Cambodia’s Buddhists return golden urn to mountain shrine
Print Edition
THOUSANDS of Buddhist monks and devotees joined a lavish procession in the Cambodian capital yesterday to return a stolen golden urn said to contain relics of the Buddha to a mountain shrine whence it was snatched three years ago.
The urn was placed on a decorated float shaped like a mythological bird and driven from the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh to a shrine at the top of nearby Udong mountain.
The ceremony was timed to coincide with Visak Bochea, an annual holiday marking the anniversary of the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and death.
“Tens of thousands of people greeted the Buddha’s relics at the mountain,” said Seng Somony, a spokesman for the ministry of culture and religion.
The disappearance of the golden urn — believed to contain hair, teeth and bones of the Buddha — and several small statues came to light in late 2013, sparking a nationwide manhunt in the Buddhist-majority country.
Authorities recovered the stolen items during a raid in February 2014 at a house in the southern province of Takeo, about 130 kilometers from the shrine in the former royal city of Udong. Last year, five men were each sentenced to seven years in prison for stealing the golden vessel.
Seng Somony said authorities will ensure the relics’ safety.
“It will be 24-hour security” at the shrine, he said.
The relics are believed to have been brought from Sri Lanka to Cambodia in the 1950s to celebrate 2,500 years since Buddha’s birth.
In 2002, then King Norodom Sihanouk moved them from the Phnom Penh to Udong, in a ceremony attended by tens of thousands of people.
During the colonial period and later the Khmer Rouge era, Cambodia lost a trove of relics and statues to looters, dealers and governments.
Recently many Western governments and renowned museums have begun returning items to the country.
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