Sanjaya Dhakal / BBC Nepali
A replica of the Saraswati sculpture in the Rabindra Puri Museum
Along a small street in the Nepalese town of Bhaktapur stands an unassuming building with a strange name: the Museum of Stolen Art.
Inside are rooms filled with statues of Nepal's sacred gods and goddesses.
Among them is the Saraswati sculpture. Seated atop a lotus, the Hindu goddess of wisdom holds in her four hands a book, a rosary and a classical instrument called a veena.
But like all the other sculptures in the room, the statue is a fake.
The Saraswati is one of 45 replicas in the museum, which will have an official site in Panauti, scheduled to open to the public in 2026.
The museum is the brainchild of Nepali conservationist Rabindra Puri, who is leading a mission to secure the return of dozens of stolen artifacts from Nepal, many of which are scattered across museums, auction houses and auctions or private collections in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and France.
Over the past five years, he has hired half a dozen artisans to create replicas of these statues, each taking between three months and a year. The museum received no government funding.
His mission is to obtain the return of these stolen objects, in exchange for the replicas he has created.
In Nepal, such statues are found in temples across the country and are considered part of the country's “living culture”, rather than just showpieces, says Sanjay Adhikari, secretary of the Nepal Heritage Recovery Campaign .
Many are worshiped daily by locals, with some worshipers offering food and flowers to the gods.
“An old lady told me that she worshiped Saraswati daily,” says Mr. Puri. “When she found out the idol had been stolen, she felt more depressed than when her husband died.”
It is also common for cultists to touch these statues to gain blessings – meaning they are rarely guarded – leaving them wide open to thieves.
Sanjaya Dhakal / BBC Nepali
A replica of a Saraswati idol – the original was mutilated and its head stolen (photo left)
Nepal has documented more than 400 missing objects from temples and monasteries across the country, but the number is most likely underestimated, says Saubhagya Pradhananga, who heads the official archeology department.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, hundreds of art objects were looted in Nepal as the isolated country opened up to the outside world.
At the time, many of the country's most powerful administrators were suspected of being behind some of these thefts, responsible for smuggling them abroad to art collectors and pocketing them. the profits.
For decades, Nepalis were largely unaware of the disappearance of their artworks and their destination, but that has changed, particularly since the creation of the National Heritage Recovery Campaign in 2021 – a movement led by citizen activists to recover the lost treasures.
Activists have discovered that many of these idols are now in museums, auction houses or private collections in Western countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and France.
They also work with foreign governments to pressure foreign institutions to return the coins.
“Shocked to find it in an American museum”
But the obstacles are numerous. The Taleju necklace, dating from the 17th century, is a good example.
In 1970, the giant gold-plated necklace engraved with precious stones disappeared from the temple of Taleju, the goddess known as the main patron deity of Nepal.
Its disappearance is all the more shocking as the temple is only open to the public once a year – on the 9th day of the Dashain festival.
It is still unclear exactly how it may have been stolen and many in Nepal had no idea where it might have been until three years ago when it was seen in an unlikely location : the Art Institute of Chicago.
It was spotted by Dr Sweta Gyanu Baniya, a US-based Nepali academic, who said she fell to her knees and started crying when she saw the necklace.
“It's not just a necklace, it's a part of our goddess that we worship. I felt like it shouldn't be here. It's sacred,” she told the American University Virginia Tech.
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“We were shocked to learn after so many years that it was on display in an American museum,” says Uddhav Karmacharya, the head priest of the Taleju temple.
He submitted documents proving his provenance to Nepalese authorities, saying: “The day he is repatriated will be the most important day of my life.”
According to the Art Institute of Chicago, the necklace is a gift from the Alsdorf Foundation, a private American foundation. The museum told the BBC it had communicated with the Nepalese government and was awaiting further information.
But Pradhananga said Nepal's Department of Archeology had provided enough evidence, including archival documents. Additionally, an inscription on the necklace states that it was specially made for the goddess of Taleju by King Pratap Malla.
It is these “delay tactics” that “often exhaust activists,” explains one activist, Kanak Mani Dixit.
“They like to use the word 'provenance' to ask us for proof. The onus is on us to prove that it belongs to Nepal, rather than how they got hold of these assets. »
But overall, some progress has been made and around 200 objects have been returned to Nepal since 1986 – although most of the transfers have taken place in the last decade.
A sacred idol of Hindu deities – Laxmi Narayan – has been brought back to Nepal from the Dallas Museum of Art nearly 40 years after it first disappeared from a temple.
Currently, 80 repatriated objects are kept in a special gallery of the National Museum of Nepal, awaiting restoration before being returned to their rightful place. Six idols have been returned to the community since 2022.
Sanjaya Dhakal / BBC Nepali
Some communities put the idols in iron cages for security reasons.
The idol of Laxmi Narayan was brought home and reinstalled in the temple from where it was originally taken and is worshiped daily, just as it was in the 10th century when the idol was first made times.
But many devotees are now much more paranoid and put these idols in iron cages to protect them from disappearing.
Mr. Puri, however, hopes that his museum will eventually see its shelves empty.
“I want to say to the museums and all those who hold the stolen objects: just return our gods! » he said. “You can have your art.”
