<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141148/636d01f59c7e80680e0a3655jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="4032" height="3024"/><figcaption>Nepal Embassy in Washington receives the 10th century Uma Maheswar statue from Denver Museum on Monday. The figure was stolen from Patan neighbourhood fifty years ago. Photos: NEPAL EMBASSY WASHINGTON</figcaption></figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141148/636d01f89c7e80680e0a3656jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="853"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141148/636d01fb9c7e80680e0a3657jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="853">Earlier this year, a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/bringing-our-gods-home/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">10th century stone figure of Uma Maheswar</a>, which had been stolen from Patan’s Gahiti 50 years ago was traced to the Denver Art Museum. This week, the museum handed over the antiquity to the Nepal Embassy in Washington DC.In an exclusive, the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-gods-return-from-exile/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepali Times reported in January</a> that the statue that was an object of daily worship by the local community had been torn out of a shrine in Patan in the 1960s, and had found its way through a private collector to the museum in Denver as ‘art’.Nine months later, in the latest in a slew of stolen artefacts being returned to Nepal from the United States, the Denver Art Museum handed over the statue to Nepal’s Ambassador Yuvaraj Khatiwada in Washington DC on Sunday.The statue had been in the collection of the museum since the 1980s, given by Jane F Ullman and Edwin F Ullman.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141148/636d01fd9c7e80680e0a3658jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="768" height="549">In an interview with Nepali Times earlier this year, Babulal Maharjan, 82, remembered the deity that had been <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/replicating-nepals-stolen-gods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">stolen</a> from the shrine in his neighbourhood. For the past half a century later, Gahiti residents have continued to preserve the base of the structure below a graffiti-scrawled wall, hoping for its eventual return.When Nepali Times showed Babulal and his 78-years-old neighbour Babukaji Maharjan a photograph of the Uma-Mahesvar that is now in the Denver Art Museum, both immediately recognised the figure.https://youtu.be/XFzMHtqwZ3gThe thieves had failed to steal Uma-Maheswar in the first attempt, and the community managed to restore it to its base. But one morning when devotees came to the shrine to pray they found that their god had vanished.Since <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Nepal-needs-to-be-prepared-for-the-return-of-stolen-religious-figures,986" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Uma-Maheswar</a> was stolen more than half a century ago, youth in the community grew up hearing about the theft and knew that the preserved base held an importance, but they learned of its true significance only after the media reports this year that it had been tracked down to the museum in Colorado.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141152/636d02009c7e80680e0a3659jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2304" height="1728"><figcaption>The base of the Uma Maheswar statue in Patan's Gahiti that residents have preserved hoping for its eventual return.</figcaption></figure>Babukaji Maharjan had lost all hopes that he would ever see the homecoming of the lost deity Uma-Maheswar again. Even with the recent development, he has a hard time grasping its return.“Due to our economic condition we did not know how to file a complaint with the police, and nobody during the Panchayat era would have taken the theft seriously anyway,” he told Nepali Times. “But I am glad that the statue will now be returned to our shrine. We will celebrate its homecoming.”The Uma-Maheswar is just the latest in a series of objects of worship that have been <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-wants-stolen-antiquities-returned-from-france/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">stolen from Kathmandu Valley</a> and are in private collections or museums in Europe and the United States.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141152/636d02039c7e80680e0a365ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="852" height="543"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>In the past nine months, six stolen gods have been successfully handed over to the Nepal authorities. A <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-homecoming-of-nepals-gods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">12th-century Laxmi-Narayan statue</a> from Dallas Museum of Arts, a 13th century carved temple eave depicting an Apsara, a 14th-century gold seated Buddha in Bhumisparsa Mudra, and a 15th century seated Ganesh repatriated by the Manhattan’s District Attorney’s Office are already in Patan Museum and National Museum in Chhauni, respectively.A 13th-century Chaturmukhi Shivalinga was also handed over by the Art Institute of Chicago in April to the Nepal Embassy in Washington DC.

