Mekong Buddha images dismissed as hoax
Rik Ponne
Mekong Buddha images dismissed as hoax
Phonesavanh Sangsomboun
Rumours surrounding 11Buddha images supposedly found floating in the Mekong in Vientiane were created by a group of people looking to profit from the situation, according to the Ministry of Information and Culture.
Deputy Head of the Vientiane Information and Culture Department, Mr Khamtane Phonsongkharm, last week warned people not to believe the rumours if they didn’t want to waste their money on superstition.
“The situation and the discovery were made up by a group of people for their own advantage. Many people have fallen for it and have already lost their money,” he said.
After news of the discovery of the Buddha images in Thapha village, Hadxaifong district, spread last week, crowds flocked to the village temple to pay homage and donate money as they believed they were special and valuable.
Similar situations have occurred in the district three times already, and officials say it has developed into a form of anti-social behaviour to trick people into parting with their money.
Some victims have regretted giving money after seeing the images. They have lost their money because they did not use their judgement and were swayed by rumour, officials say.
“We're unsure of the details of their origins. We only know they are Buddha images so we have brought them to the temple,” said one villager.
Eyewitnesses to the discovery said the images were not made from plastic or glass, but some other kind of material, but Mr Khamtane confirmed that no such Buddha images are made in Laos.
Each image has a symbol of Garuda, the legendary birdman, on the back. This shows that the images are not from Laos, because the naga or serpent is the symbol of Lao Buddhism.
“In our Buddhism we have only Lord Buddha, but people think the discovery of the images is miraculous and sacred. That’s superstitious.”
Officials cannot deal directly with the group of people involved, but they can stop them after the situation occurs, Mr Khamtane said.
The authorities have sent officials to explain the truth to victims so they will no longer suffer the frustration of losing their money.
However, the 11 images are being kept safely as officials are afraid that certain groups of people have negative intentions.
“In developing countries, people rely on fortune and superstitious things to help them become rich without bothering to work,” Mr Khamtane said.
(Soiurce: Vientiane Times, Monday June 7, 2010)
Eisel Mazard
The last one that I can remember turned out to be a plastic Hindu idol that was floating in the river for the (very understandable) reason that it was buoyant. I think that the local villagers were disappointed to learn that its origin was Hindu, rather than Buddhist.
As I recall, though, someone from the national museum service did appraise the statue, and affirmed that it was of entirely modern manufacture.
This (2010) story has a few interesting twists of its own.
In terms of the current generation of Lao (government) textbooks on Buddhism, I can't say that they share Mr Khamtane's sense of the stark difference between superstition and "real Buddhism".
Lao Communism has repeatedly flirted with the notion of a "back to the basics" reform of Buddhism (such as forcing the monks to break and discard the ornamental fans that formerly noted differences of rank/prestige amongst them), but, I note, nobody is interested in the fact that Buddhism forbids monks from receiving cash donations of any kind. You might think that "the separation of church and bank" would be a principle that Communists would have some special interest in reviving (from the pages of the written canon) --but no, so far, Lao Buddhism has remained very much a "clientelistic" affair (on a fee-for-service basis, etc.) and the ceremonial donation of cash to the temples by Communist Party officials themselves seems to cement this as part of the public religion.
However, for the small number of people who read the canon, they'll find that it's quite open to superstition --but uniformly hostile to the type of commerce that now dominates the religion.
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2010/12/30/the-buddha-was-bald/
E.M.