Coimbatore: There is an immediate need for documenting the idols, jewellery and properties belonging to temples across Tamil Nadu, historian R Nagaswamy said here on Saturday. He was in the city to attend an event organised to felicitate him for being conferred with Padma Bhushan this year.
Speaking to TOI on the sidelines of the event, Nagaswamy said icons, statues and properties of temples across the state should be documented properly and also a periodic verification of the valuables must be conducted. “Only if we know what we own, can we claim it to be ours,” he said.
Nagaswamy, an archaeologist, epigraphist and historian, has worked extensively on Chola bronzes and also had helped officials trace smuggled Chola bronzes in art galleries abroad and bring them back.
In his address at the event, Nagaswamy recalled how, as a witness, he persuaded judges at a London trial court in 1991 that a bronze Nataraja idol in British Museum in London had actually belonged to a temple in Pathur in Thanjavur. “I quoted evidences from scriptures that even if a temple has been demolished or is in ruins, it is as good as a live one even if a stone belonging to it remains in its original site,” he said.
There is a need to spread the knowledge of tradition and scriptures so as to safeguard entities of historical and traditional importance, he added.
The event held at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, R S Puram, was organised by Rotary Club of Coimbatore Metropolis.