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Antiques of bhArAt : Cultural artefacts of bharat are of high monetary value in international market and therefore
obvious targets of smuggling networks

Indias Pride, Worlds Envy

We are reclaiming our
lost cultural legacy and
civilisational pride as
governmental and nongovernmental missions
bringing back our Gods
which were once smuggled out of this country.
At the same time, we
need to ensure that our
ancient artefacts and
idols, the only remnants
now leftover which link
us with our rich heritage, should not fall in
the wrong hands again
in the future
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October 30, 2016

Ganesh Krishnan r

he recent Australian visit of

Cultural Minister Mahesh
Sharma in September this year
was a memorable as well as remarkable
one. International Media with due
recognition by giving a wide coverage
for the special event held at National
Gallery of Australia (NGA) in Canberra
on September 19, in which his
Australian counterpart Mitch Fifield
handed over three ancient artefacts
smuggled out of India and inadvertently acquired by National Gallery of
Australia. The returned artefacts were
Seated Buddha, Goddess Pratyangira
and Worshippers of Buddha. Many
regarded it was a generous diplomatic
gesture extended by Australia and
praised the flourishing relationship
between two countries. But apart from
all, it was marked by reclaiming the

cultural heritage of 1.25 billion

Bharatiya population and reinstating
their pride.
With the then Australian Prime
Minister Tony Abbott presenting two
statues to our Prime Minister Narendra
Modi during his Bharat visit last year,
more media attention has been drawn to
the much unexplored area of Indian
artefacts smuggling, a thriving business
in the international market. As the number of such stolen artefacts came out of
the veil, many began to raise questions
if we can ever reclaim our lost grandeur
legacy which is now being showcased
in the museums across the world. Both
the antique statues, Nataraja and
Ardhanariswara, were stolen from temples in Tamil Nadu. The Nataraja was
brought back to Bharat by Tony Abbott
after members of the India Pride
Project, a global volunteer group,

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Gods back home

Yakshi sculpture,
Madhya Pradesh

This Yakshi
sculpture
from Barhut
was looted
from Satna in
M a d h y a
Pradesh.
This
is
one
of
Indias mostvalued stolen
objects, valued at USD
15 million
(over Rs. 100
crores). This
sculpture
was identified by historian Dr. Kirit
Mankoti
and seized under
Operation Hidden Idol run by
U.S. Immigration and Customs
department. This operation is a
shining example of successful heritage-recovery and a strong gesture by the United States towards
India.
It was offered back to PM Modi
by US Attorney General Loretta
Fynch, earlier this year.

proved it was stolen from a temple in

Tamil Nadu.

Degree of Offense
It has roughly been estimated that more
than 20,000 idols and artefacts have
been smuggled out of India. Anuraag
Saxena, a co-founder of India Pride
Project, says, Advocacy group Global
Financial Integrity has estimated that
the illegal trade of arts and artefacts is
worth Rs 40,000 crores a year. It poses
a serious threat to the existence of our
cultural identity as it, in the long-run
delinks a nation from its rich heritage.
Beyond the monetary value estimated
in the international marker, who can

ResToRing PRide : Australian Minister for Arts Mitch Fifield returning the
artefacts to Minister for Culture dr Mahesh sharma at national gallary of Australia

Life of Lord Buddha, Andhra Pradesh

This stone relief sculpture depicting the life of Lord Buddha was stolen
from Amaravathi in Andhra Pradesh.As readers may know, Amaravathi has been a hub
of Buddhist heritage for centuries and even
boasts of a Buddhist Museum.
Sold to the National Gallery of
Australia over 10 years back, it waited a
long time to be returned to India. It was
recently handed over to Minister for
Culture, Mahesh Sharma on a visit to
Australia in September 2016.

The Kushan Buddha, Uttar Pradesh

This Kushan Buddha
was
stolen
from
Mathura,
Uttar
Pradesh a decade ago.
It was sold for
USD 1.2 millions (Rs.
8 crores) and soon
became subject of
widespread dispute.
Journalist and Author
Jason Felch traced this looted
Buddha to the museum and declared
it on his blog. This discovery, along

with the support

of
journalist
Michaela Boland,
let to questioning
of the museums
procurement policies and later dismissal of some of
the officials.
The Buddha is
finally on his way home being
returned to Dr. Mahesh Sharma,
Minister of Culture recently.

