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Friday, September 21, 2018

Sivagurunathaswamy Temple, Sivapuram – Idol Theft

Sivagurunathaswamy Temple, Sivapuram – Idol Theft
It is worth recalling that the beautiful Nataraja idol was stolen years back from this temple and smuggled to a foreign country and had been recovered after stiff legal battle. In 1951, idols of Lord NatarajaTirugnanasambandar, Somaskandar, Pillaiyar and two other goddesses from the Later Chola period were recovered by a farmer Annamuthu Padaiyachi in Kuppuswamy Iyer's field. The farmer alerted government authorities about his find and handed the idols to the authorities. On October 10, 1953, the District Collector of Thanjavur donated the idols to the Sivagurunathaswamy temple to be installed along with other deities. 
On receipt of the idols, the temple authorities commissioned sculptor Ramasamy Sthapathy to repair the idols. The idols were subsequently returned to the temple after the repairs had been carried out. Sometime later, Dr. Douglas Barrett of the British Museum, who had visited the temple in 1961, wrote in his book South Indian Bronze that the Nataraja idol in the Sivagurunathaswamy temple was fake and that the original idols were in the possession of a private art collector in the United States of America.
This claim prompted the Government of Tamil Nadu to send S. Krishnaraj, Deputy Inspector General, CID, to the USA to investigate the claim. As the outcome of Krishnaraj's investigations, a case was registered at the Nachiyar Koil police station. The case was entrusted to the Crime Branch CID and investigations were carried out with the assistance of the Scotland Yard. It was found that in 1956, one Thilakar of Kuthalam and his brother Doss had persuaded Ramasamy Sthapathy to lend the six idols to them in return for six fake ones which Ramasamy had returned to the temple authorities. 
The idols were purchased by a private art collector Lance Dane of Bombay who kept the idols in his possession for a decade before selling them to Bomman Beharan. The idols eventually made their way to the United States where in 1973 they were purchased by Norton Simon Foundation for $900,000. The Indian police arrested Lance Dane, Thilakar, Doss and Ramasamy Sthapathy. Meanwhile, the Scotland Yard found out that the actual Nataraja idol was in the possession of Anna Plowden of England. 
The Government of India filed a civil suit against the Norton Simon Foundation. The Tamil Nadu government approached the Government of the United States of America through India's Ministry of External Affairs. The Nataraja idol was handed over to Dr. M. S. Nagaraja Rao, the Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India in 1987 and is currently present in a safe-vault in the Kapaleeshwarar temple, Mylapore, Chennai.