Persatuan Buddhist Kelantan started to prepare for its establishment during 1948 and 1949, and it was registered successfully as an organisation on 23 August 1950, the registered address was 778, Jalan Tok Hakim, Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Later, on 9 July 1954 they moved to Jln Tengku Chik, Kota Bahru, Kelantan. During that period, the place was only a simple attap house. During the 14 May 1954 meeting, they expressed the interest to purchase a building with RM900 excluding the land, but on 17 April 1956 the land owner decided to take back the land and requested the association to relocate. Hence on 12 December 1956 they moved to 3961, Jln Zainal Abidin, Kota Bharu, Kelantan.
In the early stage of establishment, Persatuan Buddhist Kelantan had already set up a funeral fund as most of its members were elderly people. Its activities mainly focused on helping members to handle funerals. Though for long-term purposes, Persatuan Buddhist Kelantan decided to raise funds for a permanent building, and they formed a 9-person committee to handle all related matters. In order to accommodate more Dharma followers, they moved to the third floor of the building behind the current UMNO building.
On the 1960 Wesak Day, Persatuan Buddhist Kelantan invited Master Zhu Mo, Ven. Guang Yi, Ven. Guang Yu, Ven. Hua Shan, and Ven. Sumangalo to come over to Kelantan for a Dharma propagation talk. It was a grand ceremony, and the Dharma shared by every venerable successfully planted a bodhi seed among members of Persatuan Buddhist Kelantan.
Since getting to know the true Dharma, Persatuan Buddhist Kelantan invited Master Zhu Mo, Ven. Guang Yi and Ven. Guang Yu to become their religious patrons. During the 1961 Wesak day, due to the absence of Ven. Guang Yu, they got acquainted with Ven. Xiu Jing, and later during 29 March 1967,
Persatuan Buddhist Kelantan invited Ven. Xiu Jing to become its religious patron. Since then Ven. Xiu Jing visited Kelantan frequently every year to propagate Dharma to followers, which allowed everyone to learn a lot.
Since then the association developed rapidly, its members and followers also increased quickly until the building was not enough to accommodate them, so on 30 April 1968 they moved to the current address (3400 B-C, Jalan Zainal Abidin, Kota Bharu, Kelantan). At that time it was only a double-storey half wooden house. Subsequently, Wong Choon Tat suggested to build a funeral parlor beside the left side of the building so members and people could use it for funeral services.
31 October 1972, Loh Hock Heng suggested that the association should purchase 3400 B-C land. The owner Tan Si Hua agreed to sell the house to Persatuan Buddhist Kelantan at RM90,000 and donated RM10,000 for the renovation of the building. When everything was in order, this location finally became Persatuan Buddhist Kelantan’s permanent asset. After years of effort, everyone’s hope and expectation finally came true.
During the 28 March 1975 meeting, Persatuan Buddhist Kelantan decided to rebuild a new building, and the project was opened for bidding on 28 April 1977. It was contracted to Kean Chuan Sendirian Berhad, and during the same year it moved the office to Wong Mao Sen’s office as a temporary office. 10 May 1977 Ven. Xiu Jing presided the Ground Breaking Ceremony, and 17 June 1977 Master Zhu Mo presided the Foundation Ceremony. The rebuilding process went smoothly and finished on time, and the building was ready for use on 4 August 1978.
After the new building was ready and as the hall was spacious enough, they started a Dharma class every Friday, and Chanting class every Thursday. Besides this, they added a library and medical section. Since then its members started to increase rapidly, and soon enough the association ran out of space again. Due to this, Persatuan Buddhist Kelantan had to purchase the next piece of land. On 27 March 1981 they started the renovation work, and finished in 1984. The Inauguration Ceremony was held 3 August 1984.
During the middle of 80s, since expanding the association’s building and installing more hardware equipments, activities of the association, such as chanting group and youth group grew quickly, eventually many events which they organized in the state received support from followers and the public.
In order to support their annual activities, Persatuan Buddhist Kelantan installed computers in 1990. They entered their members’ information as well as to follow the steps of new era, and speed up the documentation process.
Since then Persatuan Buddhist Kelantan had grew stably with membership increasing year by year. They also provided more routine activities to fulfill the Buddha’s kind spirit, and practiced its objective of “Take and give back to society”.
Facilities and Routine Activities
Since the early stages of establishment, the association focused on helping members to settle their funeral arrangements. The funeral parlor was operated on a non-profit basis, those who needed to use it just paid for utilities bills and cleaning fees and made a donation as they wished, but they did not need to pay any other fees. In year 1984 the association purchased a funeral car, and those who needed could borrow it for free.
22 August 1964, under the guidance of Ven. Guang Yi, members of Persatuan Buddhist Kelantan went to the Home for the Elderly under the Welfare Department to help them to place a Buddha statue and held a ceremony. They also gave food and daily goods to the elderly. Since then Persatuan Buddhist Kelantan would donate a sum of money every Friday; a member of the Board and one from the youth committee would take turn to bring chanting group members and followers over to the Welfare Department to donate food and daily goods to the elderly people and spent time with them. They would also bring donations over during Chinese New Year and Wesak Day. This activity goes on until today.
Since the early 60s, Persatuan Buddhist Kelantan had established a Children Dharma Class, where Dharma knowledge was taught to children of committee members and the neighbours. In the early stages they taught in English, later they changed to Chinese. During the 25 March 1983 General Assembly they approved the suggestion to provide scholarship for member’s children, and on 11 September 1983 a 7-person committee was formed to organise this project. The scholarship project was successfully launched in 1984, since then the association gave out thousands of Ringgit annually without any suspensions.
In the 19 March 1973 Directors’ meeting, the Welfare group chairman Choo Mooi Chuang suggested the association to set up a Medical section to help the poor people, but later this project was suspended. On 30 December 1977 this project was brought up, at the same year a group was formed to organise the setting up of this welfare project, and on 4 August 1978 when the new building’s renovation was completed, the medical department started to service the community.
Persatuan Buddhist Society had been actively organising various activities and ceremonies for a long period, such as “Dharma Dew” Dharma Talk, Buddhist Culture Exhibition, Sangha Offerings Ceremony, Enlightenment Ceremony, Dharma Propagation events etc. The association hopes to provide a chance for the people to learn Dharma, and spread out what they learnt to inspire others to learn Dharma together. This is the spirit of Buddhism where one can improve oneself by helping others, and also the objective of the seniors when they set up Persatuan Buddhist Kelantan.
Contact：
Address：3400 B-C, JLN. ZAINAL ABIDIN, 15050 KOTA BHARU, KELANTAN
Tel/Fax：09-7483696
Email：kbayc1961@gmail.com
Official FB Page：Persatuan Buddhist Kelantan
