Stolen Buddha Statues and Population Crisis

[Stolen Buddha Statues and Population Crisis] According to Japanese MBS News website. An Exhibition on Buddha statues was held at the Hegeshan County Museum in Japan. Among them, 39 Buddha statues are displayed, many of which are incomplete. According to reports, these statues are all cultural heritage stolen in about 10 years. Although Japanese police have captured prisoners and found the stolen Buddha statues, no one knows which temple they belong to so far because no temple has reported the case to the police.
It is reported that Buddha statues and gods are frequently stolen in Wakayama, Japan. According to statistics, 262 Buddha statues have been stolen in Hegeshan County alone in the past 10 years. Buddhist statues and gods worshipped in temples and shrines in many places of Hegeshan County have been blatantly stolen.
Inside the Fanyin Temple in Baibangding, Hegeshan County, there is a Buddha statue built in the Northern and Southern Dynasties (1336-1392) of Japan. The Buddha statue named "Sakya Tathagata Sitting Statue" was recognized as a cultural heritage by Baibangding. But one morning in mid-February this year, people found that the door of Fanyin Temple had been destroyed, and then found that the Buddha statue had been stolen. Later, a Buddha statue was found in a parking lot close to the national road more than 50 kilometers away from the temple. As the police have not yet caught the burglar, they still do not know the truth of the matter, and why the burglars finally abandoned it in the parking lot.
Why did the temple become a target of theft? "I think it still has a lot to do with being tenable," Komatsu said. According to him, although Fanyin Temple has a long history, it is a temple that has not been inhabited for a long time. In Japan, there are many temples such as Fanyin Temple which have not been inhabited for a long time. The 262 Buddhist statues stolen in the past 10 years are basically all from the non-resident temples.
The most fundamental reason for the lack of permanent residence is related to Japan’s increasingly severe population aging. Influenced by the aging population, many remote rural areas have fewer and fewer people and fewer incense. This has had a serious impact on the construction of many temples, so many temples have no permanent residents.
Where have all these stolen Buddha statues gone? According to reports, the staff of the Hegeshan County Museum saw a stolen Buddha statue on an auction website in June last year, and immediately reported the case to the police. The statue of a Buddha in a temple in Yanpu, Hegeshan County, was auctioned. Usually the bidding period is 7 days. Many anonymous buyers bid online from the first day when the Buddha statue was put up for auction on the Internet. Within five days, its price soared to hundreds of thousands of yen.
Many people like to collect Buddha statues as works of art, so many stolen Buddha statues flow into the black market and are sold to ancient art merchants. According to people familiar with the situation, the stolen Buddha statues in Hegeshan went to Tokyo. At the auction there, ancient art merchants in Xiangchuan County bought these Buddha statues in large quantities and then auctioned them online. These Buddha statues will go through many reversals within two months after being stolen, and eventually enter the hands of real behind-the-scenes buyers. On the other hand, because some buyers did not know that the Buddha statues were stolen, they were not finally convicted by the relevant authorities.
It is understood that some temples and shrines with strong sense of crisis have begun to take countermeasures. A shrine in Jiudoushanding, Hegeshan County, has remained unmanned for decades. The shrine is dedicated to a god of the Heian Age of Japan (794-1192). In the past few years, there have been two cases of stolen wooden animals in this shrine. Recently, incidents of stolen incense money have occurred frequently. The local religious association was deeply disturbed by this, fearing that one day the God of peace would be stolen.
"In order to protect the statue, we can’t send people to live in the shrine," said the head of the local religious association, Nianhong Jinchuan, in an interview. For this reason, we have to adopt the following measures." His so-called strategy is to use 3D technology to replicate a fake. With 3D technology, a very similar God was created, not only in size and shape, but also in the same age and color. Now, the original of the statue has been transferred to the Hegeshan County Museum for preservation, while the fake is worshipped in the shrine lobby.