10th Century stone idol of Goat Head Yogini to return home

Last Updated17/01/2022

India’s 10th century stone idol is set to return home.
Union Culture Minister, G Kishan Reddy informed that the stone idol of Goat Head Yogini, illegally removed from a temple in Lokhari, Banda, Uttar Pradesh is being returned to India.
The idol was illegally removed sometime in the 1980s.
The Ministry of Culture in collaboration with the Ministry of External Affairs has been engaging in repatriating antiquities and artifacts belonging to India.

Installed in Lokhari temple, the goat-headed Yogini sculpture originally belonged to a group of stone deities in sandstone.
These were also studied by Indian scholar Vidya Dahejia on behalf of the National Museum in New Delhi in 1986. It was later published under the title, Yogini Cult, and Temples: A Tantrik Tradition.
Yoginis are a group of powerful female divinities associated with the Tantrik mode of worship. They are worshipped as a group, often 64, and are believed to possess infinite powers.
The sculpture had briefly surfaced in the art market in London in 1988.
Later in October 2021, the High Commission of India received information about the finding of a goat-headed Yogini Sculpture that had matched the description of the Lokhari set, in the garden of a private residence near London.
The High Commission of India, London, identified and recovered the Statue with the help of the India Pride project Singapore and Art Recovery International, London.
A similar sculpture of the buffalo-headed Vrishanana Yogini, also stolen from the same temple at Lokhari village had been recovered and repatriated by the Embassy of India, Paris in 2013, which was installed in the National Museum, New Delhi in September 2013.

In the last seven years, 75% of India’s stolen heritage has been returned to India.
Further, since 1976, a total of 54 antiquities have been retrieved from foreign countries.
The bringing of the historical objects back to the country is a process to restore India’s pride and an active step to appreciate and acknowledge the historical past of our country.
A number of these artefacts were taken by the imperialists during the colonial period, some of them have historical importance.
In 1976, Sawn Stucco Head hailing from Nalanda, Bihar was retrieved from the UK and France.
Similarly, in 1991, Terracotta figures from Bhitargaon, Uttar Pradesh was retrieved from the USA.