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US returns another antiquity to Nepal

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce5009c7e80680e0966e0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1002"/><figcaption>The Laxmi-Narayan upon arrival in Nepal Embassy in Washington DC on 6 March. Photo: AMITABHA JOSHI</figcaption></figure>Nearly 40 years after it was stolen from Patan, a rare stone statue of Laxmi-Narayan is finally landing at Kathmandu airport this week, raising hopes for the return of thousands of other religious objects from Nepal.The 800-year-old androgynous idol was wrenched out of its shrine in July 1984 from Patan’s Pakto Tole where it was being worshipped till the day it was stolen. The figure surfaced briefly in 1990 at a Sotheby’s auction, disappeared again, and was later spotted at the Dallas Museum of Art where it was an ‘exhibit’ since 2007.The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) handed over the statue to the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/us-museum-returns-stolen-nepal-god/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepal Embassy in Washington on 6 March</a>, and it took some time for the documents to be processed and the transport costs to be raised, before the gods could finally be returned to Nepal.“The deity will now be handed over to the Patan Museum, and we are preparing all the needed logistics here before it can be restored to its original temple,” says Damodar Gautam, Director-General of the Department of Archaeology.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/us-museum-returns-stolen-nepal-god/">US museum returns stolen Nepal god</a>, Alisha Sijapati<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce5039c7e80680e0966e1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="1050"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce5079c7e80680e0966e2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1536" height="1024"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Locals had made a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/replicating-nepals-stolen-gods/">replica of the statue</a> that they worshipped after the original was stolen and installed it in the original place. Other religious objects that have been returned to Nepal have also been sent to the Patan Museum for safe-keeping so they will not be stolen again.The process for the deity to be restored to its original space is lengthy. Community members have to reach out to the District Office in Lalitpur for paperwork for security purposes. While the bureaucratic wheels grind on, priests at Pakto Tole are already working to set an auspicious date for the special chamma puja reinstatement of the idol.“When we bring back our God, there will be a celebration and a procession so that the world knows and understands that items from our living heritage is not to be stored and exhibited in their museums or private collections,” says Chiribabu Maharjan, Mayor of Lalitpur Metropolitan City.<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=11342#.YHQptugzbIV">Return of the gods</a>, Sujata Tuladhar<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce50a9c7e80680e0966e3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3982" height="1635"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Although overjoyed by the Laxmi-Narayan homecoming, community members are in a dilemma about what to do with the replica they have been worshipping since 1993.Dilendra Shrestha, a board member of Patan Museum and himself from Patko Tole, says,  “Even if it's a replica, it is still our god, and we will make arrangements to house both our gods.”Shrestha says that for cultural and religious reasons, the original Laxmi-Narayan may not be kept as the central god anymore, as one of its hands was broken during transportation across the world. Gods that are damaged cannot be kept as the central idol in the temple even though they are worshipped, according to local belief.“Most likely, both the original and replica will be kept next to one another, however, the decision will be made by the community,” Shrestha says.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/replicating-nepals-stolen-gods/">Replicating Nepal's stolen gods</a>, Alisha Sijapati<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce50d9c7e80680e0966e4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1422" height="942"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>A photograph of the 15th-century deity was first published in Images of Nepal, a 1984 book by Indian historian Krishna Deva. Later, it was included by Nepal’s art historian Lain Singh Bangdel in his book Stolen Images of Nepal.The collective effort of bringing Laxmi-Narayan home has set a remarkable precedent in repatriating stolen gods of Nepal, and has been a collective effort of historians, academics, activists, investigation agencies and the government of Nepal and the United States.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce5109c7e80680e0966e5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1610" height="1130"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>American artist Joy Lynn Davis who has documented stolen religious objects through her art is glad the Laxmi-Narayan is back to where it belongs. She had painted the Patko shrine with the missing deity depicted in gold.“The day the Laxmi Narayan arrives in Nepal, I will be the happiest person—so many people and organisations have worked on this. The only way to protect them is to increase awareness about their significance. We have a lot of work to do, Laxmi-Narayan is just the beginning,” Davis told this paper earlier this year.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce5149c7e80680e0966e6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1425" height="1080"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Indeed, an investigation by the Nepali Times tracked another deity stolen from Gahiti in Patan in the 1960s to the Denver Art Museum.That figure of Uma-Maheswar has been cited in several books by art historians, including The Art of Nepal by Pratapaditya Pal in 1974, Stella Kramrish’s Manifestations of Shiva, Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1981, Krishna Deva’s Images of Nepal in 1984 and most notably, in Lain Singh Bangdel’s book Stolen Images of Nepal in 1987.According to its website, the <a href="https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en">Denver Art Museum</a> has mentioned the ‘known’ provenance of this <a href="https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en/object/1980.231">Uma-Maheswar</a> idol dating back to 1968 from Sundaram Works of Art and Handicrafts in India, till it acquired the statue in 1980 as a gift from the private collection of Jane F Ullman and Edwin F Ullman.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/us-museum-returns-stolen-nepal-god/">Nepal's gods return from exile</a>, Alisha Sijapati<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce5169c7e80680e0966e7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1600"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Sanukaji Maharjan, now 80, recalls how the deity had been stolen in the 1960s, was found and stolen again from Patan’s Bhandarkhal Garden.