Missing legs of 900-year-old Buddhist statue found in Cambodian jungle

London, November 7 (ANI): An archaeology professor has
discovered the missing legs of a 900-year-old Buddhist statue deep in
the Cambodian jungle, rewriting history in the process.

According to a report in The Independent, the professor in question is
Dr Peter Sharrock, a senior teaching fellow in the art and archaeology
of Southeast Asia at London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

Sharrock was at a conference in Cambodia in July when he decided to
spend a day searching the forest around the ruins of Angkor.

His aim was to locate the missing giant legs of an eight-headed,
three-metre high sandstone statue of Hevajra, the war-like, tantric
Buddhist deity.

The statue's intricately carved bust was excavated and salvaged in
1925 by French archaeologists, who sold it to the Metropolitan Museum
of Art in New York, where it has been on display ever since.

The rest of the statue had not been found - until now.

Armed only with photos of the excavations taken by the French 84 years
ago, Dr Sharrock and his friend David Green trekked into the forest
outside one of the ancient city's gates "where no tourist goes".

"There was no road, only a sort of animal track into the forest," he
said. "It was pretty unpleasant. There were snakes all over the place,
and in the back of my mind was the knowledge that the Khmer Rouge had
planted land mines all over Angkor," he added.

"We went on and on, and were about to give up, when finally I spotted
something through the trees. We strode through the creepers and
thorns, and I realised that I'd seen the carved square corner of the
statue's pedestal. And lo and behold, there were the legs lying beside
it," he said.

Many parts of the 12th-century statue - including all 16 of its arms
and one of its heads - are still missing, but Cambodia's government
has now pledged to excavate the site. (ANI)
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Alizio