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IntervIew

Battle incomplete until

In the recent past, so many valuable
idols and sculptures which were smuggled out from Indian temples have
been brought back. Along with the
Government, an organisation which is
working with a mission Restore the
Nations Pride through Restoring Its
Culture, deserves a round of
applause. If India Pride Project is the
organisation behind this messianic
mission, Anuraag Saxena is one who
dedicates himself in this relentless
pursuit, spoke to Organiser about this
pioneering venture:.
n Tell something about this India
Pride Project to our readers.
India Pride Project is a volunteer-network spread across the globe, that
tracks and brings back our stolen
gods. We also build awareness about
the issue, so citizens and officials
understand why this is crucial to India
from a geo-political perspective.
n Why is so important for India to
bring back its stolen heritage?
When 9/11 happened, America decided to hit back with all its might. Why?
Because the terrorists didnt just
attack the twin-towers. They attacked
what those towers represented; the
core of America Capitalism.
Indias core has been our heritage
and culture. People have been attacking that core for centuries. First it was
mughals, then the colonisers, and now
some enemies from within. We, as a
nation, cannot twiddle our thumbs
while our country is getting looted. Its
time we show the world that Indians
will respond if you attack Indias core.
n What exactly do you mean by

determine the emotional and cultural

value associated with these artefacts?

The NGA Report: Why

Australia?
According to Asian Art Provenance

12

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October 30, 2016

Indias core.
Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay ji once
said, the basic cause of the problems
facing Bharat is the neglect of Its
National Identity. Have we ever
debated and developed shared understanding of what this National
Identity is?
In my humble opinion, the few
things that string all Indians together,
are Bollywood, Cricket and our
Heritage. Of these, Bollywood and
cricket are a recent phenomena.
Heritage on the other hand is timeless.
My forefathers lit diyas on Diwali, so
do I. My forefathers burnt Ravanas
effigy, so do I. My forefathers did
their naamkaran and pranaams before
the deity, so do I. By removing that
deity, we are breaking the link with
our forefathers.
My argument is simple, nothing
binds us across the country, and
across the ages; like our heritage &
culture does.
n So how does India Pride Project
solve the issue?
There are many historians and enthusiasts
that have dedicated
their lives to tracking stolen Indian
heritage.
Vijay
Kumar,
Kirit
Mankoti,
Jason
Felch,
Donna
and
Yates
many others
have been
painstaki n g l y

Project National Gallery of Australia

(NGA), of the 36 Asian art objects
acquired by the NGA between 1968 and
2013, only 12 have satisfactory provenance. At least 22 pieces acquired by
the National Gallery have questionable

researching and documenting the subject. They meticulously track, document, compare and prove that an
object that appears in a museum
somewhere, was actually stolen from
India. Once that trail is proven, it is
put out in the public domain, so that
officials can use it.
n Do those officials take action?
Sattar saal se toh kuch nahi hua. Only
the Modi government that has taken
action. However, a lot still needs to be
done. It is slightly amusing for us, that
foreign governments, agencies and
universities recognise the work that
IPP does; but Indias own officials and
institutions are not as enthusiastic. As
an example, USA offered back 200
antiquities to India; of
which our officials
brought back only
8.
Recently,
Indian officials
missed attending a
UNESCO meeting
on this subject,
where 192 countries
participated. Seizing
this
opportunity,
Pakistan is fil-

ownership. Of those 36 objects, 14

were purchased between 2002 and 2008
from a commercial gallery in New York
run by a dealer in Asian Art, Subhash
Kapoor.
In the NGA Report, the reviewer

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Gods back home

Gods reach Home

ing a claim with UNESCO, for the
Dancing Girl from Mohenjodaro be
sent from India.
n Are you saying the system is broken?
The system isnt broken. It was built
this way. There has been an institutionalised destruction of ancient
Indian heritage since independence.
The rust will take time to clean.
n Do you think this heritage-trafficking leads to terror-funding?
In February 2015, the United Nations
Security Council (UNSC) expressed
its concern that the Islamic State
(ISIS) are generating income from
engaging directly or indirectly in the
looting and smuggling in cultural heritage items to support their recruitment efforts. The UNSC resolution
2199, formally recognises that heritage
trafficking is a tool for terror-funding.
Since then, many nations, like USA
and Pakistan have passed laws preventing heritage-trafficking.
n Did you say Pakistan?
Yes indeed. The KP Antiquities Act,
2016 was recently enacted in Pakistan
and it increases financial penalty on
heritage-crimes by 40 times. The law
also establishes the Antiquities Trade
Control Wing to regulate and monitor
illegal trafficking of antiquities.
Unfortunately, India neither has an
updated law, nor a dedicated enforcement wing.
n What is the role of volunteers in
IPP?
IPP is a purely volunteer-driven network with no financial support from
government, agencies or corporates. In

