Mutilation of Buddha statues

[Jessie Fong]

http://dawn.com/2012/06/25/buddhas-face-mutilated-by-taliban/

Swat was once an important center of Buddhist culture and trade. The monk credited with introducing Buddhism to Tibet, Padmasambhava, was born in Swat. A team funded by the Italian government is working with Pakistan’s archaeology department to restore and preserve centuries-old Buddhist sites in northwest Pakistan. Militants detonated the face off the towering, 1,500-year-old rock carving in northwest Pakistan in fall 2007, it fell to an intrepid Italian archaeologist, Luca Olivieri, to come to the rescue.

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What is your thought on this ---
a. how heavy is the karma of those people who have mutilated the Buddha statues?
b. what merits would the Italian team reap for the restoration?

[Carpenter]

For my knowledge:
When we mutilated a buddha’s statue, basically we are committing a karma for us to be born in a barbaric place where we don’t have the chance to meet Dharma again for many many life times, and also we will create a body karma that be born with incomplete body which will bring great sufferings in the future life.

For the Italian team that restore the Buddha’s statue will collect tremendous merits that give you beautiful and healthy body in your next life. Building a statue will create not just individual karma but also collective karma. By serving others so much merit is collected, and so much bad karma is purified. This is how the statue can contribute to the liberation of sentient beings; to world peace – with compassion.

[ratanasutra]

If making Buddha statue collect tremendous merit therefore mutilation Buddha statue collect huge negative karma also. Sure they will take a rebirth in the hell and other places as mentioned by carpenter because the intention and actions are there even with ignorant mind, what they will encounter will be the same.


First at on, those people whom mutilation Buddha statue already have lot of negative karma to have that such wrong view to plan and do it without any regret.

We must always be aware of our actions every second as one wrong move, we might regret forever.

 

[bambi]

The Buddha said to the Devarajas of the Four Directions,"From the countless kalpas in the past to now, Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva has been delivering sentient beings. If He meets those who damage temple properties, he will explain to them the karmic retribution of suffering in hell for millions of kalpas."

I agree with what Carpenter has mentioned. Those who destroy any Holy objects will reap huge negative karma and suffer in hell for many lifetimes. Not only that not meeting the Dharma but also having wrong view continuously until the karma is exhaust.

The team will reap huge merits as they are restoring a place where the Buddha reside and have the realizations to gain Enlightenment.

Buddha said in the Mindfulness Sutra: Who has built well the support [statue], that one will always go from virtue to virtue [always progressing, with more and more happiness, and more and more virtue]. Even for thousands of ten million eons, the virtue can never be wasted or lost. It is saying that one who has built the holy body of Buddha: statue, the holy speech of Buddha: scripture, the holy mind of Buddha: stupa, the temple or shelf for Dharma, and establishes a monastery for the Sangha, gains very extensive merit that is never lost and always increases.