Quan The Am-Ngu Hanh Son 2009 Festival, the annual festival of Quan The Am pagoda on the Kim Son-Ngu Hanh Son mountain in the central city of Da Nang, opened on March 13.

The first Quan The Am festival was held in 1960 on the 19th day of the second lunar month to inaugurated the Quan The Am (the Goddess of Mercy) statue in Hoa Nghiem cave on Thuy Son mountain and became an annual event from 1991.

This year’s three-day festival is held monumentally with the display of the world’s largest jade statue of the Buddha.

The statue, named “The Jade Buddha for Universal Peace,” measures 3.5 metres tall, including the lotus base and fan throne, and weighs 4.5 tonnes.      The statue is modelled on the Siddhartha Gautama Buddha inside the Mahabodhi Stupa in India’s Bodh Gaya. 

It is carved from an 18-tonne Nephrite jade boulder called “Polar Pride” found in Canada in 2000 and considered the world’s largest piece of pure jade. The rock was transported in late 2006 from Vancouver in Canada to Bangkok, Thailand, where Thai sculptors finished the statue a full two years later.    

The statue has been displayed at the pagoda from March 13-15, the first destination of its world tour before being placed permanently at the Mahabodhi Stupa of the Atisha Centre in Australia.

On display at the festival also included a 2.4m x 6.1m painting made of waste cans, which depicts the overview of Da Nang city.

On this occasion, the festival’s organising board will hold auction sale of best calligraphy works to raise fund for Agent Orange victims.(VNA)