“The first time it was stolen we fixed the statue firmly to the wall so that thieves couldn’t take it away again, but we were wrong,” says Maharjan. Since it was stolen 60 years ago, he is one of few people in Patan who remember the statue and its importance to the community."I am already in my 50s and the statue was stolen even before I was born. With time, the Uma-Maheswar has been more like a bedtime story for us, and we will do our best and work on giving it a permanent space in its home,” says Dinesh Maharjan of the Gahiti Tole Committee.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce51a9c7e80680e0966e8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Slok Gyawali, founder of <a href="https://twitter.com/PrideNepal">Nepal Pride Project</a> based in Portland, Oregon who has worked persistently on repatriating the Uma-Maheswar, has been in touch with the Denver Art Museum.In one e-mail exchange acquired by Nepali Times, the Museum wrote: ‘We continue to have confidence in the propriety of the provenance of the piece. Though we had been aware of the Stolen Images of Nepal publication, we are unaware of any substantiated claims of theft of this piece; indeed, other publications discuss the piece without reference to a theft.’Gyawali then got in touch with 90-year-old Ted Ullman, scion of Jane and Edwin Ullman. He told Gyawali that his parents are not to blame, and after hearing from the Denver Art Museum he will be happy to write a letter of support for Nepal's efforts to repatriate this and other religion objects from Asia.However, the 90-year-old in another e-mail wrote, "I remain very conflicted and have decided that I should not bring this up with the Museum which has already made their policy clear to me."The Nepal Embassy in Washington DC told Nepali Times it is in touch ‘informally’ with the Denver Art Museum. It added that the Department of Archaeology had finished its forensic archaeological report and submitted it to the Ministry of Culture. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kathmandu is waiting for the report to begin official correspondence with the Denver museum.<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Nepal-needs-to-be-prepared-for-the-return-of-stolen-religious-figures,986">Back where they belong</a>, Bhrikuti Rai<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce51d9c7e80680e0966e9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1450" height="632"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>After the Laxmi-Narayan that arrived in Kathmandu this week was handed over to the Nepal Embassy in Washington last month, the Manhattan’s District Attorney’s Office transferred three other artifacts to the Nepal Consulate in New York: a 13th century carved temple eave depicting an Apsara, a 14th century gold seated Buddha in Bhumisparsa Mudra, and a 15th century seated Ganesh.<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.manhattanda.org/manhattan-d-a-s-office-returns-three-antiquities-to-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The District Attorney Office</a> said the repatriation was part of its ongoing effort to return stolen and looted antiquities seized from the illicit collection of Subhash Kapoor, who was arrested in 2012. Along with heritage activists, Nepal government agencies are also stepping up efforts to bring back the stolen gods from museums and private collectors all over the world.<a href="https://www.facebook.com/lostartsofnepal">Lost Arts of Nepal</a> in its Facebook page published two statues from Nepal that are in possession of the <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/">Metropolitan Museum of Art (‘The Met’) in New York</a>. They include a 9th century <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/38641">‘Shiva in Himalayan Abode with Ascetics’</a> which was originally a part of Kankeswori Temple at Shobha Bhagwati in Kathmandu, and a 16th century <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/697340">Goddess Nrityadevi</a> originally from I-baha bahi in Patan.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/bringing-our-gods-home/">Bringing our gods home</a>, Sahina Shrestha<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce5209c7e80680e0966eajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="1008"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce5239c7e80680e0966ebjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="341" height="508"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The religious objects appear to have been stolen so long ago that people in those neighbourhoods have no recollection of the gods that once resided in their temples.‘Since <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/bringing-our-gods-home/">The Met previously has sent two statues back to Nepal voluntarily</a>, I am confident they can do the same this time too,’ the anonymous Facebook page admin of Lost Arts of Nepal wrote back in response to a Nepali Times query. Activists who have reached The Met have been told that the museum’s legal team is investigating the matter.These images can be found mentioned in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/lain-singh-bangdels-legacy-lives-on/">Lain Singh Bangdel</a>'s Inventory of Stone Sculptures of the Kathmandu Valley and Mary Slusser's Arts and Images of Nepal.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce5249c7e80680e0966ecjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="397" height="463"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>There are indications that the repatriation of Nepal’s stolen statues will now gather pace. Government officials say the <a href="https://www.artic.edu/">Art Institute of Chicago</a> has said it is ready to return an 8th-century <a href="https://ekantipur.com/news/2020/12/10/160756300522996474.html">Chaturmukhi Shivalinga</a> on 16 April.

The homecoming of Nepal’s gods

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111132/636cd4079c7e80680e08f99ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1600"/><figcaption>(from left to right) The original 12th-century Laxmi-Narayan stolen in 1984. Photo : LAIN SINGH BANGDEL In Sotheby’s catalogue in 1990. Photo : ERIN L. THOMPSON The deity in the Dallas Art Museum in 2014. Photo : ERIN L. THOMPSON</figcaption></figure>One day in 1984, the residents of a Patan neighbourhood woke up in the morning to notice that the Laxmi-Narayan they had been worshipping, was missing from the shrine.The rare, androgynous composite deity of the two deities had been in the temple in Patko Tole for 800 years, where it had been venerated by generations. Having lost all hope of finding it, the community established a poor replica of Laxmi-Narayan and placed it in the shrine in 1993.Six years after its theft, in 1990, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/replicating-nepals-stolen-gods/">the 12th-century statue, which is also known as Vasudeva-Kamala </a>surfaced briefly at Sotheby’s auction house based in New York. But it vanished again after that.Two years ago, American artist <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Narratives-of-Faith-and-Memory-Remembering-the-Lost-Sculptures-of-Kathmandu-exhibition,987">Joy Lynn Davis</a>, who had documented Kathmandu’s stolen deities through her unique paintings, was doing a Google search of lost idols from Nepal, when she came across a grainy image of the familiar Laxmi-Narayan that she had painted (see interview).While the Laxmi-Narayan statue is on its way back home, another deity, a 10th century Uma Maheswar, sits at the Denver Art Museum. The Museum has also put out the ‘known’ provenance of the statue that has been in the collection of the museum since the 1980s given by Jane F. Ullman and Edwin F. Ullman.