An idol of Hindu Goddess Annapurna Devi was brought back from Canada after a staggering 108 years and it has now been erected back at Varanasi Kashi Vishwanath Temple. The event, which was attended by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, took place on Monday. The CM arrived in the city on Sunday for a two-day visit. The idol travelled four days from Delhi to Varanasi, where Yogi Adityanath and other Hindu religious leaders, as well as state officials, led the procession to the shrine. The idol was being installed while the Vedic chants were being performed.
According to CM Yogi Adityanath, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is responsible for bringing back old idols that symbolise India’s splendour. He went on to say that in the past, idols and artefacts that showcased India’s heritage and splendour were stolen and sold abroad and the government led by Prime Minister Modi has been working to bring such idols and artefacts back and restore them to their original locations since coming to power in 2014.
He said that the Annapurna Devi idol had vanished from Kashi and that it had been retrieved from a museum in Canada after 108 years due to PM Modi. He also claimed that the Prime Minister was successful in bringing back 156 idols and treasures that had been smuggled out of the nation.
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The Goddess is depicted with a spoon in one hand and a bowl of rice pudding or ‘Kheer’ in the other hand in the stone statue that was erected back at the temple on Monday. This is significant because Annapurna Devi is the Hindu Goddess of food and nutrition. The idol that had been lost from Kashi for almost a century had made its way to the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Saskatchewan, Canada. It was there as part of the University of Regina’s collection.
Last November, the university announced that it had decided to return the idol to India as part of a long-overdue worldwide discourse in which museums seek to address the colonial legacies that continue to influence how they operate.
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