The Burmese Buddha of Lahore

One of the least talked about consequences of the British Raj was the mass moving around of antiquities.

We speak a lot of the colonial loot that the British took BACK TO BRITAIN. But I've become more and more fascinated by the objects that circulated WITHIN the subcontinent as well.

Thus the National Museum of Delhi is today filled with Gandharan artefacts from Pakistan, Karachi museum is filled with objects from Bengal, Yangon museum is filled with objects from Bihar, and the great museum in Lahore - easily my favourite in the subcontinent - is centred upon this massive Burmese Buddha.

Occasionally these objects can get caught in post-colonial restitution claims. A few years ago, for example, I heard that China informally requested a series of antiquities to be returned from Delhi and Kolkata where the vast majority of colonial loot from Xinjiang ended up!

Indeed the India Museum in Kolkata had been intended to be the South Asian counterpart of the British Museum.

Today its collection are spread between Kolkata, Delhi and Dhaka, but its fascinating how many of its collections correspond to collections in the British Museum.

The Lahore collection, meanwhile, is also now scattered across borders, with 50% of its objects now sitting in Chandigarh.

Which makes me wonder - does Chandigarh have a similar Burmese Buddha?