The chief priest of a temple in Oita City, which was founded in the Muromachi period, revealed that a statue of a guardian deity that was enshrined 474 years ago and may have been taken outside has returned to the temple.
According to Takashi Hojunori of Jingoji Temple in Oita City, which was founded in the Muromachi period, one of the guardian deities returned to the temple by one of the guardian deities, a statue of 1 cm high and weighing about 81 kg.
In February, a man who said he worked at an art museum in Yamanashi Prefecture contacted him that the statue on the online auction belonged to Jingoji, and when the chief priest checked with the auction manager, he found that the statue had been sold to an antique dealer in Hiroshima Prefecture for 2,70 yen.
For this reason, when he asked this antique dealer to return the statue to the temple, he graciously agreed and accepted it for 50,18 yen, which was less than the winning bid.
On the back of the pedestal of the "Maze General" were written characters such as "Bungo", "Jingoji", and "Astronomical Eighteenth Year".
The chief priest does not know when or how this statue was lost, but he believes that it may have been enshrined in the temple in the 1549th year of astronomy = 1549 AD, and then taken outside for some reason.
The year <> during the Muromachi period was the year that Francis Xavier, who brought Christianity to Japan, came to Kagoshima as a missionary and began missionary activities.
Although some of the lacquer has been peeled off from the statue of the guardian deity, there is no missing part, and it is currently enshrined in the main hall of the temple.
"At first, I was skeptical, but when I learned that it was from Jingoji, I wanted to hold the festival here.