The world’s largest jade jewel finds a home in regional Victoria

A jade statue of the Buddha, the world’s largest jade jewel, has come home to Bendigo’s Great Stupa of Universal Compassion.

The Jade Buddha at the Great Stupa in Bendigo. Picture: Aaron Francis

The world’s largest jade jewel, carved in the shape of the ­Buddha, has come home to ­a ­regional Victorian temple after a decade-long world tour.

The Jade Buddha was unveiled yesterday at Bendigo’s Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in front of more than 600 Buddhists and wellwishers from around the globe.

It will stay in the Great Stupa for up to five years after a non-stop world tour. For the statue and Great Stupa chairman Ian Green, it is a coming home of sorts.

“The Jade Buddha needs a rest ... and so do I,” he said.

Mr Green, one of Australia’s most senior Buddhists and a former advertising executive, received a call in 2003 from an American ­financier who wanted to carve a statue out of an 18-tonne boulder of jade discovered in Canada.

“They usually turn these boulders into jewellery but this American called me up and said he wanted to help turn it into a ­Buddha,” he said.

“I happened to be in Santa Cruz and we met up in what turned out to be his nudist bar.

“I was a bit shocked but we ended up talking.”

Mr Green was working on the construction of the Great Stupa back in Bendigo and was reluctant to take a Jade Buddha on, but was convinced by his teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche. “He told me this statue would be a light of peace around the world.”

Mr Green commissioned a statue resembling Indian depictions of his religion’s founder because these are supposed to be the closest physical similarity to the Buddha himself. It was made in Thailand by a Thai sculptor and an Australian sculptor.

“They couldn’t speak each other’s language but it’s extraordinary how they were able to communicate through their hands,” Mr Green said.

He had intended for the Jade Buddha to sit in his Great Stupa when it was completed in 2008 but was convinced to take it on a three-month tour of Vietnam.

The tour went on, and on, and 11 million people have since seen the Jade Buddha.

Mr Green said he had spent nearly half of the past decade attending opening and closing ceremonies for the green statue.

The Jade Buddha has maintained its attraction. About 20 worshippers from Vietnam who attended the original unveiling were in Bendigo yesterday.