In what seems yet another contentious claim, Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli said on Monday that yoga originated in Nepal and “there was no country like India in the past”.

He also reiterated his earlier claim that Lord Ram was born in his country. 

Speaking on International Yoga Day on Monday, he said, “Much before the existence of India as a nation, yoga was and has been practiced in Nepal. Yoga did not originate in India. When yoga was discovered, India was not constituted.”

He further said, “Yoga originated in Nepal or around Uttarakhand...We never gave credit to our sages who discovered yoga...we always talked about this or that professors and their contributions.” 

He said Indian Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi made it famous by proposing to celebrate International Yoga Day on the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. Then it got international recognition. 

“We could not put our claim rightly. We could not take it across the globe,” he added. 

Furthermore, he reiterated his earlier claim that Lord Ram was born in Ayodhyapuri in Nepal’s Chitwan district, not in Ayodhya in India’s Uttar Pradesh. 

Nepal is the land of famous sages and Maharishis such as Patanjali, Kapilmuni, and Charaka, among others, Oli said. 

Referring to Banaras (Varanasi), the parliamentary constituency of Indian Prime Minister Modi, he said, “Several other sages were born in Nepal, studied and researched Ayurveda for centuries. The study of Himalayan herbs cannot be carried out from Banaras (Varanasi).”

Furthermore, he said, “All these historic and religious facts were distorted in the history but need to be corrected...we have to rewrite the new history.” 

No one can divert or distort civilizational history, Oli added. 

(SAM)