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Show HANDFUL Or SILVER EUY3 GOLD BUDDHA Old Shanghai Curio Dealer Gets Ancient Idol. Victoria. It. C. A golden idol, a chastely wrought lij.-u.re of P.uddha, fashioned by lingers that crumbled into dust 1.S0O years ajro, is for sale in a humble curio store in the Kiangse Koad. Shanghai, according to passengers passen-gers arriving from the Orient on the Empress of Russia. Connoisseurs place its value at S500,00, basing I heir estimate on the price of Jur.O.OOO p.dd by a resident of Osaka, Japan, for one similar, hut smaller in size and mutilated by the loss of a portion of the precious metal from the bottom. Wrapped in a red and blue silk cover, cov-er, handled with fingers guarded with cotton wadding, the precious relic has set Shanghai agog with interest and speculation. Eighteen hundred years ago, when Buddhism was the national religion of Korea, it was an unalterable law that a figure of Buddha should be buried with every member of the royal family. This particular Buddha was interred with the remains of Yu Sam Jai, not a member of the reigning house, but prime minister to the king, who ordered it placed in the coffin of his servant as a special mark of grace in recognition pf faithful service, Two hundred and slxly years ago the descendants of that prime minister unearthed the Buddha in the. grave of their ancestor. They failed to realize its value, keeping it only as a niemen-, to. Early last month the Shanghai curio dealer, traveling in Korea, persuaded per-suaded an impoverished descendant of the once powerful Yu Sam Jai to part with it for a handful of silver dollars. It is only a few inches high, and to the eye of the tyro It is not much better bet-ter in quality than one of the metal PHddhas that collectors pick up for a. dollar or two in uny of the thousands of Chinese shops. But not an antl- quartan In China would approach the proprietor of the little shop in the Kiangse Itoad with fewer than hundreds hun-dreds of thousands of dollars to offer in exchange. |
