Monks from one of the world's most-renowned Buddhist temples are
teaming up with an Internet auction site to help orphans in central
China.
The Shaolin Temple began auctioning off 10 hand-carved statues
of Buddha this week on Eachnet.com. Another 10 statues will go on
sale next week, with all proceeds from the sales going to help
orphans in Henan
Province where the temple is located.
The sale is part of a campaign to aid 1,000 orphans in the
central China province by selling 2,547 statues of Buddha, most of
which will be sold at the Shaolin Temple.
The temple is still calculating how much money was raised by the
first round of online sales, which ended yesterday. It did say the
top price paid for one of the statues was 8,000 yuan (US$963).
Some 27,300 people took part in the four-day auction, according
to Eachnet.
The second round of online sales begins today and runs through
next Monday.
The temple will work with the Henan Charity Foundation to
provide 500 yuan a year to 1,000 orphans until the proceeds from
the sale run out.
"We never expected to see Buddha statues auctioned at such a
high price, and so many people take part in our activity," said
Yongxin, the chief monk at Shaolin. He couldn't say what the lowest
sale price was during the online auction, but did note that the
lowest bid was 300 yuan.
Shaolin is most famous for its Kong Fu training school but is
also well-known for its charity work. In the past, however, most of
its donations have come from a relatively small group of
Buddhists.
(Shanghai Daily November 21, 2003)