Susan Crennan (a former high court

justice) sheds more lights into more
other illegal acquisitions and the role of
Subhash Kapoor in it. An Indian born
American citizen, Kapoor was the principal of a famous commercial gallery in

fact IPP has no full time employees or

budgets whatsoever.
We get all kinds of support from
various volunteers. As an example,
technologist Aashish Shetty volunteered to manage technology. Noted
historian and economist, Sanjeev
Sanyal helped build awareness by
writing about the cause. Many others
organised awareness meetings in
Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, etc. There
are countless others who dont even
expect to be mentioned.
n Tell us about your mass-awareness programs.
We have been invited into living
rooms to share our mission with a
small handful. We have also been
invited to auditoriums with over 500
people. All of it by the effort of selfless
volunteers. When we ran a socialmedia campaign with the hashtag
#BringOurGodsHome, thousands of
citizens made sure it trended on twit-

New York. One of the 14 statues

acquired from Kapoor was a Cholaperiod Bronze, the Shiva Nataraja (the
one which has been returned to India on
September 5, 2014). Later it has been
found that the export of the statue was

ter. In fact, it was in the Top-5 trends in

the country. When we created an
online petition with the same title, we
received thousands of signatures from
25 different countries.
We are extremely thankful to PM
Narendra Modi ji for acknowledging
the public sentiment and bringing back
Indian heritage from many countries
since then.
n So are you satisfied with what
you have achieved?
Swami Vivekananda once said, Arise,
awake, stop not until your goal is
achieved. While we are pleased that a
handful of objects have returned to the
motherland; we are also aware that
thousands of others continue to languish in foreign lands.
Our battle will not be not complete
till each and every God comes home.
of
the
The
basic
cause
problems Bharat is facing, is the
neglect of Its National Identity. n

in contravention of Indian legislation.

In connection with this, Kapoor was
arrested in Frankfurt on October 30,
2011 and extradited to India and, is
imprisoned and awaiting trial in
Chennia, India. According to local

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Gods back home

The Success Story of Sripuranthan

The Brihadeeswarar Temple in
Sripuranthan, in Ariyalur District,
was built by Kulothunga Chola-I.
Ariyalur was Chola kingdoms capital. In fact, people in the village
claimed that the temple had not witnessed daily poojas for a long time
even before the thefts became to
light. It was a small and sleepy hamlet but it came to popular after the
disappearance of 18 rare panchaloha, also known as panchadhatu
(five-metal alloy) idols worth 31
crore from this temple.
A local elder Govindarajn recalled
that the doors of the temple itself had
been locked since mid-1970s. He
said the temple priest had moved to
Chennai following for a meager
salary. The temple had Ganesha,
Chandrasekhar, as well as the saint
Sampanthar, a couple of sinuous
Sivagami Devi and, finest of all, a
bronze Nataraja depicting Shiva in
his cosmic dance panchaloha idol.
According to the FIR filed with
the Tamil Nadu Police, a crowd gatheredthe government officers along
with local police and villagersto
break open the old doors. But the
lock was already broken. To their

police reports, Kapoor faces charges of

criminal conspiracy to commit theft of
antiquities.

Criminal Nexus and Terror

Money
According to some reports of United
Nations Security Council (UNSC), the
terrorist organisations like Islamic State
(ISIS) use idol smuggling as a tool for
generating income. In response, the
United Nations Security Council went
so far as to adopt a resolution recognising art and antiquities trafficking as a
terrorist financing tool. Many countries have already taken stringent
measures to curb this menace. For
example, the Interpol has a special

