In a major diplomatic achievement for India’s heritage repatriation efforts, a private museum in Auckland, New Zealand, has formally returned an exquisite 11th-century bronze idol of the child-saint Sambandar. The sculpture, which represents the highest artistic achievements of the Chola Dynasty, was identified as having been illegally exported from a temple in Tamil Nadu during the early 1970s.
The return followed a multi-year investigation involving the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and international heritage law experts. The idol, depicted in a classic dancing posture with one finger pointing to the heavens, is praised for its iconographic precision and remarkable state of preservation, and will be housed in the Government Museum in Chennai.