An eighth-century standing Buddha statue, which was stolen from Bodhgaya between 1987 and 1989, is likely to be brought back to its place of origin and preserved in the Archaeological Museum in the pilgrim city.

After it was stolen from Bodhgaya, the 3.5ft statue was retrieved at Metropolitan Museum, New York. In March 1999, the Metropolitan Museum returned the statue to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). Since then, the statue was kept at the Central Antiquity Collection Section at Purana Quila, New Delhi.

"The director-general (DG) of ASI has given consent to send the statue and a couple of other Buddhist statues to the archaeological museum in Bodhgaya. We would hand over the statues to the Bodhgaya museum as soon as they send their team here," said a senior ASI official at Purana Quila. Officials at the Bodhgaya museum, however, said the statues are unlikely to be brought back in the ongoing fiscal.

"Budgetary provisions were made in the last fiscal (2015-16) to bring back the statues from Purana Quila to Bodhgaya, but it could not happen because of delay in completion of insurance-related formalities. The budgetary provisions have not been made till date to shift the statues this fiscal," said a senior official at the Archaeological Museum, Bodhgaya. Historians in Bihar believe this will usher in confidence among people who had lost faith in the system of preserving heritage.

"Probably, this is the first time in Bihar, where a stolen sculpture is being brought from a foreign country to its original site. It was because of the efforts of Debala Mitra, the former director-general of the ASI, that the statue was returned by the Metropolitan Museum, New York," said Deepak Anand, a heritage scholar at Nava Nalanda Mahavihara at Nalanda.

Deepak, who is a keen observer of Buddhist sites and artefacts in Nalanda and elsewhere in Bihar, said Mitra had reportedly spotted the statue at the New York's Metropolitan Museum in May 1990.

"In February 1987 Mitra on her visit to Bodhgaya had seen the statue of Buddha on the premises of Maá¹­ha (Mahant compound). In her next visit to Bodhgaya in March 1989, she found the statue missing. Mitra discovered that people at the Maá¹­ha had not reported the theft to the local police. Later, she saw the picture of the same statue published in a catalogue of Metropolitan Museum. ASI reported the matter to the US and it was handed over to India in March 1999," said Deepak.