Alluding to a prophecy in the Shiv Puran, former Arunachal MP and Congress leader Kiren Rijuju on Saturday said that the world’s largest Shivlingam has been discovered in the state. “The discovery of more than 22 feet tall lingam was made a few years back in Ziro,” he said, hoping that it should become a major tourist destination.

Rijuju and other speakers at the discussion “Arunachal: Land of Rising Sun” highlighted the state’s formidable cultural ties with the rest of India as they fielded a series of questions.

Dr Tejum Padu said there were quite a few temples in Arunachal, though they had a different nomenclature than rest of India. He cited the example of Doni Polo Temple at Aalo-Gangin.

Dr Joram Begi made light of the Chinese claim on the state saying that the region was always independent of Tibet and China. However, he added, because of religious affinity of certain pockets in the state, Tibetan rulers could collect tax from there at a certain point of time.

Also stated in response to a question that Arunachal was the only NE state where Hindi -- and indeed other Indian language like Bengali -- were spoken and that's why "we feel more Indian when we are in Arunchal" than in the rest of the country where average man had difficulty in identifying Arunachalis as Indians.

Both drew the audience's attention to the conversion activities in the state, calling it alarming. Dr Begi added that 2 districts in the state were of late getting affected by insurgency -- a spillover as a result of greater Nagaland movement. It has religious overtones, he said.

(Reported by Anuj Dhar)