A 16th-century bronze statue of Saint Thirumangai Alvar has been returned to India by the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, marking an important moment in the ongoing efforts to restore sacred artefacts to their original places of worship.
The statue was formally handed over to representatives of the Government of India during a ceremony held at the High Commission of India in London on March 3, 2026. The event was attended by Ashmolean Museum Director Dr. Xa Sturgis, CBE, and Professor Mallica Kumbera Landrus, Head of the Museum’s Department of Eastern Art.
In a statement, Dr. Sturgis expressed the museum’s support for ethical stewardship of cultural objects.
“The Ashmolean is pleased to see this important object returned to India, and we are grateful to the Indian authorities and scholars who helped establish its provenance. The Museum and the University of Oxford remain committed to ethical collections practices and continued research into our collections, their origins and their history,” he said.
The High Commission of India in London also welcomed the decision, describing it as a meaningful step in preserving cultural heritage.
“The High Commission of India to the United Kingdom warmly thanks the Ashmolean Museum for its partnership and for its decision to return the 16th-century bronze icon of Saint Thirumangai Alvar to its original purpose as an object of worship. Enabling the return of this bronze statue to the Soundararaja Perumal Temple in Tamil Nadu demonstrates strong leadership and commendable moral clarity. This act is not merely the restoration of an object of art, but the reunification of an icon of faith with its intended shrine, restoring memory and enabling cultural continuity,” a spokesperson said.
The Ashmolean Museum had acquired the statue in 1967, reportedly in good faith. According to records in the Sotheby’s catalogue, the bronze was sold by private collector J. R. Belmont (1886–1981). However, details of how the statue entered Belmont’s collection remain unclear.
Questions surrounding the statue’s origins first emerged in November 2019, when an independent French scholar alerted the museum to archival research. A photograph taken in 1957 showed the same bronze statue in the Shri Soundararajaperumal Temple in Tamil Nadu. The image had been preserved in the archives of the Institut Français de Pondichery and the Ecole francaise d’Extreme-Orient.
The scholar identified the bronze as one of several artefacts documented in the IFP-EFEO archives that later appeared in museum collections across Europe and the United States.
Although no formal claim had yet been made at the time, the Ashmolean Museum wrote to the Indian High Commission in London on December 16, 2019, seeking further clarification. The museum requested additional information, including any police records, and expressed willingness to discuss the possible return of the statue to India.
The Indian High Commissioner acknowledged the museum’s proactive approach and confirmed that the information had been forwarded to the relevant authorities in India.
On February 11, 2020, a temple executive officer filed a police report stating that the original bronze statue had been replaced with a modern replica. Until then, there had been no official police or media reports documenting the theft of the statue in India. Following this discovery, the Indian High Commission formally requested the return of the artefact on March 3, 2020.
S. Vijayakumar, cultural enthusiast and co-founder of the India Pride Project, described the return as a significant milestone in heritage preservation.
“The return of the Thirumangai Alvar bronze from the Ashmolean Museum is an important step toward restoring bronzes removed from the Soundararaja Perumal Temple in Tamil Nadu. The identification was made by matching the Ashmolean bronze with 1957 temple photographs preserved in the archives of the Institut Français de Pondichéry. The evidence was shared with the Tamil Nadu Idol Wing CID and the Indian High Commission in London. We are grateful for their support. The entire process, from identification to approval for repatriation, took nearly eight years,” he said.
The return of the statue represents more than the repatriation of a historic artefact. For many devotees and cultural historians, it symbolizes the restoration of a sacred icon to its spiritual home, reconnecting history, faith, and tradition with the temple where it once stood.
Source : The Hindu , EasternEye
