Weeping statue draws devotees

JAKARTA, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- Devotees are converging on a Bali school to see a statue of a Hindu goddess students say began shedding tears after an earthquake on the Indonesian island.

The statue of the goddess Saraswati stands almost 10 feet tall in a courtyard water fountain of the SMPN 1 junior high school in Indonesia's Bangli district of Bali, the Jakarta Globe reported Friday.

School officials are investigating assertions by students they have seen the statue weeping since Thursday's 6.2-magnitude earthquake that injured dozens of people.

One student says she was taken aback at what she saw.

"The statue looks like a person crying," said a student at the school identified only as Dewa. "We were surprised."

After inspecting the statue, the school's headmaster said he believed it ,as in fact, shedding real tears, the newspaper said.

"We, the school, plan to ask for suggestions from paranormal experts to understand the phenomenon of the goddess Saraswati crying," said the headmaster, identified only as Sukarsana.

In Hindu, Saraswati is the goddess of knowledge and the arts. She embodies all that is pure and sublime in nature, dispelling the darkness of ignorance and rejecting all that is base and materialistic.