Thirty years ago, the return of a bronze idol of Lord Nataraja, belonging to the 12th Century CE, from London, after a protracted legal battle created a sensation in Tamil Nadu. It was the first time that a State had won a case in a foreign court. It was in this case that veteran archaeologist R. Nagaswamy, who died in Chennai on Sunday, appeared as a special witness before the High Court in London.
His testimony was one of the factors that led the Court in April 1989 to conclude that the idol from the Chola era was stolen from the Kasi Viswanatha temple at Pathur in Thanjavur district. The trial judge, Ian Kennedy, also went on to describe Nagaswamy as “an unequalled expert in his subject” and “an acknowledged expert in the field of Chola bronzes,” according to The Hindu’s archives.
The idol, which was smuggled from the country in 1976, was found with a Canadian company which, according to an order of the Court of Appeal (Civil Division) of England and Wales in February 1991, bought the idol in “good faith” from a dealer in June 1982.
