Vrishanana Yogini

New Delhi, Sept. 17: The National Museum is celebrating the return of a 10th century stone sculpture that was stolen from a Bundelkhand temple and ended up in France.

An 18-day exhibition of the 4.5ft-tall Vrishanana Yogini, the nearly 400kg sculpture of a female deity with a buffalo head that was trafficked out of the country sometime after 1983, will open on Thursday. It is the first time the Delhi museum is holding such a long exhibition of a single object.

“There is no way to know when exactly the sculpture was stolen. All we know is that eminent art scholar Vidya Dehejia, who currently teaches in Columbia University, had published a book on Yogini Cult. She had recorded the existence of this sculpture in the Lokhari temple while working on her book,” National Museum director-general V. Venu told The Telegraph.

While there is no report of the theft from the temple in Lokhari village of Banda district in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh, Dehejia’s book carried a picture of the sculpture at the temple.

Vrishanana Yogini sits against an unornamented stone slab. Her vahana (vehicle) is a swan that pecks on a fruit. She has a chiselled body with full breasts, slim waist and rounded abdomen. Her eyes are half-closed in contemplation. The animal face has a serene and meditative expression. She is adorned with a necklace, heavy anklets, bangles and a girdle on her waist, which suggest tribal affiliations.

The sculpture had ended up with a private art collector in France, Robert Schrimpf, whose widow Martine donated it to the Indian embassy in Paris in 2008. While the embassy got in touch with the museum and there was communication between the two sides, it was only in February this year that the museum started work on acquiring the sculpture.

For the artefact to be brought back from France, the museum had to establish its authenticity and prove it was from India. “Two things went in our favour: we established its authenticity on the basis of a book, Yogini: Cult and Temples — A Tantric Tradition, brought out by the museum in 1986, which carried its picture. The widow of the French art collector couldn’t tell the source of its acquisition,” explained J.E. Dawson, curator (archaeology), who visited Paris in July this year to make a case for sculpture’s return.

The yogini cult developed between 6th and 10th centuries. Yoginis are a group of powerful female divinities, a blend of the divine and the demonic.

“The yoginis could be human, half-human or half-bestial in their forms. However, the bodies of the yoginis are always human. They have voluptuous bodies, full breasts, fold in their bellies, curvaceous hips and fleshy thighs. They are bejewelled and have elaborate coiffures. Their bodies exude sexuality. Yoginis may at once be alluring and repellent, formidable and salvation-giving goddesses,” explained Anupa Pande, dean of National Museum Institute.

Since the yogini temples are located in isolated regions, they have been easy targets for theft and the sculptures are then trafficked out of the country.

“The exhibition will not only highlight the yogini cult but more importantly, it aims to bring into spotlight the disturbing reality of the continued illicit trafficking of India’s priceless cultural artefacts into international markets,” Venu said.

The exhibition, which is the first to celebrate the return of a stolen artefact, will be inaugurated at 3pm on September 19 by external affairs minister Salman Khurshid and culture minister Chandresh Kumari Katoch. It will end on October 6.