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| Surya Sculpture, 2007 |
Dr Arun Kumar, Assistant Professor at Nava Nalanda Mahavihara,
Nalanda on his visit to Tapovana in February, 2018 noticed a vandalised shelf
inside Tapovan Temple complex which had housed ancient sculptures. According to
the priest of the temple, an ancient image of Surya (Sun God) was plastered into the
shelf, which has got stolen in the last few years. The priest reports that many
ancient sculptures have been stolen from the Tapovan Temple complex in recent
years.
Dr Arun
informed me about the theft of the Tapovan sculpture. Tapovana has two natural
hot water springs. In 2007, during our visit to Tapovana, our team had noticed
many sculptures of Hindu and Buddhist deities from medieval period
kept on the shelves in the hot water spring enclosure. The hot water
spring campus was renovated in 2010 and the sculptures were plastered into the
shelves. Fortunately, in 2007, we had documented the approximately 2.5 ft
image of Surya which has gone missing now.
To
facilitate the identification and recovery of the lost sculpture from Tapovana,
I provided the images of sculptures of Tapovana to Dr. Arun. Dr. Arun revisited
Tapovana on 26th April, 2018, and showed the images of the
sculptures to the priest and other local people. The priest confirmed that the
Surya image in our database was the one that was stolen from the Tapovan
Temple complex. According to the priest, the sculpture was stolen around 5
years ago.
Xuanzang (Hsüan-tsang)
in 7th CE on his pilgrimage to sacred Buddhist places took
a sacred journey to the two hot water streams of Tapovana that were formed and
blessed by the Buddha. The Buddha, according to Xuanzang, bathed here and
thereafter people from all around came here to bathe and be relieved of chronic
disease. Even now, one can see people from far off places gather here to take a
dip in these sacred springs.
The
Tapovana sculpture was stolen approximately 5 years ago. Stolen sculptures
exchange many hands and go through auction houses like Sotheby’s, Bonhams,
Christie’s etc. before reaching their final destination - usually
museums.
Tapovana is located 50 kms east of Mahabodhi Temple
Bodhgaya and 30 kms West Rajgir.
We urge like-minded people and
institutions to help us find and restore this statue to its find-spot, which is
Tapovana.
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| Surya sculpture in the hot water spring complex, 2007 |
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| Vandalised Shelf, 2018 |
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| Renovated Hot Water Spring complex |
Thanks to Aparajita Goswami
