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| Austria returns ancient Buddha mask |
| 25-Oct-2003 |
Saturday 25th October 2003
Austria returned to Nepal a 400-year-old mask of Buddha that had been missing for two years, the BBC reported Friday.
Made of bronze and copper, the mask disappeared from an office just south of Nepal's capital and was recently located after a German tried to sell the mask to an Austrian ethnography museum for $200,000.
Museum officials then checked with Austrian and Nepalese Buddhism experts, and photographs and police reports helped confirm the identity of the stolen object.
The idol smuggled out some 2 years ago from Nepal was about to be sold to South Asian Art of the Ethnographic Museum in Vienna at the price of $200,000 (Rs.16 million), The Himalayan Times said. "But, students studying Buddhism in Austria save the idol from being sold."
The government officials said that the idol would soon be handed over to its original owners, the trust members of the Kanakmuni Mahavihar of Chibah Nani of Nagbahal area. The idol, however, will be kept at Hiranya Varna Mahavihar for security reasons, the daily said.
…. nepalnews
The three-foot tall Dipankar Buddha mask is still used for rituals in Nepals' Newar community of the Lalitpur district. |
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