This paper is one chapter of a large interdisciplinary study on the various aspects of the cult of Pabuji - a local deity worshipped in Rajasthan (N.W. India). The fact that it is part of a much greater project explains why names and other details are referred to with only little explanation. The main point here is the confrontation of Western approaches in conservation and restoration with the ways the object is approached, handled, and treated in the context of the culture from which it originates. Dealing with conservation problems concerning non-Western objects provides a mirror that clearly reveals the preconceptions from which the Western and westernized conservation world tends to act. -- AATA