CHENNAI: Interest in all things Chola has witnessed a sudden spike with the release of the latest blockbuster, Ponniyin Selvan. The grand sets of PS 2 and the brilliance of Kalki’s original novel have brought the spotlight back on this ancient era in public minds. There certainly could not be a more perfect time than this to also discover the magnificence of Chola art.
The Cholas were known for their temple architecture. The Brihadeshwara temple in Thanjavur is an architectural marvel indeed. And so are various others built by them in Gangaikonda Cholapuram and the Airavatesvara temple in Darasuram. Apart from the splendour of their architecture, the Cholas were known for their sculptures, especially in bronze. Breathtaking with their fine workmanship, the beauty of the Chola sculptures was unsurpassed. It is this very attribute that made them susceptible to theft over time. The reasons for the disappearance of these precious sculptures varied according to the times.
Repeated invasions resulted in many temples and artefacts being destroyed. Later, under British rule, many villagers who were primarily agriculturists were forced to leave for distant shores like Malaysia and South Africa when they could not withstand the burden of the taxes imposed on them. A lot of them could have taken the bronzes along with them, unaware of their worth. There was also the curse of colonial looting that plundered our antiquity. Independence merely brought on another kind of invasion — the invasion of Greed. Nothing changed when India proclaimed her democracy. Indians continued to smuggle the nation’s cultural heritage to distant shores where they were embraced by art collectors and the museums of the world. Here is a look at a few of the Chola antiques that we lost in the centuries that followed but were fortunately traced and reclaimed.
SAINT MANIKKAVICHAVAKAR
There are heartwarming instances when stolen sculptures have been voluntarily returned by collectors. The Chola bronze of Saint Manikkavichavakar, stolen from the Sripuranthan temple was returned by an anonymous collector to the authorities after he realised he had been given false provenance papers. If only all museums and collectors allowed their conscience to function thus!
SEMBIYAN MAHADEVI
When a three-and-a-half feet idol of Sembiyan Mahadevi, the most powerful queen of the Chola dynasty, was noticed at the Freer Gallery of Art, USA, by an Indian visitor, a complaint was made before the Velankanni police in Tamil Nadu. A detailed probe revealed that it belonged to the Kailasanatha Swamy Sivan temple close to Nagapattinam. Stone inscriptions in the temple were later deciphered and the temple staff were also interrogated. Queen Sembiyan Mahadevi who lost her husband at the age of 15 years, when her infant son was one-year-old, ruled with an emphasis on art and culture and was credited with building many temples in granite, unlike the earlier practice of building them in brick. The Freer Gallery had purchased the Chola sculpture of the queen in 1929 from an art collector, Kevorkian, in New York, who had passed away in 1962 thus rendering it impossible to know how the idol came into his possession. The Idol Wing has been making all efforts to bring her back to the temple ever since the discovery.
SAMBANDAR
The Chola era bronze of the child-saint Sambandar was another theft that came to light recently. When the Idol Wing CID police received a complaint that the Sambandar idol was missing from the Nadanapureeswarar Sivan temple in Thanjavur, a case was registered. Images of the idol were accessed from the Indo-French Institute, Puducherry, as there were none in the temple records. Using the image, a complete search on all museum websites was undertaken. Ultimately, it was matched to an image on the Christie’s auction house website. The image was downloaded and experts compared it to the image of the original taken in 1959 and found them to be the same. A formal request has been made to Christie’s to return the idol and when he finally comes home, the idol would be placed back in the temple of its origin, the Nadanapureeswarar Sivan temple.
ALINGANA MURTHY
The return of this extremely beautiful Chola-era sculpture of Shiva and Parvathi from a museum in the US was largely due to the untiring efforts of a voluntary organisation called the India Pride Project. With a determined passion to bring back smuggled antiques to the country, the online volunteer group has gathered an impressive archive of Indian artworks in international museums. When they stumbled upon the Alingana Murthy, they instantly knew something was not right about its acquisition. The sculpture had a Tamil inscription at the base which was very rare but despite its rarity, surprisingly there were no records of any historian mentioning this artwork in any scholarly discussion. The museum claimed to have bought it from a well-known art collector (now deceased) but the documentation provided was quite obviously dubious. Efforts are going ahead full throttle to bring home the magnificent Alingana Murthy.
NATARAJA
Nataraja or the Lord of Dance was one of the most sculpted forms during the Chola period and evolved into peak perfection under their rule. One such sculpture was on display at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA). Almost 900 years old, this idol of the Dancing Shiva was found to be stolen from a temple in Tamil Nadu. It remained to be investigated to which temple it could have originally belonged to. Photographs of Nataraja sculptures were carefully examined to conclude. Despite difficulties such as the lack of clear photographs in the archives and the fact that most Nataraja idols appear to be almost identical, the experts were able to study the ring of flames around the deity and identify it as the one from the ancient Brihadeeswarar temple of Sripuranthan.
So how did this exquisite sculpture from a remote village temple in Tamil Nadu find its way across oceans to Australia hoodwinking the concerned authorities? The Sripuranthan temple had stopped being functional when the temple priest left for Chennai in the mid-1970s. Every three years as a celebration of their harvest, the idol of Kaliamman, the mother goddess, was brought by the villagers to the Nataraja temple. On one occasion, the villagers were attacked by poisonous huge hornets because of which the temple was locked and no one dared to enter it ever since. Ignorance of history made them oblivious to the value of the idol inside, making it an easy target for thieves.
The same was the case with the Nataraja idol at the 800-year-old Sundareswara temple in nearby Suthamalli. With 10 Chola idols inside, the temple was guarded by a woman who suddenly left the village with the keys and the temple remained unused. Both the temples were targeted in the stillness of the night when men came in trucks and with the rusted locks easily giving way, the idols were removed and the locks put back in place and no one was the wiser. They were then packed and made to look like cheap statues and along with fake documents, shipped out of the country.
The matter came to light only because of a small slip-up by one of the thieves who, fascinated by a tiny Ganesha he found in the Suthamalli temple, grabbed it for himself despite warnings. He was soon caught during a regular police check on the highway as the tiny idol he carried aroused suspicions. With his confession, the heist was unravelled and the Chola idols were traced to museums. The kingpin, Subhash Kapoor, was arrested and thus opened Pandora’s Box of the dark world of smuggling antiques. The Chola Nataraja has triumphantly returned to India and is presently at the Government Museum in Kumbakonam and only visits his land of Sripuranthan on important festival days.
Steps to save sculptures
Priceless Chola artefacts are often unearthed in villages while farming, where they must have been buried back in the day to save them from invaders only to be forgotten or abandoned. Several small dilapidated temples may unknowingly caress the elegance of a few Chola sculptural marvels even today. Sadly, the lack of awareness among the general public results in neglect and looting. The consequent loss of such precious cultural heritage can never be compensated.
Documentation of the sculptures in every remote temple structure must be undertaken. The public must also alert the authorities of the presence of any antique in an international museum so that its origins can be verified. It is also of utmost importance to bring about strict antiquity laws as temple heritage thefts are strangely, still prosecuted as house thefts. As we celebrate the mighty Cholas on celluloid, let us not ignore the treasures they left us nor turn a blind eye to their disappearances. It is time to not just take pride in and own our heritage.