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Ancient Buddha-linked Piprahwa gems set for auction despite backlash
Buddhist scholars and monks from around the world expressed concerns over the auction of ancient Indian gemstone relics which they say were widely considered to be imbued with the presence of the Buddha.
The sale of the Piprahwa gems is scheduled to occur in Hong Kong next week. Sotheby's description characterises them as possessing 'unparalleled religious, archaeological and historical significance' and numerous Buddhists viewed them as physical remains, which had been violated by a British colonial landowner.
The relics were discovered interred in a stupa, or burial monument, in Piprahwa, located in present-day Uttar Pradesh, India. According to an inscription carved into one of the reliquaries, the stupa contained the remains of the Buddha himself. The gems were believed to have been combined with some of the cremated remains of the Buddha, who died around 480 BC.
The gems are being auctioned by three descendants of British engineer William Claxton Peppé, who excavated them on his estate in northern India in 1898. The gems are anticipated to fetch around 9.7 million pounds. The British crown had claimed Peppé's discovery under the 1878 Indian Treasure Trove Act. The majority of the 1,800 gems were sent to the colonial museum in Kolkata, while Peppé was allowed to keep about one-fifth of them. The bones and ash were gifted to the Buddhist monarch King Chulalongkorn of Siam.
According to Ashley Thompson of Soas University of London, and the curator Conan Cheong, both experts in Southeast Asian art, for the Buddhists who deposited these relics — as for Buddhists today — the gems, bone and ash all belong to the Buddha and shouldn't just be sold to the highest bidder.
Chris Peppé, a great-grandson of William Claxton Peppé who owns the gems along with two other relatives, said none of the Buddhist temples or experts he had consulted over the past 10 years regarded them as corporeal remains. "These perspectives do not represent Buddhist popular opinion,' said Peppé, a film editor and director based in Los Angeles. 'They belong to a Buddhist scholarship.'
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