Inside a shipping container encircled by ironbark trees, eight kilometres north-west of Bendigo in regional Victoria, there’s a special cargo: a million-dollar Buddha, carved out of jade, that has seen more cities and faces than you or I could dream of.
He sits patiently in meditation pose, waiting to be unveiled amid great ceremony and carried into the gleaming white Great Stupa of Universal Compassion – the $20m Buddhist monument that rises out of the bushland next to the container. There, he will be protected by Mission Impossible-style security.
The Jade Buddha might sound like an episode of a Miss Fisher Murder Mystery but it’s actually a 2.5-metre sculpture that was carved out of what’s claimed to be the world’s largest boulder of jade, discovered in Canada 18 years ago.
The statue has spent the past decade on a world tour, visited by more than 11 million people. It might seem odd that its final home is in regional Victoria but since 1981 these 210 acres of land have been donated to the creation of a Buddhist centre by former advertising executive Ian Green and his family. Green was the Jade Buddha’s travelling companion across 130 countries and it’s he who bought the jewel after consulting with his teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
It started in 2003, when Green received a phone call from jeweller Cheyenne Sun Hill. Sun Hill had heard about an 18-ton giant boulder, “Polar Pride”, excavated in British Columbia. Being a Buddhist himself, Sun Hill felt that this rock ought to be carved into a Buddha, rather than whittled down into bangles. He tried to convince several large Buddhist groups before cold-calling Green.
For more read the full of article at The Guardian
