“Return of Chola copper plates: Reviving India’s civilisational memory”, First Post, May 31,2026
“Just as the return of the sacred Piprahwa Gem Relics, after 127 years, to India was an epochal step forward in the recovery of India’s civilisational legacy and heritage, the return of the Chola era, Anaimangalam Copper Plates, also known as the Leiden Copper Plates, firms up India’s aspirations to rise as a civilisational state. Narendra Modi has been relentless in his pursuit of recovering India’s civilisational symbols and footprints. What once belonged to India, must come back to India.
A civilisation, after long subjection, aspires to recover its essential self. That recovery is expressed through development, through developing and adapting new technology, generating new thought, and absorbing and examining new ideas and knowledge from across the world, through recovering its knowledge systems and its heritage and symbols.
The Piprahwa Gem Relics, intrinsically connected to Buddha’s life, and the Anaimangalam Copper Plates, which express the breadth and length of civilisational India during the Chola era, fall in the category of defining civilisational symbols. After centuries the Anaimangalam plates were restored to India during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the Netherlands on May 16. Many have missed the deeper symbolism behind this recovery. Others, having realised it, have only tried to muddy the waters politically……”
Read full article at firstpost.com
