CHENNAI: After a nearly 22-year search, a beautifully crafted and restored 1,200-year-old Buddha idol from the Devisthan Kundalpur Temple in Kurkihar in Gaya district in Bihar would return to India soon. The 8th century stone Bodhisattva sculpture, stolen in the year 2000, was recovered from a private collector in Milan, Italy. It was formally handed over to the consul general of India in Milan on Thursday evening.
The consulate general of India-Milan is delighted to be part of the recovery and restitution of the priceless stone statue of Avalokiteshwara Padamapani, a senior consulate official told TOI. The idol would be sent to the Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi.
Kurkihar near the sacred city of Gaya was a well-known Buddhist pilgrimage centre between the 9th and 12th century and as a site had yielded more than 226 bronzes famously called the ‘Kurkihar hoard’, said India Pride Project co-founder K Vijay Kumar, who played a key role in tracing the idol. Many more stone and bronzes from the site have been plundered to fuel the international black market in antiquities, said Vijay Kumar. The stone Buddha handed over to India had survived for almost 1,200 years in the Kurkihar temple until it was stolen and smuggled out of India.
A joint statement by Christopher A Marinello of Art Recovery International and Vijay Kumar said the idol had been traced following decades-long search. Along with Vijay Kumar, Marinello had located the missing sculpture and negotiated an unconditional release from an anonymous Italian collector just before Christmas. The archival documentation maintained by the India Pride Project is essential and damning evidence of the illegal plundering of India’s cultural heritage over the last several decades, said Marinello.
Vijay Kumar said their search for the Buddha was on for almost eight years and they were close to securing it when it was consigned for sale by a French dealer. The art market performed their usual optical due diligence by obtaining worthless provenance certificates from agencies that don’t have the necessary means to conduct such checks, especially for Indian art, he said. “We were, however, unable to seize the artefact in France given its poor legal framework and pathetic past track record of restitutions,” added Vijay Kumar. Finally, hard negotiations helped them get back the idol.
The climate and appetite in the West for unprovenanced antiquities is changing rapidly, said Marinello in the joint statement. “Collectors are being criminally charged worldwide and collections are being seized as more and more jurisdictions let it be known that it is unacceptable to possess looted and stolen art. A window of opportunity exists for possessors of stolen artwork to come forward voluntarily before law enforcement comes knocking at the door,” he said.
