Return of Buddhist statue to Japan

Return of Buddhist statue to Japan

Ven. Wonu, chief monk at Buseok Temple in Seosan on South Korea's western coast, speaks at the National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage in Daejeon, central South Korea, on Jan. 24, 2025, during a ceremony to send back a Buddhist statue of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva to Kannon Temple on Tsushima Island in the southwestern Japanese prefecture of Nagasak. In 2023, South Korea's Supreme Court ordered Buseok Temple in Seosan, 98 kilometers southwest of Seoul, to return the 50.5-centimeter-tall statue, stolen by South Koreans from the Japanese temple. The South Korean temple had filed an appeal against the Seoul government to take back the statue, claiming it was made in the early 14th century by artisans in the ancient Korean kingdom of Goryeo (918-1392) and looted by Japanese pirates from the temple in September 1378. (Yonhap)

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