Ancient Buddha images believed to have been buried for more than 400 years have recently been discovered at Vat That temple in Xaysettha district, Attapeu province.
The President of the Lao Front for National Construction in Vat That village, Mr Bounthone Sythanonxay, said last week that 139 Buddha images had been unearthed near an old building where many other Buddha images are kept.
The images consist of 56 gold statues, 54 in silver and 29 in copper in different sizes and shapes.
“We haven't measured the weight of the Buddha images yet, and we couldn't guess how much they would weigh. The village authority has set up a committee to conserve them, and at the moment they are being kept in the temple where members of the committee are working in shifts to take care of them,” Mr Bounthone said.
He said local people found these Buddha images when they were rebuilding the house of the image at the beginning of March, and found this ancient sculpture in a Chinese silver pot. None of the images have been marked with any sign or stamp showing the year in which they were made.
“We don't know if the language on the pot is Chinese or Japanese. The pot and the language would give up an idea about what century they might be from,” a member of the committee said.
Mr Bounthone said that before Lao New Year, local authorities and Attapeu residents ordained the Buddha images in the temple. “While we were ordaining them, many of those present said they could see light coming from the top of the stupas near the building where the Buddha images are kept,” he said. “The light sparkled around the top of the building and other stupas.”
The stupas in the temple include those of King Setthathirath and his son, which stand beside the building where local people are carrying out reconstructions. Mr Bounthone said that during Lao New Year, when young people poured water on all the Buddha images, they saw two more Buddha images on the hand of the large Buddha image. When they informed the Abbot of the temple, village authorities placed them together in the same pot. A week later, the Abbot and other villagers found another silver and three more gold images in the grounds of the temple.
Everyone assumed these had been taken out of the original pot, however when they then counted the other images, it was determined that these were additional images which had not been taken from the temple.
The local authorities are now trying to determine the ages of the Buddha images. The temple, Vat That was established in 1579s. Mr Bounthone, who is 65, is trying to locate any residents in the area aged 100 or thereabouts, who might know anything about the era of King Setthathirath, who was born in 1534. Vat That is located in Xaysettha district, around 30 km away from the city of Attapeu . Local authorities and villagers are now building a new house to store the discovered images, which will be completed soon.
