A Tai Yai boy waits for a ceremony to begin at Wat Don Chedi on April 7, 2014 in Mae Hong Son, Thailand. Poy Sang Long is a Buddhist novice ordination ceremony of the Shan people or Tai Yai, an ethnic group of Shan State in Myanmar and northern Thailand. Young boys aged between 7 and 14 are ordained as novices to learn the Buddhist doctrines. It's believed that they will gain merit for their parents by ordaining. (Photo by Taylor Weidman/Getty Images)

An elephant decorated with a cloth walk in the annual Perahera (street pageant) at Rajamaha viharaya Buddhist temple in Colombo, Sri Lanka September 10, 2016. (Photo by Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters)

Robot Xian'er is placed in the main building of Longquan Buddhist temple for photographs by the temple's staff, on the outskirts of Beijing, April 20, 2016. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

A bird flies over the abandoned giant sculpture of a Buddhist monk in Cha-am outside Hua Hin, 145km south of Bangkok, on February 25, 2021. (Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP Photo)

Floodwaters cover a Buddhastatue of at Wat Taku Buddhist temple in Bang Ban district in the central Thai province of Ayutthaya on November 14, 2025. (Photo by Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP Photo)

An aerial view taken on September 11, 2020 shows the Buddhist temple Wat Samphran (Dragon Temple) in Nakhon Pathom, some 40km west of Bangkok. Wat Samphran is a popular tourist destination with visitors coming to see the huge dragon figure curling around a pink cylindrical building next to the Buddha statues and places of worship of the traditional Buddhist temple complex. (Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP Photo)

In this picture taken on November 28, 2016, a hot-air balloon carrying tourists sails over the archeological site at sunrise in Bagan. Located in central Myanmar, Bagan is home to more than 2,000 ancient Buddhist monuments deeply revered in the Buddhist-majority nation and is one of the country's most popular tourist destinations. (Photo by Dale De La Rey/AFP Photo)

A Buddhist monk salvages a statue of a Buddhist deity from a monastery around the famous Swayambhunath stupa after it was damaged by Saturday's earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal, Thursday, April 30, 2015. In mere seconds, Saturday's earthquake devastated a swathe of Nepal. Three of the seven World Heritage sites in the Kathmandu Valley have been severely damaged, including Durbar Square with pagodas and temples dating from the 15th to 18th centuries, according to UNESCO, the United Nations cultural agency. (Photo by Niranjan Shrestha/AP Photo)