Canada to return 18th century Annapurna statue to India, was stolen over a century ago

Cana is set to return a stone statue of goddess Annapurna to India, which may have been stolen and transported to country over a century back. Experts have opined that 18th-century statue was originally from Varanasi. However, it was later ded to collection housed at University of Regina’s MacKenzie Art Gallery.

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Im: uregina.ca

Repatriation ceremony 

As a part of process, statue was handed over by interim president and vice-chancellor of University of Regina, Thomas Chase, to India’s high commissioner to Ottawa, Ajay Bisaria in a virtual repatriation ceremony held on vember 19. According to a press release, it was Indian artist Divya Mehra who, while going through MacKenzie’s permanent collection, initially brought attention to fact that statue was “wrongfully taken”  from India over a century ago.

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“When Mehra researched story behind statue, she found that MacKenzie h ticed statue while on a trip to India in 1913. A stranger h overheard MacKenzie’s desire to have statue, and stole it for him from its original location – a shrine at stone steps on riverbank of Ganges at Varanasi, India,” University revealed.

Later, Dr Siddhartha V. Shah, Curator of Indian and South Asian Art at Peabody Essex Museum, identified statue as Hindu goddess Annapoorna from her ‘female physical characteristics’. “She holds a bowl of kheer (rice pudding) in one hand and a spoon in or. se are items associated with Annapoorna, who is goddess of food and queen of city of Varanasi,” he said. He also ded that goddess is celebrated by her devotees across India, as a deity who urishes and strengns body through food, and “ soul through enlightenment”. After reing about discovery of stolen statue, both Indian High Commission in Ottawa and Department of Canian Herit reached out and offered to assist with repatriation.

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