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October 30, 2016

utter shock eight of the precious

idols were missing.
Meanwhile, in June 2013, the
recovery of a significant collection
of antiques, including bronzes of
Siva and Parvati valued around $ 8.5
million, in New York has created
fresh excitement. The seizures were
made from the storage facilities of
Subhash Chandra Kapoor. The
Nataraja idol, worth Rs 40 crore, has
travelled from the temple to
Kapoors storerooms in New York
and to the National Gallery of
Australia.
When the then Australian Prime
Minister Tony Abbott presented the
Nataraja idol to Prime Minister
Modi, the news has gladdened the
village in Ariyalur District. But it

wing to tackle art and heritage

crimes. But so far, apart from being a
worst victim, India has not taken any
serious steps to deal with this deadly
business.
Owing much to the serious lack of
awareness about the significance of
protecting our ancient artefacts, the
threat looms large over us. Yes, of
course, the new Government has taken
so many initiatives to reinstate our lost
pride. As a major achievement towards
this direction, in June this year, the US
returned over 200 stolen artefacts during Prime Ministers US visit. Some of
them are dating back to 2,000 years and
are worth $100 million in international
market. Global volunteer agencies like

was short lived. Four Panchaloha

idols which went missing from two
temples in Ariyalur Distirct were
sent to the Icon Centre at
Kumbakonam in Thanjavur district
after completing the process of their
appraisal. During the consecration of
the temple in 2014, it was brought to
the temple and returned back to the
centre after the event, said the temple
EO Jayapal. He said in only 4 idols
were recovered so far. He was full
praise for the idol wing police for
their speedy action. Another village
elder Ulaganathan said, We are taking all our efforts to bring back statues to our temple. We will take care
of them. He is also a key member of
the Temple renovation committee.
He had identified the stolen statues
in the court. The recovered statues
should be permanently placed in
their original place after the trail in
the court is over. If not, we would
not be allowed to take them during
the annual festivals. Alternatively,
set up an Icon Protection Centre in
our district itself (Ariyalur). The
police should take steps to recover
the remaining idols. he said.
TS Venkatesan

India Pride Project are also contributing

remarkably that deserves rounds of
applauds. Public awareness and serious
dedicated efforts from governmental
agencies are the need of the hour. Along
with comprehensive legislation, the
Government should take immediate
measures to enforce the existing law.
Besides all, creating public awareness
and spreading the message of conservation of our heritage are also vital. For
us, an idol or an artefact is not just a
piece of art. They are the only remnants
now leftover which link us with our
rich heritage and cultural roots. They
are the only evidence with which we
can define or redefine our cultural legan
cy, identity and heritage.

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Guest Column

India is not alone

A rigorous due diligence approach to be exercised by all

involved in the antiquities trade to ensure illegally excavated
objects do not enter the market, or if they do, they are quickly
returned to their legal owner

Duncan
Chappell

am writing from the ancient Persian city of Isfahan in events surrounding the acquisition by both the Australian
the midst of a cultural heritage study tour of Iran. National Gallery of Art [NGA] in Canberra, and the Art
Contemporary Iran is properly immensely proud of Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, of numbers of
its history and the cultural heritage treasures it has pro- rare and valuable Indian artefacts of seemingly dubious
duced and can now display. Even so, as my study tour provenance from the New York City based antiquities
has progressed I have come to appreciate how deeply dealer Subhash Kapoor has resulted in a searching
many Iranians still feel about the continuing absence of review of the acquisition policies and practices of both
many of their original historic treasures in foreign insti- galleries, and the ongoing repatriation of objects whose
tutions. The Louvre Museum in Paris, for instance, has true identity and place of origin can be established
possession of the basalt stele containing the Code of authoritatively. Mr Kapoor at present remains unconvictHammurabi, excavated in 1901 by French archaeologists ed of any crime and continues to languish in jail while
and one of the earliest set of laws ever discovered, while awaiting trial in Tamil Nadu. The evidence to date sugthe British Museum in London holds the Cyrus Cylinder, gests that he successfully operated a very lucrative and
an ancient clay cylinder containing important informa- sophisticated business stealing artefacts from isolated,
poorly secured and documented
tion in a cuneiform script about
locations and then fabricated suitthe Persian conquest of Babylon
able background stories regarding
in 539 BC. The cylinder was
their purported provenance. The
excavated in 1879 by an expediAustralian galleries were also far
tion that was sponsored by the
from being the sole victims of these
British Museum.
fraudulent activities.
Of course, Iran is far from
The alleged extensive and long
alone in wishing to repatriate
term criminal conduct engaged in
cultural heritage treasures like
by Mr Kapoor and his criminal
these from foreign climes with
the ongoing dispute between
associates is a timely reminder of
the need for rigorous due diligence
Greece and the United Kingdom
to be exercised by all involved in
regarding the return of the so
Code of Hammurabi
the antiquities trade to ensure illecalled Elgin marbles being perhaps
gally excavated, exported or stolen
the most notorious and long standThe evidence to date
objects do not enter the market in
ing illustration of such claims.
suggests that Kapoor sucRegrettably, for many countries in
the first place, or if they do, they are
cessfully operated a very
the Middle East the more immediate
quickly identified and returned to
and pressing current concern about
lucrative and sophisticated their legal owner.
their cultural heritage treasures is to
(The writer, a lawyer and criminolobusiness stealing artefacts
gist, is currently an Honorary
protect them from the threat of damfrom isolated, poorly
Professor in the Faculty of Law at
age, theft and destruction associated
the University of Sydney, Australia. A
secured and documented
with the armed conflicts consuming
member of the Australian National
Cultural Heritage Committee, and a
the region.
locations and then fabricatformer Director of the Australian
However, all is not doom and
ed suitable background sto- Institute
of Criminology in Canberra,
gloom as I believe recent experiHe has also published widely on
ries regarding their
ence in both Australia and India
issues associated with art crime and
purported provenance
cultural heritage protection.)
demonstrates. The well publicised

