India gets back Goat-Headed Yogini Statue

• 17 Jan 2022

• A 10th century stone idol of goat-headed Yogini was handed over to India by the High Commission of India, London.
• The idol was illegally removed from Uttar Pradesh's Banda from a temple in Lokhari.
• The theft had taken place somewhere in the 1980s.
• The goat-headed Yogini sculpture belonged to a group of stone deities carved in sandstone and installed in the Lokhari temple.
• Notably, another similar sculpture of the buffalo-headed Vrishanana Yogini was stolen from the same temple in Lokhari and was recovered by India in the year 2013. It was repatriated by the Embassy of India in Paris.
• Yoginis are a group of powerful female divinities associated with the Tantric mode of worship. They are worshipped as a group, often 64, and are believed to possess infinite powers.