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111132/636cd40a9c7e80680e08f99fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="990" height="695"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Patan to DenverUma-Maheswar statues usually follow the same iconographic tradition, but the one that was stolen from Gahiti in the 1960s is distinct because of its unique structure.Babulal Maharjan, 82, looks frail and does not have many memories of his youth, but remembers the deity because of his community’s reverence for this beautiful deity. Fifty years after it was stolen, Gahiti residents still preserve its base below a graffiti-scrawled wall, hoping for its eventual return.When Nepali Times showed Babulal and his 78-year-old neighbour Babukaji Maharjan a photograph of their Uma-Mahesvar which is now in the <a href="https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en/object/1980.231">Denver Art Museum</a>, both immediately recognised the familiar figure.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111132/636cd40d9c7e80680e08f9a0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1600"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111136/636cd4109c7e80680e08f9a1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2304" height="1728"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>“With Patan’s Laxmi-Narayan now making its way back home, and with rising awareness and the pressure, someday the Uma-Maheswar will also find its way back like other gods," says Suresh Lakhey of Patan Museum.More than 30 stolen gods have been returned to Nepal from various museums and private collections in the past years, and although it is only a small percentage of the stolen images, it does represent a trend. Museums and collectors are now ashamed to exhibit stolen artifacts.Another activist has been trying to draw attention to Nepal’s stolen gods, but in a slightly different way. In Bhaktapur, architect <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/replicating-nepals-stolen-gods/">Rabindra Puri</a> is setting up a museum with replicas of trafficked cultural heritage, including Patan’s Laxmi-Narayan.https://youtu.be/auqKrJDcqj8Puri’s Museum of Stolen Gods at the Toni Hagen House in Bhaktapur is set to open in 2022, and already has duplicates made of 36 stolen stone statues. He says: “Our gods are merely an art object in the international market to be auctioned for thousands of dollars. But for us, all of these artefacts hold cultural and religious significance that represents our values.”During the peak of the plunder of Kathmandu Valley’s cultural heritage in the 1980s, many had given up hope of the bronze deities, wooden friezes, and stone carvings ever finding their way home. But moral pressure is growing on Western collectors and museums because of the naming and shaming.Much of the awareness about the thefts were due to the painstaking work of two art historians <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/bringing-our-gods-home/">Jürgen Schick and Lain Singh Bangdel </a>who in the 1980s and 90s recorded images and information of over 200 missing deities in their books The Gods are Leaving the Country: Art Theft from Nepal and Stolen Images of Nepal, respectively.Pharping’s SaraswatiOne of those is the juxtaposed images of Veendharini Saraswati from Pharping. In 1984,  thieves decapitated the Goddess of Learning because the rest of the stone figure was too heavy to transport. It has been replaced by a poor replica that appears as a prosthetic to the beheaded body.But the Saraswati was located and returned to Nepal in 1999 by an anonymous person from USA, Los Angeles, and is now an exhibit at the National Museum in Chhauni.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111136/636cd4139c7e80680e08f9a2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1600"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111136/636cd4169c7e80680e08f9a3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1111" height="629">The most popular deity for smugglers appears to be figures of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Nepal-needs-to-be-prepared-for-the-return-of-stolen-religious-figures,986">Uma Maheswar, </a>which depict Shiva and Parbati in embrace. Since the 1950s, over 26 statues of the conjugal deities have been stolen from Kathmandu Valley, some of them dating back to 11th century. Most are in museums or warehouses abroad, and only a handful have been returned to their original shrines.Once deities are returned, they are sent to the National Museum which then works with local communities where the gods were stolen from, to determine if it is safe to send them back and there is no danger of them being stolen again.For example, the exquisite bronze water spout depicting Laxmi-Narayan and Garuda was stolen from Sundari Chok in Patan Darbar Square 50 years ago, but was retrieved by police before it could be smuggled abroad. It has been replaced with the duplicate, while the original is in Chhauni.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111136/636cd4199c7e80680e08f9a4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="754"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>“Our Ancient Monument Act requires us to help communities install the gods back to their rightful places,” says Jayaram Shrestha, Director of the National Museum.Roshan Mishra, curator at Taragaon Museum, has set up a <a href="https://globalnepalimuseum.com/">Global Nepali Museum</a> database says that because of public awareness in Nepal, stolen stone statues are easy to locate because they were lifted from public places and some continue to have vermillion marks on them even after continuous polishing.“International museums and auction houses have started becoming aware about the trafficking of cultural heritage items which makes it more difficult for thieves to steal and sell them,” Mishra explains. However, the market for stolen antiquities has shifted from the West to museums and private collectors in West Asia, China and Hong Kong.Mishra gives full credit to Jürgen Schick and Lain Singh Bangdel for their early effort in documenting stolen gods: “If it wasn’t for them, I don’t think we would have had the community awareness we have now.