NEW DELHI: A rare 10th-century stone idol of a goat-headed yogini associated with the Tantrik mode of worship, which was stolen from an Uttar Pradesh temple and found in a private home near London, has been returned to India.
Announcing the repatriation of the rare sculpture, Culture Minister G Kishan Reddy tweeted, “10th-century goat-headed Yogini Idol which had been illegally removed from a temple in Lokhari, Uttar Pradesh, is being returned to India.” Lokhari is in the Banda district of the Bundelkhand region of the state bordering Madhya Pradesh.
The sculpture that originally belonged to a group of stone deities was stolen in the 1980s. Yoginis are a group of powerful female divinities in Tantrik rituals. Often, they are worshiped as a group, usually 64. After the theft, the idol surfaced in the art market in London in 1988.
The Indian High Commission in London was alerted about a sculpture matching the description of the Lokhari set in the garden of a private house near London. Following up on the tip-off, the India Pride Project Singapore, a group of art enthusiasts, and Art Recovery International, London, a private initiative that locates stolen art, assisted Indian authorities in identifying and recovering the statue.
A similar sculpture of the buffalo-headed Vrishanana Yogini, apparently stolen from the same temple at Lokhari village, was recovered and repatriated by the Indian Embassy, Paris, in 2013, said a government statement. Reddy said PM Narendra Modi was “committed to realise the civilisational glory of Maa Bharati.”