Australia ready to return antique Nataraja idol

It is only a matter of time before two idols from Tamil Nadu temples bought by Australian museums from art thief Subhash Kapoor come home. The museums have decided not to contest a claim made by the Indian government on their repatriation, the Indian high commission said Tuesday.

Tarun Kumar, first secretary in India's high commission in Australia, said he expected a decision to be made regarding the return of the artefacts within a month, Canberra Times reported Tuesday.

He added that the deadline has now passed and it has been reported that the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) and the Art Gallery of New South Wales will not contest the Indian government's request for the return of the idols.

In March, the Indian government formally requested the return of a 900-year-old Nataraja statue from the national gallery and a stone sculpture of Ardhanarishvara from the art gallery of NSW, the report said. The Nataraja statue was probably stolen from Sripuranthan temple, Ariyalur, and the Ardhanareeswara from a temple in Vriddhachalam. Both the artefacts were bought from Indian-origin antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor, currently on trial in India.

After stealing the Ardhanari, thieves replaced the antique stone idol with a recently made idol and unaware devotees continued to worship the fake. After reports of the statue in NSW gallery surfaced, Singapore-based blogger Vijay

Kumar Sundaresan was able to flesh out the original photo published in Douglas Barrett's book "Early Chola Architecture and Sculpture" and this was widely reported including in the Australian media.

The artefacts are in the care of the Australian federal government under the Moveable Cultural Heritage Act, a law which allowed the galleries 30 days to challenge India's claims. With those claims uncontested, the decision on the future of both statues rests with the Commonwealth, the report said.