Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is on a historic tour to the United States is bringing back home 157 artefacts and antiquities from the United States. According to reports, the artefacts and antiquities were handed over by the United States administration to Prime Minister Modi.
Breaking: Indian PM brings home 157 artefacts & antiquities from US handed over by Biden Admin pic.twitter.com/3Gwu2K4nKM
— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) September 25, 2021
Among the Artefacts & antiquities being returned by the US administration includes an 18th-century sword with the name of Sikh Guru Hargobind Das in Persian.
According to reports, around 71 artefacts among these are cultural while 60 among them are connected to Hinduism, 16 belong to Buddhism and 9 of them connected to Jainism. Most of the items largely belong to the period between 11th & 14th century. However, some are much older, like a copper anthropomorphic object from 2000BC and a terracotta vase from 2nd CE.
The artefacts to be returned include items such as a relief panel of Revanta in sandstone from the 10th CE and 8.5 cm tall exquisite bronze Nataraja from the 12th CE.
Apart from figurines of Lakshmi Narayana, Buddha, Vishnu, Siva Parvathi, Kankalamurti, Brahmi and Nandikesa etc, the returned objects also include figurines of unnamed deities. The artefacts are made of various kinds of metal, stone and terracotta. The antiques related to Hinduism include Three-headed Brahma, Chariot Driving Surya, Vishnu and his Consorts, Siva as Dakshinamurti, Dancing Ganesha etc, from Buddhism it includes standing Buddha, Boddhisattva Manjushri, Tara, and from Jainism, Jain Tirthankara, Padmasana Tirthankara, Jaina Choubisi etc.
While returning the historic Indian artefacts, PM Modi & President Biden made a commitment to work towards strengthening their efforts to combat theft, illicit trade & trafficking of cultural objects.
Earlier this year, Union Minister of Culture and Tourism G Kishan Reddy had said that after Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India in 2014, India successfully repatriated 41 heritage artefacts back to the country which is more than 75% of the total objects returned to date.
According to the written reply to Rajya Sabha, Reddy mentioned that India recovered a total of 54 antiquities from foreign countries till date since 1976, and 41 of them were recovered under PM Modi’s leadership.