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111136/636cd41c9c7e80680e08f9a5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="452" height="600"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Another <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=11342#.YBBWKugzbIV">12th-century statue of Uma-Maheswar</a> which was stolen from Dhulikhel’s Wo Tole in 1982 was retrieved from the Museum für Indische Kunst in Berlin in 2000, and is now placed in its temporary home at Patan Museum. Twenty years later, the youth of Wo Tole and the Dhulikhel mayor are preparing to restore the statue to its original location, and a shrine has been reconstructed to house it.Sun Prasad Shrestha, 70, who lives on the street from where the figure was stolen, says “It’ll be an exciting moment to have the familiar gods back again.  But what will happen if the thieves steal it again? How will we protect it?"<h3>Holy homecomings</h3><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111136/636cd41e9c7e80680e08f9a6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1080"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>American artist Joy Lynn Davis talks about her famous 2015 exhibition, ‘Remembering the Lost Sculptures of Kathmandu’ and her unique method of commemorating Nepal’s stolen idols through paintings. She spoke to Kanak Mani Dixit on the Saglo Samaj tv magazine program. Excerpts: Kanak Mani Dixit: You painted Patan’s stolen Laxmi-Narayan idol. Why that particular idol and how did you ultimately locate it at the Dallas Art Museum? Joy Lynn Davis: I painted the Laxmi Narayan murti based on its replica in 2013 when I was living in Patan as an artist resident at Kathmandu Contemporary Art Centre. At that time, we knew that the idol had been stolen in 1984 and sold by Sotheby’s in New York in 1989. After that, no one knew its whereabouts as the sale information was private.I was looking at a Google image, and came across a blurry image of a Laxmi-Narayan and my heart just jumped. I knew immediately that it was the same murti from Patan. The image was on a blog operated by a Nepali in Dallas, who didn't know that the idol in the Dallas Museum was stolen.Had you not painted it, would you have recognised it?It was particularly extraordinary to have found the image online. The other co-incidence is my parents live right outside of Dallas. I was so close to it without even realising it.Where are we on the return of the Laxmi-Narayan statue to Nepal?It’s been a great privilege to be able to collaborate with the FBI and share the information I had collected. The Dallas Museum was not immediately open to returning the murti and the FBI was able to make a very strong case against them. It has now been seized and will soon be returned to Nepal. The day it arrives in Nepal, I will be the happiest person—so many people and organisations have worked on this.But if we put out information about the theft, wouldn’t museums and collectors hide the statues, making their return even more difficult?I absolutely agree. There are many sculptures around the world from Nepal. They are now housed in museum storage facilities. It is unfortunate. We need to get the word out there that Nepal is ready to accept them back. It would be ideal if the museums worked on it voluntarily, and we could help facilitate that. We can make replicas for them, document stories of the sculptures returned and their cultural significance. Museum visitors would find that much more interesting.Why did you paint the stolen idols the way you did?The goal of the project was to increase public awareness of the problem of illicit trafficking of Nepal’s cultural heritage. The other goal was to re-contextualise the stolen sculptures. As a Westerner visiting a museum, if I had not worked on the project, I would glare at the art knowing little about it, besides reading the information on the label. Visitors believe these sculptures were dug out of the ground and have no idea about their religious, cultural and spiritual significance. Through my paintings, I wanted to put back the stolen gods in their rightful places.Why did you choose to use gold in your work?First, gold becomes an easy visual language for viewers when they look at the painting and they understand that they are from these sacred sites. One painting of gold that I worked on was of Saraswati. The thieves had chopped off the head, and just the head was painted in gold—the collector returned it in 1990. Gold represents the commodification of the sacred. We are used to seeing gold in art and temples. Gold also symbolises wealth. Gold has the value of spirituality, and when sold, it turns to cold hard cash. The original Laxmi-Narayan statue is covered in tika, but under the museum spotlight, it is a shiny black rock.To see the sculptures in places where they were touched and conversed with, has more significance. For Nepalis, these aren’t just statues, they embody religious and cultural sentiments. In the West, these values are transformed. This murti will always have more value in its original place.The reason statues are stolen is their market value. What should we do to ensure they cannot be stolen?Nepalis should not feel bad that they were not able to protect their gods. These problems come from bidesi foreigners. The gods were saved for hundreds of years in their shrines, and then outsiders wanted to own them. I think the only way to protect them is to increase the awareness about their significance. We have a lot of work to do, Laxmi-Narayan is just the beginning.(This interview with Joy Lynn Davis is based on the fifth episode of Saglo Samaj, a tv magazine program produced by Himalmedia which is broadcast every Monday, at 8:30 pm on Dish Home Channel 130. Go online to watch a trailer of the program.)

Nepal’s gods return from exile

At the stroke of the midnight hour, it finally came to something everyone in Nepal’s oldest and biggest party had been dreading — a split.
Not that this was anything new. The Nepali Congress (NC) had splintered twice before and the main protagonist both times was five-time prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. After the GenZ uprising and being physically mauled and his house looted and set on fire on 9 September Deuba had said he was stepping aside, but it seems old ambitions die hard.
The showdown between the Gagan Thapa-Bishow Prakash Sharma camp and Deuba came to a head on Wednesday as the establishment leadership decided to suspend Thapa, Sharma, and Farmullah Mansoor for five years to punish them for daring to challenge the leadership and hold a special general convention.&nbsp;
Bhrikuti Mandap in the centre of Kathmandu is the venue for trade exhibitions, but this week it was where an exhibition of everything that is wrong with Nepali politics was on full display — lack of internal party democracy and an unaccountable gerontocracy clinging on to power.&nbsp;
Thapa and Sharma had gathered the support of 62% of the NC membership at their convention and chose Gagan Thapa as the new party leader and proposed him as a prime ministerial candidate after the 5 March election.
Deuba’s allies had refused to attend or endorse the special general convention, and were adamant about holding a general convention to choose a new party head after the election. Thapa, Sharma and their supporters argued that the party faced ignominious defeat in the polls if Deuba insisted on being prime minister again.
