Steps to bring back bronze idol from US under way

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu police have initiated steps to retrieve an 18th-century bronze idol supposedly stolen from a temple in Kancheepuram, now housed in the Asian Art Museum, in San Francisco.

The special teams of the idol wing have been tasked with perusing the websites of foreign museums, private art galleries, and artifact collections to identify the stolen idols. During one such search, inspector D Tamil Selvi of North Zone located the antique metal idol in the display of an Asian art museum, according to the police.

According to an official release, the museum’s website listed the idol’s origin as “Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu, India,” and dated it between 1500 and 1600 CE. The description also mentioned that “the idol was made of bronze and a long Telugu–language inscription on the front of the pedestal tells the name of the donor (and his father and grandfather) and reads that the sculpture was made for the Ekambareshvara (Ekambaranatha) Temple in the city of Kanchipuram”.

The Telugu inscriptions were translated with the assistance of epigraphy experts. It read, “Records the gift of 11 images to the temple of Ekabbaresvara by Venkkatrama-Nayani, son of Vellakondama-Nayani and grandson of Raghava-Nayani of Tonddamanddalam.”

The police cited experts’ opinions and pegged the international market value of the idol to be around Rs 8 crore and highlighted that the language and characters found in the idol belong to the 18th Century.

Idol wing CID registered a case on October 1 and has initiated investigations to find out all the accused in the smuggling of this Somaskandhar idol to the USA and to ensure the idol’s early return to Tamil Nadu. It is also probing whether more idols from the same temple were similarly smuggled abroad.