Bihar CM seeks return of Sultanganj Buddha statue from UK

Bihar CM Samrat Choudhary seeks the return of the Sultanganj Buddha statue from the UK, emphasizing its cultural significance to Bihar's Buddhist heritage.

Bihar chief minister Samrat Choudhary has written to Union culture and tourism minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, seeking the repatriation of the celebrated Sultanganj Buddha, a 2.3-metre tall copper statue depicting Gautama Buddha, dating from the Gupta-Pala transitional period (500-700 AD), currently housed at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in the United Kingdom.

The 2.3 m Sultanganj Buddha copper statue of Gautama Buddha, currently at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in the United Kingdom. (HT PHOTO)

In a letter dated August 11, seen by the Hindustan Times on Tuesday, Choudhary urged the ministry of culture to initiate procedures to bring back the sculpture, calling it one of the most remarkable surviving examples of India’s early medieval Buddhist heritage.

“The statue representing Siddhartha Gautama standing and exhibiting traditional Buddhist hand gestures (mudras), stands roughly 2.3 metres tall, over a metre wide, and weighs more than 500 kilograms. It is the largest substantially complete copper Buddha image known from early medieval India, and ranks among the finest achievements of Indian metal casting,” Choudhary wrote.

EB Harris, resident engineer of the East Indian Railway, unearthed the sculpture during excavations near Sultanganj station in Bhagalpur district in 1861-62. Harris subsequently transported the statue to England, where it became the foundation object of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and has since held a position of prominence in its collections, according to the letter.

Citing the statue’s exceptional archaeological, historical, artistic, metallurgical, religious and cultural significance, Choudhary requested the ministry to initiate administrative procedures and diplomatic engagement with the authorities in the UK for the sculpture’s return. Its repatriation, he wrote, would restore an irreplaceable component of India’s heritage and reunite one of the country’s most significant Buddhist masterpieces with its original archaeological and sacred landscape.

Rajesh Shukla, professor and head of the department of history at Patna’s College of Commerce, said that apart from the Mauryan Kings in the 3rd to 4th century and the Pala rulers during the 8th to 12th century AD, many artistic statues belonging to the Buddhist religion were found in various parts of Bihar. “The underlying point of study is that in spite of outside onslaught on this region these valuable cultural artefacts survived to the present times,” he added.

He said the state’s request for repatriation of the celebrated Sultanganj Buddha carried weight beyond the statue’s artistic merit because of Bihar’s own standing in Buddhism.

“The religion’s founder, Siddhartha Gautama, attained enlightenment at Bodh Gaya in Bihar, making the state home to one of the faith’s most sacred sites and a major pilgrimage destination for Buddhists worldwide,” Shukla said.

“Bihar was also the seat of ancient centres of Buddhist learning such as Nalanda and Vikramshila, and towns like Rajgir and Vaishali feature prominently in accounts of the Buddha’s life and teachings. Sultanganj itself lies along the Ganga in Bhagalpur district, within this broader landscape of early Buddhist activity in the state,” he added.

“Against this backdrop, the Sultanganj Buddha is seen not merely as an artefact but as a piece of Bihar’s sacred and cultural inheritance, and its return would be viewed as reconnecting a major Buddhist artwork with the region most closely tied to the faith’s origins,” added Shukla.

Efforts to reach Pranav Kumar, secretary of Bihar’s art and culture department, to learn the present status of the state’s request, proved futile as he did not respond to calls or text messages.