The events of September 2025 have cast a long shadow over Nepali politics, with many new parties and alliances pledging to represent the aspirations of the GenZ movement. However, that realisation does not seem to have dawned on the tried, tested and failed leadership of the NC, UML and the NCP where the party leaders have held on to power by sidelining all rivals. &nbsp;
Thapa and Sharma were NC general secretaries held multiple rounds of discussions to convince Deuba to accept their eight-point demand that for the party’s and the country’s sake his time was up, and he should cut and cut cleanly. Despite having already handed over the party leadership to Purna Bahadur Khadka in September, Deuba refused to step down.&nbsp;
‘What demands has the Nepali Congress been unable to reconcile that it is headed for a split? There is no ideological dispute, just a proposal to make it easier to go for the election,’ noted journalist and author Narayan Wagle. ‘If those who have been in politics for so many years cannot reach an agreement, what have they learned in life and what hope is there for the country?’
Gagan Thapa was elected unopposed as the new party president on Thursday midnight, with Sharma and Pushpa Bhusal appointed vice-presidents. Thapa has said backroom talks are still ongoing though mediators, but for all intents and purposes the split seems irreconcilable.&nbsp;
The million dollar question now is: who gets to be the real Nepali Congress? Who gets the NC’s tree election symbol at the polls?
Both the Thapa and Deuba factions have written to the Election Commission (EC) laying claim to the party and its symbol. Whatever the EC decides, with less than two months to go for the polls, the dispute over its legitimacy will almost certainly have to be decided in the courts.
Deuba and his counterpart K P Oli in the UML have been unwilling or unable to fathom the level of outrage that young Nepalis feel about their parties. They have shown an inability to heed the call for institutional overhaul within parties and in Nepal’s political culture post-September. Second generation leaders within those parties who have grown old waiting for reform, seem to have better internalised the need for internal restructuring.&nbsp;
Oli has managed to hold on to power after displaying increasing authoritarianism within his UML, while Deuba has shown an unwillingness to bow out of leadership with grace. Both have squandered away their legacy.
For Gagan Thapa, the events of Thursday was a culmination of his long-standing claim for leadership change within the NC coupled with a compulsion to address the demands of the youth movement to maximise gains for his party this election. Just like Deuba, Thapa’s house was also looted and torched during the September protests.
Thapa told Onlinekhabar on Thursday: “Our belief was that we cannot go into elections under the present circumstances under [Sher Bahadur Deuba’s] leadership and with him as the party’s prime ministerial candidate. We would lose.”
The special general convention has taken further steps for reform, endorsing amendments to the party statue, which has set term limits for key leadership positions, including a one-term limit for party president, two-term limit for prime minister, three for a ministerial position, and four terms for a directly elected member of Parliament. Meanwhile, party members are only allowed to become lawmakers through the Proportional Representation system for one term.&nbsp;
If Thapa’s leadership holds legitimacy, this new chapter for the NC might come as a welcome change to young Nepalis who have been calling for leadership overhaul and internal party reforms within the establishment parties. But it may also come at the cost of the NC’s core base. It remains to be seen which side tips the scale at the polls.&nbsp;
The NC’s infighting and institutional shake-up has also posed fresh concerns about how it will affect the election schedule just as it looked as though all the mainstream political parties were finally on board and preparing for the polls. With voting barely weeks away, Nepal’s political parties are still too busy cleaning up their own house to give too much time to work on their platforms, agendas and serious campaigning
Historically, political break-ups and make-ups in Nepal are not set in stone. Even the newest alliance between Rabi Lamichhane’s RSP and Kulman Ghising’s UNP did not even last 12 days. &nbsp;Balen Shah is set to resign from his mayor position in the next and has gotten into the thick of election preparation with the RSP. His next step will be to choose which constituency he is going to contest from.
Meanwhile, in the light of a new day, the two NC factions may still decide that breaking up is hard to do when they are so close to elections, and the political stakes are so high.&nbsp;

Grand split in Nepal’s grand old party

The India Art Fair (IAF) advertises itself as ‘the biggest event in India’s cultural calendar … a leading platform’ for art collectors who can discover modern and contemporary art from South Asia.&nbsp; For this year’s ticketed event on 5-8 February in New Delhi, more than 133 exhibitors from 14 countries will be representing top artists from their networks. Danfe Arts, a touring art space from Kathmandu, will participate in the Galleries Section of IAF’s 17th edition featuring a booth with works by six Nepali artists.&nbsp; One of them is Sanjeep Maharjan, Assistant Professor for Sculpture at Kathmandu University, who will showcase his claywork as part of Danfe Arts’ entourage. In 2024, Maharjan curated a show for Danfe Arts at Takpa Gallery titled, ‘Unfolding the City’. The IAF prefers to showcase skilled artists who have honed their practice over many years. Much like various biennales and residencies that have been popping up increasingly in Asia, the Fair delves into sociopolitical issues of the region such as many comissioned works including <a href="https://indiaartfair.in/exhibitor/yogesh-barve-supported-by-art-charlie" target="_blank">Yogesh Barve</a>’s installation entitled ‘I am not your Dalit’ featured at the feastival last year.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260115110136_13f262546fca46c0fe4d76f758a694afe7c0c1cfee5bf74eb4f257f78734f8f2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260115110136_13f262546fca46c0fe4d76f758a694afe7c0c1cfee5bf74eb4f257f78734f8f2" data-rendition-name="original" width="989" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="Nepali artists at India Art Fair"> <figcaption>Anil Shahi's Hand of Hope, Oil on Canvas, 36 x 60 inches. Exhibiting work at IAF.