Buddha relics brought from SL stolen from Cambodian shrine
15 December 2013 12:06 pm
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Cambodian police on Sunday said they were searching for a golden urn, brought from Sri Lanka, said to contain relics of the Buddha - including hair, teeth and bones - after it was stolen from a shrine.
The theft of several small statues and the urn from a mountain shrine in the former royal city of Udong was discovered on Tuesday, according to national police spokesman Kirt Chantharith.
The relics are "very important" to Cambodians - the vast majority of whom are devout Buddhists, he added.
"Ninety per cent of our people follow Buddhism and respect the Buddha and the remains are those of the Buddha," Kirt Chantharith said.
"We don't know where the urn is now. We are looking for it," he said, adding five guards had been arrested in connection with the theft.
The relics are believed to have been brought from Sri Lanka to Cambodia in the 1950s to mark the 2,500th anniversary of Buddha's birth.
In 2002, then king Norodom Sihanouk moved the relics from the capital Phnom Penh to Udong, some 45 kilometres from Phnom Penh - in a ceremony attended by tens of thousands of people. (AFP)