Mayor to seek return of Buddhist statue in South Korea

In an interview Wednesday, Yasunari Takarabe said he will submit a petition seeking the return of the statue of the Kanzeon Bodhisattva to Kannon Temple, and that it will bear the signatures of around 17,000 residents of the Sea of Japan island. It might be submitted to the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea as soon as July.

?The island?s residents protected the statue for centuries,? Takarabe said. ?My mission is to meet with senior officials of the cultural heritage entity and convey their feelings.?

The Tsushima board of education said Takarabe in late April launched a campaign to collect residents? signatures and that as of Tuesday, more than 16,800, or half the island?s population, had signed the petition.

The seated statue, designated an important cultural property by Nagasaki Prefecture, has remained in South Korea following a provisional ruling by a district court in the city of Daejeon.

An inscription indicates the statue was made in Korea in 1330 at Buseoksa Temple in what is now Yeongju, North Gyeongsang province. The board of education said it may have been sold to Kannon Temple when anti-Buddhism movements began spreading on the Korean Peninsula in the 14th century.

A South Korean temple, however, claims the statue was plundered from the peninsula by Japanese pirates between the 13th and 16th centuries.

Last February, the Daejeon District Court said that the statue should not be returned to Japan until it is confirmed that the temple on Tsushima acquired it lawfully.

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"Stolen" Buddhist statue raise friction between Japan and South Korea

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Seoul, South Korea -- In October 2012, a bronze standing statue of Tathagata Buddha, designated an important cultural property by the Japanese government, from Kaijinjinja shrine, and a seated statue of the Kanzeon Bodhisattva, designated a tangible cultural property by Nagasaki Prefecture, from Kannonji temple were stolen by a theft ring of five South Koreans causing further diplomatic dispute between Japan and Korea.

Kaijinjinja shrine and Kannonji temple are located on Tsushima island, Nagasaki prefecture, which is a small island that lies between Japan and Korea.

The monks of Buseok Temple  of Seosan, South Chungcheong Province claims that the statues were made in their temple but stolen by Japanese invaders during the 14th century.  On February 26th, 2013 the Daejeon District Court ruled in favor of the Buseok Temple in South Korea's southwestern province, saying that the Kanzeon Bodhisattva statue should not be returned until it becomes clear through legal proceedings that the Kannonji temple in Tsushima, Nagasaki Prefecture acquired it in a lawful manner.

The Cultural Heritage Administration of South Korea stated that they had planned to return the statues to Japan once it had been confirmed stolen. However, the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism urged the South Korean government to investigate how the statues were acquired by the temple and shrine in Tsushima in the first place.

The Buddhist community of Seosan, South Chungcheong Province and Buseok monastery have formed an anti-return group of the two statues and had an internal meeting at the Buddhist History and Cultural Memory Hall of Jogye Order of the Korean Buddhism in Seoul. During this meeting, they have decided to voice their opinions on why the statues should remain in Korea.

Ven. Jugyung states that “.. the seated statue of the Kanzeon Bodhisattva has made its difficult journey back to Korea. Although this situation is difficult, we are working hard to turn this situation for the best.”

Ven. Wonwu of Buseok Temple hopes that the statue will not cause further diplomatic dispute between Japan and Korea, but a beginning of a different and innovative relationship between the two countries.

Former lawmaker, Kim Won-ung emphasized that returning the Buseok Temple’s statue should not simply be a Buddhist matter, but a governmental matter. He goes on to state, “I dont think this is simply an issue concerning only the Buddhist community. I believe this includes sentiments from Korea being invaded and plundered in the past.”

Ven Doshin visited the Kannonji temple to find a diplomatic way to resolve this issue however he was unable to meet with the abbot of Kannonji temple.

Ven. Doshin states, “I believe communication is very much necessary in the Religious communities for both countries.”

Asahi shinbun stated that on March 15th, Ven Wonu brought a set of three miniature female figures sold as the temple's mascots along with a bronze Buddha statue made by an artist more than 20 years ago.

"We intended to give them to the temple as souvenirs. We wanted to offer our consolation," Wonu said.

But the visit failed to mend fences, as the Kannonji temple refused to meet the South Korean visitors, saying, "(Their visit is) nothing more than a performance to justify their claim that the statue belongs to them."

The Korean Buddhist community plans to hold various seminars, urge the South Korean government for an official document to Japan for the Buddhist statues to remain in Korea.

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Failed talks over statue by Korean and Japanese Buddhist monks

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Japanese monks seeking return of Gwaneum Bosal statue, while Koreans say it could have been plundered from Korea

Tokyo, Japan -- Monks from Buseok Temple in Seosan, South Chungcheong Province, visited Kannon Temple on the Japanese island of Tsushima to discuss the issue of the Buddha (Gwaneum Bosal) statue, but the talks failed when Japanese Kannon Temple monks declined to meet.

According to reports by Japanese media including Kyodo News and the Tokyo Shimbun, a group including a monk from Buseok Temple named Wonu, another monk, and former lawmaker Kim Won-ung visited Kannon Temple but the monks there refused to discuss the issue. Later, the Kannon Temple monks were quoted in Japanese media as saying, ?The statue of Buddha must be quickly returned.?