</figcaption> </figure>  As the name implies, it is a grand bazaar where artists and their agents show up, to be seen — a powerful regional platform where creativity merges with commercial interests. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Artists have a reputation for being weak at business.&nbsp; And in Kathmandu, where the contemporary art scene has been steadily expanding since the early aughts, more and more creatives are seeking platforms like IAF and collaborators like Danfe Arts in order to boost their portfolios. A NEW COURSE In 2022, I was invited to participate in a formal group discussion by founder of and curator at Danfe Arts Shivangi Bansal who was preparing to chart a new course with her Danfe Journal. The journal included photos of artworks as well as writings about art and helped bridge the gap between art and the Nepali public’s understanding of associated processes. Contemporary art and literature is considered a niche activity. Proper marketing and outreach is required to make the product accessible to the average consumer. Besides, consistency can also be an issue. Too often, energetic graduates might register organisations and launch initiatives only to burn out within a year or so. Nepali society would benefit more from a sustained effort with a long-term vision rather than trendy initiatives that look bright and shiny. Danfe Arts discontinued the journal but continued to engage with Nepal’s art community, like facilitating a commission for Mini Tamang by the India Art Fair (IAF) in 2025, as part of IAF’s Young Collector’s Program. Tamang’s artwork, ‘Evocative Waves’, was installed at New Delhi’s Stir Art gallery last year. In 2024, Danfe Arts had organised a group exhibition called ‘A Lake That Once Was’ in New Delhi’s Bikaner House to coincide with the India Art Fair, which listed the exhibition as part of its parallel programs. This meant the Nepali artists received more visibility and value among IAF’s much larger audience.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026011804014_2a15d57a63c375503965a41396b22c006152368a018450d2617f4c8c076ccc74.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2026011804014_2a15d57a63c375503965a41396b22c006152368a018450d2617f4c8c076ccc74" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="998" loading="lazy" alt="arts"> <figcaption>A Lake That Once Was, 2024 at Bikaner House, Delhi.</figcaption> </figure>  Since its inception, Danfe Arts has put out an eclectic mix of programs, demonstrating innovative thinking and effort. With its multi-platform approach, Danfe Arts has collaborated with restaurants like Mezze, putting up an exhibition in November 2025, ‘Bhoye - The Feast’. Danfe Arts is also cultivating relationships with specific artists based on synergies and sensibilities.&nbsp; The history of art practice in Nepal is long and illustrious, but due to political and geographical constraints, esteemed artists have been sheltered and confined within our national borders.&nbsp; By featuring these six artists for the 2026 edition of IAF, Danfe Arts is helping them make regional connections. And as our artists and gallerists show up on global platforms, they might in turn compel Nepalis to view more critically the value of art and how creative practices can contribute positively to society. As technology takes over and AI bots spam the Internet, the issue of originality might become tantamount to survival. We should take risks in our professional pursuits in order to design new communal models of exchange. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; India Art Fair New Delhi 5-8 February&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026011804014_f226a31af8a33f8da5e7359886289de3fd1b2db17697b96b909404e582d75124.png" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2026011804014_f226a31af8a33f8da5e7359886289de3fd1b2db17697b96b909404e582d75124" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1875" loading="lazy" alt="arts"> </figure>

Nepali artists at India Art Fair

Only a handful of people who witnessed the 1934 megaquake as children are still alive. And the memories of 2015 are fading fast.&nbsp;
We were shaken, but have not stirred into action. We have not even started preparing to be prepared for the inevitable, for it is not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’.&nbsp;
Thursday 15 January was National Earthquake Safety Day commemorating the 1934 disaster that killed 10,000 people in Kathmandu Valley at a time when its population was barely 100,000.
Nepal is in an active seismic zone, and a really big one is overdue in the seismic gap in western Nepal where there has not been a megaquake for 500 years. The 7.8M quake in 2015 did not completely release the tectonic stress below Central Nepal.
An 8M+ earthquake epicentred in western Nepal will be even more violent than the 2015 one in Kathmandu and will be powerful enough to cause destruction across northern India as well.&nbsp;
We Nepalis are resilient, but we are also complacent and fatalistic. How else does one explain the unsafe and unplanned building construction in Kathmandu, Pokhara and other towns despite frequent reminders of what quakes can do?&nbsp;
Most designs are ad hoc and follow no engineering logic. Reinforced Cement Concrete (RCC) is now widespread across the country since such structures mostly withstood the 2015 event. But structural engineers say most concrete buildings are substandard, and can be death traps. Also, the country lacks equipment and training for search and rescue in cement houses.&nbsp;
FIRE HAZARD
If an earthquake struck Kathmandu on a windy winter evening, there is the added risk of fires from gas cylinders in collapsed buildings spreading across the densely packed city core. Fire trucks will not be able to reach those areas because the streets will be blocked.
Seismic risk is now amplified by climate breakdown. Nepal now needs to factor in the co-hazard of massive avalanches and Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) triggered by future earthquakes. There are 41 potentially dangerous glacial lakes in the region, and 27 of them are in Tibet feeding rivers that flow into Nepal. A megaquake there could cause multiple simultaneous GLOFs.&nbsp;
If the 2015 earthquake had not happened on a Saturday, tens of thousands of children could have been killed in the 7,000 schools that were flattened. More than 2,500 government buildings came down, and would have killed and trapped many if it had not been a weekend.