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Guest Column

Victims or villains?

Neil Brodie

As the recoveries and returns of stolen idols continue apace,

due to efforts of the civil society India Pride project, many
more museums will be looking to make entries in the loss
columns of their accounts books. Victims or perhaps villains?

n September 2015, the National Gallery of gating the offered provenance of a potential acquisition.
Australias (NGA) independent review into its 2008 But in March 2014, the Australian Arts Minister said
purchase from Subhash Kapoor of the stolen with regard to the Shiva Nataraja that the due diligence
Sripuranthan Shiva Nataraja concluded that the NGA had standards of the NGA were not in my view sufficientbeen the victim of a well-planned fraud by Art of the ly complied with on this particular occasion. In other
Past. Well, true enough, the fraud was certainly well- words, the NGA had been negligent in its duty to validate
planned, and well-executed too, but it was a fairly trans- the provenance of the Nataraja, and in consequence had
parent one and should not have fooled experienced muse- purchased a stolen object for $5 million. Was this really
um professionals. Shady art dealers are not in the habit of the act of a victim, as the NGAs review claimed, or was
offering stolen objects for sale with honest accounts of it instead an act of institutional hubris by a rich and powtheir theft and trafficking. Lies and forged provenance erful national gallery? Yet while the NGA was lax in its
documents are the order of the day.
conduct of due diligence, it was sharp enough to obtain a
The NGA visited Kapoors New York Art of the Past warranty of good title as part of the purchase agreement.
gallery in 2007 to view the as yet unpublished and previ- In February 2014, it used the warranty to initiate legal
ously unknown Shiva Nataraja. Kapoor produced three proceedings in the USA against Kapoor for recovery of
fraudulent documents purporting to show that a visiting the purchase price, claiming that he had fraudulently
diplomat had purchased the Nataraja in India in 1970 and induced NGA to acquire the Shiva by making misreprehad taken it with him when he left India in 1971, and that sentations and false assurances concerning the history of
the diplomats widow had sold it to Kapoor in 2004. The the Shiva. In September 2016, the Supreme Court of
NGA came away sufficiently convinced by this minimal New York ruled that the NGA should receive $11 million
account of provenance to authorize the Natarajas pur- in compensation for its lost purchase price, plus an
chase the following year for $5 million. Was the NGA a equivalent sum on top for unspecified costs and losses.
victim of Kapoors scheming? To answer that question, it Why the NGA should be awarded recompense for its
is worth remembering what was happening in 2007 in the own shoddy due diligence and general negligent engagewider world of art trafficking and museum collecting. In ment with the realities of the art trade, particularly as the
August that year Californias J. Paul Getty Museum real victim, the community of the Sripuranthan temple,
agreed to return 40 objects that had been stolen and traf- has been offered no compensation, is anybodys guess.
ficked from Italy. The previous year, for similar reasons, Avaricious institutions such as the NGA should be left to
suffer the consequences of their hubris,
the Boston Museum of Fine Art had agreed
It is ethically
and the cost of their nemesis. In the meanto return 13 objects to Italy, and the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
time, as the recoveries and returns of
incumbent upon
a further 21. All these pieces had been
stolen
idols and other objects continue
museum directors
acquired with a respectable provenance.
apace, due to efforts of the civil society
and their
All had been stolen and trafficked. All
India Pride project as much as to law
curatorial staff to enforcement or officially mandated culturwere well-planned frauds, and widely
conduct rigorous al agencies, many more museums will be
publicised as such, and yet the NGA does
not seem to have been paying attention, or
looking to make entries in the loss
due diligence
else believed itself unsusceptible to such while investigating columns of their accounts books. Victims
dishonest trading practices. And then it fell
or perhaps villains? Time will tell.
the offered prove(The writer is a Senior Research Fellow at
for exactly the same scam.
the University of Oxford. He has been
nance
of
a
potenIt is ethically incumbent upon museum
researching the trafficking of cultural
directors and their curatorial staff to contial acquisition
objects for twenty years and has published
many books and papers on the subject)
duct rigorous due diligence while investi-