The Buseok Temple monks said that they had visited the Japanese temple to communicate the message that it would probably not be possible to return the statue, considering that it was believed to have been plundered from Korea and taken to Japan.

The Japanese government has also made several requests for the Buddhist statue to be returned. ?We are asking the Korean government to return the statue of Buddha according to the bilateral agreement between our two countries,? said Yoshihide Suga, Japanese chief cabinet secretary, in a press conference. The position of the Japanese government is that, regardless of the circumstances through which Kannon Temple came to possess the statue, since it came into Korea after being stolen from Kannon, it should be returned according to the agreement governing cultural items.

The Buddhist statue was made at Buseok Temple in Seosan around AD 1330, but it was subsequently taken to Japan and enshrined in Kannon Temple. In Oct. 2012, it was brought back into Korea by thieves. When the Korean government nabbed the thieves and confiscated the statue, Japan requested its return.

However, in Feb. 2013, a Korean court issued an injunction forbidding the statue to be returned to Japan until such a time as a lawsuit confirms that Kannon Temple acquired the statue through just means.

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Another looted Buddha statue found

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Ramu, Bangladesh -- Police recovered a brass statue of Lord Buddha in Ramu upazila of Cox's Bazar early Thursday, 40 days after it was looted during an attack on Buddhist community.

<< A brass statue of Lord Buddha is recovered by law enforcers in Ramu upazila of Cox's Bazar in Chittagong on Thursday. Photo: Banglar Chokh

With this, a total of six statues looted during the September 29 attack have been recovered, reports our Cox's Bazar correspondent.

On information, police raided the paddy field of one Shafi Miah beside Ramu-Naikkhangchhari road at Boiltoli around 1:00am and recovered the statue, said Gazi Shakhawat Hossain, acting officer-in-charge of Ramu Police Station.

The six-inch-tall statue weighs around one kilogram, the OC said.

Police so far arrested two people in Ukhia in connection with the looting of statues.

On the night of September 29, a mob destroyed 18 Buddhist temples and monasteries and more than 50 houses in Ramu. The violence was apparently triggered by a Facebook posting of a photo defaming the holy Quran.

Around 300 of Buddha statues were looted from different temples and monasteries during the mayhem.

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Buddha statue from the ancient Gandhara civilisation covered up

More than 10 years on Western experts say Afghanistan's ancient Buddhist and early Islamic heritage is little safer.

At the foot of the cliff where the two Buddhas used to stand 130 kilometres (80 miles) west of Kabul, an archaeological site has been found and parts of a third Buddha, lying down, were discovered in 2008.

The area of the lying Buddha is around half the size of a football pitch. A dozen statues or more lie under tonnes of stone and earth.

"We covered everything up because the ground is private and to prevent looting," says Zemaryalai Tarzi, the 75-year-old French archaeologist born in Afghanistan who is leading the project.

Tarzi says he dug first in the potato fields to find artefacts, which he buried again afterwards. All around him, under a large area of farmland, he says, lie exceptional treasures.

In the West, the presence of such riches would lead to a large-scale excavation, frantic research and in time, glorious museum exhibitions.

In Afghanistan, ground down by poverty and three decades of war, it is the opposite.

"The safest place is to leave heritage underground," says Brendan Cassar, head of the UNESCO mission in Afghanistan, adding that policing the thousands of prehistoric, Buddhist and Islamic sites dotted around the country was impossible.

Below ground, the relics are protected from endemic looting, illegal smuggling and the corrosive effects of freezing winters.

"There is looting on a large or small scale at 99.9 percent of sites," says Philippe Marquis, director of a French archaeological delegation in Afghanistan.

Middlemen pay Afghans $4 to $5 a day to dig up artefacts, which are smuggled abroad and sold for tens of thousands of dollars in European and Asian capitals, he says.

Cassar believes the solution is educating locals about the value of their history and the need to implement the law, and a global campaign using Interpol and customs to stop smuggling.

UNESCO added the rocky Bamiyan valley, with its old forts, temples and cave paintings, to its list of endangered heritage sites in 2003. But sites have been destroyed throughout the country.

Hadda in the east was home to thousands of Greco-Buddhist sculptures dating from the 1st century BC to 1st century AD, but it was devastated in the 1990s civil war. Hundreds of pieces have disappeared or been destroyed.

Marquis says the old city of Lashkar Gah, the capital of the southern province of Helmand -- whose 11th-century arch appears on the 100 afghani ($2) banknote -- was irreparably damaged by an influx of refugees.

A Chinese copper mining company has been granted a concession over an area in Logar province, south of Kabul, that includes an ancient Buddhist monastery, and researchers fear the ruins will largely be destroyed.

Archaeologists complain that culture is only a secondary consideration to development and security.

"Cultural issues are never the priority. Security, yes, which eats up 40 percent of the Afghan state budget," says Habiba Sorabi, the governor of Bamiyan province, where few public resources are allotted to archaeology.

A meeting in Paris last year decided one of the two niches that housed Bamiyan's giant Buddhas should be left empty as testimony to the destruction, while experts should look at partially reassembling the other statue on site.

But local archaeologist Farid Haidary says "lots of money" was spent on restoring the Buddhas before the Taliban destroyed them.

"What's the point in building something if the Taliban, who are 20 kilometres away, destroy it afterwards?" he asks.

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