KATHMANDU (dpa) – The Nepalese capital Kathmandu was known just two decades ago as the city of temples, a saying coined by enthusiastic Western tourists who claimed “there were more temples and shrines in the city than there were houses”.
With at least one temple or shrine to be seen every 200 metres or less, it is small wonder that the city has also been described as a “living museum”.The mushrooming of concrete buildings has pushed temples to the background and many have been left in a dilapidated state. The remaining ones, to which Hindus and Buddhists still flock to offer worship, are locked up at night and during quiet periods of the day.“Putting gods and goddesses behind lock and key is an alien custom for us in Nepal but has become unavoidable because of large-scale theft of idols,” says Juddha Bir Bajracharya, a temple priest.Idol theft has become one of the curses of modern day Nepal and has come in the wake of tourism development.“Some of the finest examples of Nepalese handicraft in the form of idols adorn the drawing rooms of some affluent people in western countries”, said an official of the government’s Archaeology Department who did not wish to be named.“For them it is nothing but an expensive piece of art to show off to friends but for us it is an invaluable symbol of things holy and pure”, he said.“I do not want to blame affluent westerners who buy the idols as antiques. They probably do not even know that the artefacts they buy are worshipped back home and that most of them are stolen,” said Manik Lal Kapali, a priest at a temple in the city.Thousands of art pieces including idols are believed to have been stolen in Nepal. The stealing spree beginning in mid-1960s, sparing nothing of value except those closely guarded in temples or those too heavy to carry off.Stone idols dating back to the 2nd century have been found in the Kathmandu Valley and experts believe that many others are lying unnoticed and undiscovered even today.It is estimated that some 500 idols and sculptures dating from the 2nd to 19th century have been stolen from temples and shrines in the Kathmandu Valley.“That,” said Dr. Saphalya Amatya, “is a conservative estimate and does not take into account the theft from the monasteries in the Nepal Himalayas “.Amatya is an expert on Nepalese archaeology and was until recently the Director-General in the government’s Archaeology Department.“We do not have an inventory of lost antiques. The monasteries in the Himalayas have equally awe-inspiring art objects that are very very old and many of the old monasteries have fallen apart and art objects simply vanished,” he says.“I think the figure of 500 stolen art pieces are only those for Kathmandu Valley and could represent just 20 percent of what we have actually lost,” says Amatya.Nepalese law forbids the export of any art object that is 100 years old or older without a valid licence from the Archaeology Department.But despite the law, idols, sculptures and other old art pieces manage to be smuggled out of the country.Lain Singh Bangdel, a noted Nepalese artist who conducted research into the disappearance of Nepalese idols from temples, said: “I am surprised as to how images ranging from 12 inches to 60 inches in height were smuggled away. How come our policemen could not nab the culprits?”Bangdel, who conducted a study into missing idols and art objects using a grant from the Tokyo’s Toyota Foundation, notes that the earliest missing idol is that of 1,500 year-old standing Buddha.A 1,000 year-old idol of the Uma-Maheswore Hindu deities was returned amid a special ceremony in the capital just over a year ago by the Berlin Museum.But not all stolen Nepalese art pieces end up in museums. “Most museums would not even buy them,” said Amatya.So who does buy the pieces? “It is almost always private collectors. And often the stolen pieces lie unsold,” he added.He explained that this was because ignorant but poor people think that once they steal the idols, they can sell them at huge prices and get rich quick.But it is difficult for individuals to find buyers, he said, adding that only those “stolen to order” really go outside the country.No wonder that a number of idols stolen from several temples were found buried in the banks of the Bagmati River that flows through the Nepalese capital.“The thieves did not have the right connections to sell them,” says Amatya, “and so they buried them.”Now the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organisation and the government’s Department of Archaeology as well the Nepal Tourism Board are preparing a programme to help preserve what is left in the temples and shrines of the Kathmandu Valley.
