerance.
Further reading
Reincarnation Every Day
Christina, the First Female King of Sweden
The Elect Circle of Elected Monarchs in Europe
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