Vrindavani Vastra, a 350-year-old tapestry woven in the foothills of the Himalayas depicting the life of the god Krishna, will make a six-month return as part of a loan between the British Museum and the government of the northeastern Indian state of Assam.
The London institution agreed to return the tapestry in 2027 after Assam’s chief minister pledged to build a new facility at the Assam Museum in the state capital Guwahati to house the fragile textile. For preservation purposes, it can only be exhibited for six months every ten years.
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Vastra (Sanskrit for “textile”) consists of 12 lanterns of silk, 9 meters long, and depicts a devotional play by Srimanta Sankardev. Srimanta Sankardev was a writer and religious reformer who lived in Assam at the turn of the 16th century and founded a monotheistic religion dedicated to Krishna. His works were collected and adapted into devotional plays by the Satras, religious and cultural institutions that continue to function in Assam, and the Vrindavani Vastra marks the earliest known artwork featuring Assamese script.
“People here have an emotional connection with Sankardev,” Kuladhar Saikia, a former Assam police chief and chairman of a cultural nonprofit, told reporters. The Art Newspaper. “As a result, Vastra is widely regarded as a living history of Assam.”
as he told financial timesWhen it comes to permanent repatriation, Nicholas Cullinan, director of the British Museum, proposed a policy that would favor “partnership over…ownership”. He stressed that the British Museum is prohibited by law from selling its collection, so it relies on long-term loans.
During Cullinan’s tenure, Satara Aphrodite was loaned to Armenia last year and its cultural importance is so high that it appears on the country’s banknotes. In December, the museum also announced a new partnership with India: some 80 artifacts spanning multiple ancient civilizations will be loaned to Mumbai on a long-term basis, in a gesture that Cullinan calls “cultural diplomacy.”