Schools and health facilities retrofitted before the disaster were unscathed, and served as shelters for survivors. Chhatrapati Free Clinic (CFC) was reinforced three years before the earthquake for Rs5.2 million, and with support from National Society of Earthquake Technology (NSET), 800 community members were trained in search and rescue.
Bhuwaneswori Secondary School in Bhaktapur and Bal Bikas Secondary School in Kathmandu both survived 2015 because they had been retrofitted. Singha Darbar, the Supreme Court and the Department of Roads buildings were also made seismic resistant after 2015 quake, but the arson attacks on 9 September gutted them.
While many private residential homes built after 2015 continue to flout building codes, municipalities are now stricter. New schools and colleges, hospitals and high rises now have to meet stringent requirements for seismic resistance.
Nepal is a hotspot for many types of disasters — earthquakes, floods, droughts, glacial outbursts, wildfires. These are not ‘natural’ disasters, they are human induced. Earthquakes do not kill people, poorly-built buildings do. Climate breakdown is anthropogenic.&nbsp;
Waiting for a disaster to strike means we have waited too long. Search and rescue readiness are well and good, but much more important is preparedness — seismic resistance structures especially of public buildings, strict zoning to establish open spaces, pre-positioning supplies and simulated drills.
We do not know how much time we have before the next one. But it is not too late to start preparing. &nbsp;
Sonia Awale

Shaken, but not stirred

The series <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/looking-good-by-doing-good">Nepal Made</a> profiles world-class Nepali products and the people behind them. Deepak Acharya was born and raised in Simara, before his uncle took him to Pokhara when he was only in sixth grade. After class, he helped sell jackets and outdoor gear at his uncle's Lakeside store. &nbsp; Twenty-two years later, &nbsp;Acharya is still selling jackets. Not international brands like he used to, but products of his own outdoor gear company, DOLPO.&nbsp; Acharya and his brother-in-law, Krishna Ammai, started making and selling jackets and gear for international companies out of Thamel. After losing his business partner in the 2015 earthquake, he was done selling imported items. He launched his own line of outerwear, named after Nepal’s rugged and remote district, known for its stunning arid landscape. The careful selection of the name DOLPO paid off. It took off, providing a high-quality, affordable Nepal-made alternative to foreign companies.&nbsp; “A lot of work went into choosing the name Dolpo,” says Acharya, who considered what came into people’s minds when they heard the name of a place with double-O sound. “I wanted a brand that local customers would instantly relate to toughness and mountains.” The elegant logo reflects this as well, made up of two overlapping rounded triangles denoting mountains with a third peak in the middle. Underneath is ‘DOLPO’ in upper case sans serif.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260116120148_968d9354094049265372d851d0e44e16ae4fc86b5631481e365e6e977f13d37d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260116120148_968d9354094049265372d851d0e44e16ae4fc86b5631481e365e6e977f13d37d" data-rendition-name="original" width="854" height="1280" loading="lazy" alt="Dolpo NT"> <figcaption>Photo: DOLPO</figcaption> </figure>  RIGHT QUALITY, RIGHT PRICE “Our philosophy is Right quality, Right price,” says co-founder Deepak Acharya, adding with a smile that the pricing strategy of a particular competitor has made business easy: “The employees at North Face may sell North Face, but they wear Dolpo.” The rebranding was so successful that Acharya regrets not launching it sooner. The reason for the success is that the outdoor gear market in Nepal has taken off with more and more domestic tourists trekking in the high mountains to share their adventures on social media.&nbsp; Nepalis seem to be consciously choosing sustainable, Nepal made products of international quality. Acharya says: “Of course, there will always be a demographic that only wears North Face, or Sonam. But we have the right design, right price philosophy.”&nbsp; DOLPO uses fabric and material mainly from Japan, and adheres to strict quality control. The reversible down jackets, windcheaters, shorts, fleece-lined pants, trekking trousers, backpacks, and polo shirts can be bought through its website, or two exclusive flagship stores in Sorakhutte and Thamel Chok. “After the rebrand, we slowly made a digital platform, marketed online, and worked with a delivery company to get items directly to buyers,” says Acharya. “We have no brokers or middlemen to keep prices low for the consumer.” DOLPO is a family business with Acharya’s mother and sister also involved, and nephew Nishant Ammai driving digital sales. Acharya points out that there is a lot of business opportunity in Nepal, as there are too many low-quality products being sold at too high a price. &nbsp;“The market is begging for an auto-correction,” he says. For Nepal’s pessimistic youth who are fleeing the country, Acharya urges patience: “The younger generation wants shortcuts. The mindset is to set up a venture and in three years they will be set for life. But this is not how success works.” “Choose a field, put in ten years of effort, really learn about it, and then you will see the vast possibility present in Nepal,” he continues.&nbsp; Last month, the DOLPO logo was seen on the jerseys of the Biratnagar Kings in NPL 2. The company made hats, jackets, and jerseys for star-studded cricket players including Lokesh Bam, Sandeep Lamichhane, Faf Du Plessis, and Martin Guptill. The Kings finished second in the group, and although Acharya is a football fan, he is happy to contribute to the rise of cricket in Nepal. &nbsp;&nbsp;