Red-faced Sri Lankan postal authorities ordered an inquiry after a printing error left an important Buddhist commemorative stamp 4,545 years out of date, officials said. The stamp, issued in honor of one of the country's premier Buddhist societies, was dated 2544 BC, for“before Christ”, instead of BE, for“Buddhist era”, which would have signified the year of 2001 according to the Buddhist calendar. An official of the Philatelic Bureau said an inquiry had been launched, but said it was too late to recall the stamps from hundreds of post offices across the country.“It was a terribly embarrassing mistake. The whole point of using a Buddhist era date is lost,”the official said. Buddhists, about 70 percent of Sri Lanka's population, prefer to use a calendar dating from death of the Buddha, about 500 years before the birth of Christ, particularly in matters of religious significance.