CYIL vol. 15 (2024)

CYIL 15 ȍ2024Ȏ BRINGING “TARA” HOME: SRI LANKA’S DISCONTENT WITH CULTURAL RESTITUTION… in the Anuradhapura period and it later became assimilated into the indigenous Sinhalese traditional beliefs. The inscription belonging to the reign of Mahinda IV refers to Tara as the Goddess of Mininal and the 14th-century Sandessa Kavayas in the Sinhala literature treat her as “ Bisso Bandara ”. 8 Such a vast array of beliefs blended with reverence certainly generated a platform for the iconographers in ancient Sri Lanka to carve various forms of Tara Devi’s statues. Yet the status of discovery and identification of Tara’s statues were appalling as many of the Sri Lankan art historians and archaeologists were less interested in their initial examinations, which resulted in misidentifying Tara’s statues along with the icons of other deities. Amidst the colossal failures made by the early generation archaeologists, P. E. P. Deraniyagala identified the bronze statues of Tara in 1951 and the next generation archaeologists such as N. Wijesekerea, L. Premathilake extensively published various scholarly commentaries on the aspects of Tara Devi statues discovered around the island. 9 The much-debated statue of Tara, which has been kept in the British Museum in Bloomsbury is a bronze statue of 1413 cm in height and its craftsmanship testifies that it belongs to the 8 th century A.D. of the late Anuradhapura era. In her article examining the sui generis features of the Tara Devi statue in the British Museum, Shanthi Jayawardane describes the pose of the statue as Abhanga . The upper body of the statue is completely naked while the lower body is dressed with a flimsy cloth tightly knitted at the hips. 10 The discovery of the statue remains ambiguous until this day, but the scars and signs visible from the surface suggest that the statue was buried for its preservation from the invaders. The fate of Tara Devi’s statue was sealed when it was discovered after the British consolidated its power after the Kandyan Convention of 1815. Despite the enigma surrounding the discovery of Tara Devi’s statue, the British account available in the London museum discloses that its discovery occurred between 1812 and 1822 from the Eastern Coast of Sri Lankan amidst the British Kandyan expedition led by then British Governor Sir Robert Brownrigg. 11 Its aftermath destiny or how it came to the position of Sir Robert Brownrigg are confined to various conjectures beyond solid evidence as one another petty episode happened during the island’s long period under colonial domination. After his triumphant tenure in Sri Lanka as British governor who subdued the last independent polity in Kandy for British control, Brownrigg departed from Sri Lanka in 1830 and it is assumed that he took many of the seized relics and artefacts with him. Undoubtedly, the statue of Tara was among them as it finally found its way to the British Museum in 1830 when Lady Brownrigg donated it after the demise of Sir Brownrigg. Tara’s arrival made a stir in the museum authorities due to the contemporary Victorian values that did not tolerate nudity in public, hence Tara was described as dangerously erotic and voluptuaries. Until 1960’s the statue of Tara Devi was kept in a secluded area without granting 8 DE SLVA, R., A Reply to Shanthi Jayawardane’s Article “Sri Lanka’s Tara Devi”, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka , Vol. 62: No. 2, 2017. 9 SHUANI, S., Tara Devi: perceptions and Visualizations, Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Science , Vol. 11. No. 7, 2023. 10 JAYAWARDANE, Sri Lanka’s Tara Devi, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society , Vol. 62, No. 2, p. 128, 2016. 11 KAMARDEEN, N., The Protection of Cultural Property: Post-Colonial and Post Conflict Perspectives from Sri Lanka, International Journal of Cultural Property , Vol. 24, No 4, 2017.

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