[Raj_Copi_Jin]

Guruvayurappan, You are right.

During the Kazakams rule, a lot of temple jewels were looted. But even before this happened, all the golden vessels donated by Raja Raja to Tanjore temple and jewels donated to Meenakshi temple by Tirumalai Nayak were swallowed by our own people. Read what Subramanya Bharathi says

கோயிற் பூசை செய்வோர் --சிலையைக் கொண்டுவிற்றல் போலும்
வாயில் காத்து நிற்போன் -வீட்டை வைத்திழத்தல் போலும்
ஆயிரங்களான நீதி அவை உணர்ந்த தருமன்
தேயம் வைத்திழந்தான் சீ ! சீ! சிறியர் செய்கை செய்தான் (பாஞ்சாலி சபதம்--பாரதி)

[S.T.D.]

>><font color="#000000">Rajan Zed urged foremost art museums of the world, including Musee du Louvre and Musee d'Orsay of Paris, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Los Angeles Getty Center, Uffizi Gallery of Florence (Italy), Art Institute of Chicago, Tate Modern of London, Prado Museum of Madrid (Spain), National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, etc, to frequently organize Hindu art focused exhibitions, thus sharing the rich Hindu art heritage with the rest of the world

[9mm_fan]

Mahakavi

Sometimes I also feel like you have felt. A Sourshtra community researcher from Trichy somehow found out I was working for BBC World Service in London in 1990. He contacted me through a friend's friend for a 8 page booklet about Sourashtra community in Madurai published in 1940s. He found out there was only one copy in British Library in the whole wide world. I photocopied the book for him and posted it. Till this day I was wondering what made these British to preserve one small booklet about a community that lives in the remote corners of Tamil Nadu. I saluted the British wholeheartedly on that day. Am amazing spirit to preserve anything that was old.Whenever I take visitors to British museum or Victoria Albert Museum I feel proud to show them the artifacts that came from our country.

I have written about the artifacts of Madurai Meenakshi temple in V & A Museum in London, Oxford Ashmolean Museum and Philadelphia,USA in my article The Wonder That is Meenakshi Temple. Let us salute who preserved our books and artifacts. So long as we are not ready to preserve them and respect them, we should not ask them to return them. Beware of the Kazakams in Tamil Nadu

[9mm_fan]

Not a good solution.

We must make arrangements to secure, preserve and take care of our treasures. This mindset is dangerous, as it encourages export of ancient treasures for monetary gains, by fair or foul means. Some countries - greece, egypt - could get their treasures back by raising the issue and by legal means. These can be loaned to foreign museums for display, but ownership has to retained.

Only a small numbers of the treasures carted away are displayed, many are kept in the basement of the museum or are kept in the vaults of private collectors.



[quote]>><font color="#000000">Rajan Zed urged foremost art museums of the world, including Musee du Louvre and Musee d'Orsay of Paris, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Los Angeles Getty Center, Uffizi Gallery of Florence (Italy), Art Institute of Chicago, Tate Modern of London, Prado Museum of Madrid (Spain), National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, etc, to frequently organize Hindu art focused exhibitions, thus sharing the rich Hindu art heritage with the rest of the world

[softy54534]

I am not advocating to ignore the foreign collections of Indian temple artifacts. By all means attempts must be made to recover those items which were obtained by foul means. The first attempt must be to gain back those items held in government museums abroad. Loaning back for exhibition is OK. Those were misappropriated during colonial days.The private foreign collector paid to procure those, although not through legitimate sources. Just like I mentioned about the shivapuram sOzha period bronze sculpures in Norton Simon museum, it can be arranged to have a limited period display. Maybe the foreign collectors can be paid some monetary compensation to get the items back. But the point to keep in mind is that such recovered items must be handled with great care to preserve them properly and not let them be pilfered again by nefarious elements in the country.

In the mean time India should beef up their standards in the curator-ship of museum items to world standards (if not already done), and distribute or rotate items through regional museums so that everybody in the country gets the chance to see all such items rather than store them all in New Delhi.