Asia Times: Gods lose their heads for art's sake



	October 02, 1999	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Gods lose their heads for art's sake
By Ranjit Dev Raj

NEW DELHI - It was the sheer weight of the 11th century granite statue of the infant Krishna and his mother from Bengal's Pala-Sena era which gave the art smugglers away. The roof of their car, on which the contraband was strapped, caved in.

But weight and size have rarely stopped priceless pieces of sculpture depicting Indian deities from leaving Indian shores for the luxurious drawing rooms of private art collectors and even reputable art museums.

A massive sculpture of Brahma, the creator, from the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, was sawn into three pieces and shipped to a different destination before being reassembled for a collector, says C Margabandhu, former Director of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

Margabandhu blames such heists on sheer negligence and indifference to an incredibly rich art heritage by ordinary Indians which is matched only by the greed and dishonesty of collectors abroad. ''One has only to look at the thousands of idols dumped in the open air yards at Khajuraho to realize just how much Indians care for their heritage.''

Sculptures, miniature paintings, illuminated manuscripts, jewellery are getting shipped out by the truck-load because the Indian customs department checks only 10 percent of all consignments for contraband goods.

According to M Ram, superintendent in the Antiquities Wing of the Central Bureau of Investigation, during the year 1996, nearly 3,000 pieces of cultural property were spirited out of India with only 856 of them actually recovered.

But that figure represents what has been recorded as missing. Possibly three times as many items are estimated to have disappeared from archaeological sites and living temples in Madhya Pradesh, eastern Orissa state, and southern Tamil Nadu.

According to Margabandhu, part of the problem lies in the fact that India's archaeological sites are often situated deep in the rural hinterland and often in places inaccessible by road. Unless local villagers are actually worshipping an idol, they are not particularly concerned with antiquities and are quite willing to allow roving bands of smugglers to acquire priceless pieces for a song.

When caught, smugglers are rarely convicted and present laws prescribe a light six month sentence in prison and a fine of around $30.

Very often foreigners who have a better sense of art and history or the commercial value of antiques are involved. A couple of years ago three Australian nationals were intercepted at the customs counter with rather suspiciously heavy bags. Examination revealed 6,000 gold, silver and copper coins minted by various dynasties and representing a numismatic motherlode. The Australians led customs to smugglers who yielded another 4,000 coins.

In another case, two Thai students were caught with Buddha heads lopped off from stone figures at Nalanda, site of the world's oldest university predating the Christian era.

Buddha heads are a favorite. Recently a head missing from an ancient temple in Bodh Gaya, eastern Bihar state was brought back after a senior official in the ASI, Deopriya Mitra, spotted it at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. A Buddha head was recently couriered to the Netherlands as ''hardware'' and intercepted by customs at the airport only on a tip-off.

Another favorite is the Nataraja, or Lord of the Cosmic Dance, abundantly cast in bronze by the Cholas who ruled South India between the 9th and 12th centuries and who had a sea-borne empire extending to Sri Lanka, the Malay peninsula and Sumatra in modern Indonesia.

Wrote Frtjof Capra in the ''Tao of Physics'': ''Indian artists of the 10th and 12th centuries have represented Siva's cosmic dance in magnificent bronze sculptures of dancing figures with four arms whose superbly balanced yet dynamic gestures express rhythm and unity of life.''

Capra's endorsement only spurred the demand for Natarajas in the West. Some of the finest examples have surfaced in museums in Britain and the United States; currently the US and the ASI are engaged in court battles for the return of several pieces.

According to D K Sinha, another retired ASI director, the return in 1986 of a Nataraja by the Norton Simon Foundation, originally unearthed from the village of Sivapuram in southern Tamil Nadu, is particularly encouraging. The Los Angles-based foundation paid a million dollars for ''innocent purchase'' of the Sivapuram Nataraja but ultimately handed it back to the Tamil Nadu state government following protracted litigation in the United States and Britain.

What helped the reclamation was the description of the idol in a book ''Early Chola Bronzes'' written by Douglas Barret, who spotted it in the living room of Lance Dane, an advertising executive in 1964.

Precious items frequently turn up at auctions mounted by the famed Sotheby's and the firm even has representatives in India whom the ASI regards with suspicion.

India can only claim treasures that can be proved to have left the country after independence in in 1947. Any number of items were taken away during nearly two centuries of colonial rule - including such items as the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which is now part of the British Crown jewels.

The British took away the bulk of Buddhist sculptures from the from southern Andhra Pradesh which, according to historian Prof Champakalakshmi, are lying in the basement in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and have yet to be catalogued.

But India owes the British the very creation of the ASI, the setting up of several museums around the country, the first cataloguing of antiquities and the first legislation to prevent their export, Sinha said.

(Inter Press Service)

asian sex gazette