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Guest Column/Gods baCk home

Learn to respect symbols

n

The writer takes on common mans criminal negligence

towards culture, art and heritage. As long as we do not appreciate our art, we will never notice that they are missing from
temples, analyses the writer

Devdutt
Pattanaik

remember the time my friend took me to the Pinaka-dhari (bow holding Shiva) Chola bronze statue
Kapaleshwara temple in Chennai. It took the two of being identified as Vishnu. Cant you see the third eye?
us almost an hour to reach the sanctum sanctorum. I asked the local official. The official did not know how
No, not because it was crowded. But because we were to react. He clearly was clueless. Sir, please dont tell
enjoying the vast range of Shaiva iconography that deco- anyone or we will all get into trouble, is the only thing he
rated the temple from the gate through the corridors right said. And so, Shiva still remains Vishnu, no thanks to a
up to the innermost structure in which was located the culture department full of officials more interested in
enshrined deity. Meanwhile, dozens of devotees were per- bureaucracy than art appreciation.
form rushing in to temple to have darshan and rushing
We can blame the government and the education sysout to do their daily chores. No one seemed interested in, tem, but how many parents actually take their children to
or even aware of, the sophisticated art that embellished museums, or temples, and play the game of let us identithe temple. This art developed in India over 2000 years, fy this god? How many Jain parents can actually take
ago was codified in the Agamas, and was meant to com- their children to a Jain mandir and together decipher the
municate the Vedic view of life.
symbols of the various Tirthankaras, and identify the varSomehow art appreciation is not seen as a religious or ious yakshas and yakshis? How many of us know the difspiritual activity. The common man is conditioned to be ference between Gandharan Buddha and Mathura
common by rejecting all things deemed even slightly Buddha? Do we even care to find out where the oldest
intellectual. But art appreciation is not an intellectual stone images of Ram and Krishna are on a temple wall?
activity; it is a visceral activity. By looking at iconogra- And no, it was not 5000 years ago, and certainly not on
phy we let the art evoke aesthetic sensations (rasa) and the banks of the now-dry Saraswati river.
emotional outpourings (bhava) in our body. This is a valid
And then when Euro-American scholars write about
means of non-cognitive transmission of the divine idea these icons, and call themselves experts, and Eurodirectly into our beings. Like champagne and caviar, even American universities and museums publish their works
in books with high production value, the
single malt whisky, art appreciation is an
bristling,
the rage and outrage, of patriotic
acquired taste, a sign of high culture. This
We can blame the
Indians unleash itself once again. In other
is why art was so important in Hinduism.
government and
words, our icons have been reduced to
And it was made available to all.
the education sys- property. Possessing them is more
I have seen many people bristling with
tem, but how many important than appreciating them. That is
rage at the idea that Muslims broke Hindu
temples and the British stole icons from
tragic. As long as we do not appreciate
parents actually
India and took them to England, or that
take their children our art, we will never notice that they are
smugglers are stealing temple icons today
missing from temples. What gets lost is
to museums, or
not a sacred object but a source of wisand selling them in the antique black martemples, and play
ket. But I have seen very few who bristle at
dom, and beauty, an idea carved in stone,
the game of let us a moment of history frozen in time. Yes,
the thought that neither they nor their children have any clue about art appreciation identify this godDo we want to bring back the plundered
of Indic iconography. Yes, they may be able
we even care to find treasures back home. But once home, can
to distinguish Durga from Lakshmi thanks
we spend some time looking at them a bit
out where is the
to calendar art, but can they distinguish
more curiously?
(The Mumbai-based writer has written 30
oldest stone image
Chamunda from Charchika, or Yogabooks and over 700 articles on the releNarasimha from Lakshmi-Narasimha?
of Ram and Krishna vance
of sacred stories, symbols and rituals
At an Indian consulate in a foreign
in modern times. To know more visit
on a temple wall?
devdutt.com)
country, a few years ago, I saw a Shiva

18

Organiser

October 30, 2016