10th century stone idol of goat-headed Yogini taken away from UP temple being returned: Govt

A 10th century stone idol of goat-headed Yogini that had been illegally removed from a temple in Banda in Uttar Pradesh in the 1980s is being returned to India, Culture Minister G Kishan Reddy said Saturday.

Earlier, the High Commission of India in London had made the announcement of the recovery.

The sculpture is of a goat-headed Yogini that originally belonged to a group of stone deities in sandstone and installed in Lokhari temple.

These had been the subject of a study by Indian scholar Vidya Dahejia on behalf of National Museum in New Delhi in 1986 which was later published under the title, 'Yogini Cult and Temples: A Tantrik Tradition', a statement from the Culture Ministry said.

It is learnt that the sculpture had briefly surfaced in the art market in London in 1988.

In October 2021, the High Commission 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.

India Pride project Singapore and Art Recovery International, London, assisted the High Commission in the identification and recovery of the statue, while the High Commission processed the requisite documentation with local and Indian authorities.

A similar sculpture of the buffalo-headed Vrishanana Yogini, apparently stolen from the same temple at Lokhari village, had been recovered and repatriated by the Embassy of India in Paris in 2013. The Vrishanana Yogini was installed in the National Museum, New Delhi in September 2013.

''The goat-headed Yogini received at the High Commission on the auspicious day of Makar Sankranti has been dispatched to the Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi,'' the statement said.

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