Interpretations of laws and international conventions have to do more with the spirit of the legislations and should not provide legal loopholes for possessors of illicit objects to claim good title. The 1970 UN Convention on Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property did not have the muscle to enforce its provisions retrospectively but it does lay down the spirit: “For cases of return or restitution that do not fall under the preceding provisions, such as objects stolen from private property or coming from illicit excavations or not yet listed, bilateral negotiations between States are encouraged, according to Article 9 of the Convention.”
In this present article, we look at one such instance where the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) has gone to a great extent to uncover the provenance of a 12th century Prajnaparamita, Goddess of Wisdom, that it bought. Yet, the NGA failed to fulfill the one purpose for which it was done. We must however thank the diligent work of Lucie Folan, the NGA’s then curator of Asian Art, in uncovering the provenance and the subsequent publication of the same as “The Wisdom of the Goddess: Uncovering the Provenance of a Twelfth-Century Indian Sculpture at the National Gallery of Australia”. However, we do not agree with some of the key interpretations and are also sad that despite all the publicity given to stolen art works returning to our country, this idol has not been taken up by Indian authorities, culture ministry, the ASI or the state of Odisha.
Let us look at the facts of the case as revealed in the exhaustive provenance research of the NGA, which as we see shortly, should have been done in 2002 and not in 2014 (in the wake of the Subhash Kapoor scandal).
The museum obtained the sculpture in 1990 for $75,000. But in 2002, “The NGA learnt of the Prajnaparamita’s probable place of origin, or ancient provenance. … LACMA curator Stephen Markel informed NGA curators that the Prajnaparamita had been documented at the ruins of a fort at Choudwar in the Cuttack district of Orissa in 1928, and published in Ramaprasad Chanda’s 1930 Exploration in Orissa. Referring to a photograph of the work, Chanda wrote, ‘A seated image of Prajnaparamita with a sweet smiling face was unearthed a few years ago and is now installed in the open paddy field and worshipped by the villagers as the village Godling’.”
Lucie Folan’s provenance work continues: “Markel also reported that the Prajnaparamita was listed as missing from … N K Sahu’s 1958 Buddhism in Orissa. Discussing Choudwar, Sahu wrote, ‘Unfortunately this place has been denuded of its art-treasures by curio hunters and icon seekers and … beautiful sculptures which were seen here by Sri R P Chanda in 1928 are found missing. … Among the Buddhist sculptures of Choudwar, mention may be made of a Prajnaparamita image, which is missing, but the photograph of it is fortunately preserved’.”
Now is where the interpretation anomalies creep in: “Neither the site of Choudwar nor its Prajnaparamita sculpture was enumerated in the 1931 List of Ancient Monuments Protected under Act VII of 1904 in the Provinces of Bihar and Orissa, published by the ASI. The 1928 photographs of Prajnaparamita indicate that the sculpture was known to the ASI. It is therefore reasonable to expect it to be included in the 1931 survey, had it been in situ at that time. … However, the lack of any reference to Choudwar may equally indicate that the site itself was not protected by The Ancient Monuments Preservation Act of 1904.”
Nevertheless, the provenance work goes on to note the following from the ASI publication: “It [The ancient monuments preservation Act of 1904] is not to be regarded as comprehending every ancient monument in the province; for certain important monuments are definitely excluded . . . among these are the famous temples at Bhubaneswar . . . it has not been possible to secure the owners’ consent to notification on terms that would allow of the Archaeological Department’s accepting responsibility for the maintenance of the monuments in a manner appropriate to their archaeological importance.”
How would one interpret the above? It clearly mentions important monuments in Bhubaneswar—meaning under-worship temples like the Lingaraj or Raja Rani wherein the ASI was facing pushback from the owners. This should be read along with Section 10 of the 1904 Act : “The powers of compulsory purchase … shall not be exercised in the case of—(a) any monument which or any part of which is periodically used for religious observances.”
We have already seen that the villagers were worshipping the Goddess from the 1928 book reference. Further the 1904 Act covers “Traffic in Antiquities” and deems it so important to have a separate Section 17 called “Power to Central Government to control traffic in antiquities”. As can be clearly seen from this Section, trafficking of antiquities was recognised as a serious crime even in 1904. Now we look at incriminating evidence about the curio hunter/icon seeker from the NGA’s provenance work: “A writer, artist, feminist and social activist … Frieda Mathilda Hauswirth Das studied at the University of Stanford in California where she was taught philosophy by the Marxist Indian revolutionary Lala Har Dayal … According to her book A Marriage to India, Hauswirth then married Sarangadhar Das who was from Odisha. ... Hauswirth wrote to (William) Norman Brown (1892–1975), Indian art curator at the PMA from 1931 to 1954, as an amateur collector seeking to sell several sculptures that she acquired in Odisha and brought to the US in around 1929 or 1930. In a letter dated March 14, 1931, she wrote, ‘I am sending you photographs of the sculptures which I bought from India. They are all from the province of Orissa, some from districts as yet practically unexplored. The Hariti and Infant Pindola were excavated for me two years ago on the estate of a friend at Lolitagiri which is one of a group of three hills that contain immense and as yet barely recorded Buddhistic ruins. All the other sculptures are from Cuttack district. … I was negotiating for the Padmapani. … My Hindu friends obtained the Padmapani for me after five weeks of negotiation, but did not get hold of the Tara until a whole year later and then forwarded it to me in New York.’ In a second letter, dated March 20, 1931, Hauswirth Das wrote, ‘I have been basing my price of the Orissa sculptures on the sum I received from the sale through an agent of a statue sold to the Detroit Museum in 1928 . . . However, as the last two years have been particularly difficult years, I am willing to set far lower prices for an immediate purchase … If, however, you should consider acquiring a good part of the collection at one time, I will quote a still more special price . . . for five of the main pieces—the Padmapani, Hariti, Tara, Prajnaparamita and Tirthankara taken together I would at present accept five thousand three hundred dollars . . . I received for my own share $2000.00 from the Detroit sale."
The usage of words and phrases such as “excavated for me, bought, negotiation, forwarded”, etc., are clear red flags as there is obvious illegality in almost every action of hers. And the provenance research renames “forwarded” as “exported”!
The provenance work notes: “Undeniably, Hauswirth Das disturbed the archeological record when she obtained Prajnaparamita and was probably one of many site collectors. … There are therefore troubling aspects to the Prajnaparamita’s history that the NGA has yet to fully reconcile.”
Based on all of the above, it is indeed a travesty that despite the pioneering efforts of diligent scholar Ramprasad Chanda for the ASI, a documented antiquity was smuggled out of India by a curio hunter who had no intention other than commercial greed to put them up for sale in the US. The villagers of Choudwar have a superior claim on their Godling and we hope the NGA and the Government of India work to bring her back home.
S Vijay Kumar, Co-founder, India Pride Project and author of The Idol Thief.
(vj.episteme@gmail.com)