The Agusan image (commonly referred to in the Philippines as the Golden Tara in allusion to its supposed, but disputed,[1] identity as an image of a Buddhist Tara) is a 2 kg (4.4 lb),[2] 21-karat gold statuette, found in 1917 on the banks of the Wawa River near Esperanza, Agusan del Sur, Mindanao in the Philippines,[3] dating to the 9th–10th centuries.

The figure, approximately 178 mm (7.0 in)[4] in height, is of a female Hindu or Buddhist deity, seated cross-legged and wearing a richly-adorned headdress and other ornaments on various parts of the body.

[9] H. Otley Beyer believed that the image was that of a Hindu Sivaite goddess, but with the religiously important hand signals improperly copied by local workmen.

It's related to the concept of a female Boddhisattva, and at the same time the counterpart of the Hindu goddess (Sakti), as a Tara (or wife of a Buddhist god), which is a peculiar development of Buddhism in Southeast Asia.Another proposed identity of the Agusan image is the offering goddess Vajralāsyā, one of the four female deities located in the inner circle of a mandala called the Diamond Realm (Vajradhātu).

Mandalas can be represented as two-dimensional (either temporarily drawn on flat surfaces, painted on cloth, or etched on metal plates), as three-dimensional sculptural tableaux, or as large architectural constructions like the Borobudur in Central Java.

Three-dimensional mandalas are thought to have been used for sacred rituals involving the offering of water, flowers, incense, lamps, unguents, etc.

[16] Florina Capistrano-Baker agrees with this conclusion, noting the similarities in style between the Agusan golden image and the other statuettes belonging to a three-dimensional Diamond Realm Mandala set such as the four bronze deities discovered in Nganjuk, Java (believed to represent the four offering goddesses of the outer circle).

Recent scholarship is now re-evaluating the relationship between the Agusan golden image and the Nganjuk bronze deities as they are believed to have been made around the same time (10th–11th centuries).

However, according to Constancia Guiral, the granddaughter of the discoverer of the gold image, her grandmother named Belay Campos kept the item as a manika (doll) and later placed it on an altar for worship until it was stolen from their traditional Manobo house.

In 1918, Baklagon brought the artifact to the attention of Dr. H. Otley Beyer, who called it "the most spectacular single find yet made in Philippine archeology".

The image was then shipped to the United States in 1922 and was finally housed at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, where it is still stored up to this day.

[26][27] Also mentioned is how the artifact was bought by an American museum during a time when the Philippines was in financial duress and under the colonial government of America.