A excessive court docket in South Korea ordered the return of a Buddhist statue that was stolen from a temple in Japan in 2012.
The statue, which is greater than 450 years outdated, depicts the Kanzeon Bodhisattva. Kanzeon is understood amongst Buddhist tradition because the One Who Perceives the Sounds of the World and is claimed to “grant salvation to the suffering.”
The bodhisattva statue has been on the middle of a world tug-of-war because it surfaced in South Korea, in line with the Asahi Shimbun.
In 2013, the South Korean authorities arrested the thieves who looted the statue from the Kannonji temple in Tsushima, Nagasaki Prefecture. The statue was subsequently confiscated by the South Korean authorities. Shortly after, the Kannonji temple, with the help of the Japanese authorities, requested that the statue be returned.
But a temple in South Korea, Buseoksa, additionally claimed it had a proper to the statue and demanded that or not it’s granted possession of the work. The temple says the Kanzeon Bodhisattva was stolen within the 14th century by a gaggle of Japanese pirates often called “Wako” who sailed the alongside the Chinese and Korean coasts between 1200 CE and 1500 CE.
In 2017 a South Korean district court docket dominated in favor of the Buseoksa temple saying, “it is reasonable to assume” the statue arrived in Japan via “theft and looting.” The South Korean authorities appealed the ruling, with partial success.
On February 1, the Daejeon High Court discovered it was possible that the statue had been looted from Buseoksa temple, however rejected the temple’s possession as a result of there isn’t any proof that the present Buseoksa is similar temple that was lively within the 14th century.
Meanwhile, the Kannonji temple had obtained “acquisitive prescription” by having held possession of the statue for over 20 years, the period of time wanted to amass possession below the civil legal guidelines of each Japan and South Korea.
Setsuryo Tanaka, the present chief priest of Kannonji temple, informed the South Korean court docket final 12 months that, in line with legend, the Buddhist monk who constructed Kannonji temple in 1526 acquired the statue when he traveled to the Korean Peninsula.
The court docket additionally dominated that the Kanzeon Bodhisattva be returned to Japan “while taking into account principles of international law,” the Asahi Shimbun experiences. Buseoksa plans to enchantment to the next court docket.