‘Joyous day': PM hails Piprahwa Buddha relics' return after 127 years
'A joyous day for our cultural heritage! It would make every Indian proud that the sacred Piprahwa relics of Bhagwan Buddha have come home after 127 long years. These sacred relics highlight India's close association with Bhagwan Buddha and his noble teachings,' Modi said in a post on X.
He added that the development 'illustrates our commitment to preserving and protecting different aspects of our glorious culture.'
The relics, excavated from the Piprahwa stupa in present-day Siddharthnagar district of Uttar Pradesh in 1898, arrived in Mumbai on a chartered flight from Hong Kong on Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning, they were flown to Delhi and taken directly to the National Museum in the national capital.
Later in the day, the relics were formally placed on display at the museum in a ceremony attended by Union culture minister Gajendra Shekhawat and senior officials from the ministry. Buddhist monks performed rituals as the relics were welcomed amidst traditional chants and ceremonial fanfare.
The collection included 334 gemstones—amethysts, coral, garnets, pearls, rock crystals, shells and gold—many of which had been worked into pendants and beads and placed alongside cremated remains of the Buddha inside the stupa sometime between 240 and 200 BCE.
The relics had been in private possession for decades after a portion was retained by the family of British colonial officer William Claxton Peppé, who led the excavation. In May this year, the relics surfaced at an international auction organised by Sotheby's in Hong Kong, prompting swift intervention from the Union government.
The culture ministry issued a legal notice to the auction house, stating that the relics constituted 'inalienable religious and cultural heritage of India and the global Buddhist community' and should be treated as the 'sacred body of the Buddha.'
The government invoked multiple legal, diplomatic, and financial channels to halt the sale of the relics. 'The culture ministry even sent a Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) notice to Sotheby's, warning that proceeding with the auction could amount to a financial crime,' Vivek Aggarwal, secretary, culture ministry, told HT.
Sotheby's postponed the auction sale, originally scheduled for May 7, following which the culture ministry was actively seeking to repatriate the relics, HT had earlier reported.
According to senior officials, Sotheby's reached out to the Indian government nearly a week after the auction was postponed, asking if the government would be fine with an Indian buyer getting the relics. The government agreed, but with a bunch of strict conditions — the buyer could not be an individual; the relics must not be resold in the future; they should be available to the government as and when required; and they could not leave India without prior government nod.
During the negotiations, Sotheby's informed the government that the Pirojsha Godrej Foundation was interested in acquiring the relics. Godrej had reportedly come across media reports about the relics and reached out to Sotheby's independently, citing a 'personal interest in arts and culture.'
Subsequently, a meeting was held among representatives of the government, Sotheby's, and Pirojsha Adi Godrej, where all parties agreed to the terms and a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed on July 24, 2025.
As part of the agreement, the entire collection will be displayed at the National Museum in New Delhi for three months. For the next five years, a 'large portion' of the relics will remain on loan at the museum while the remainder will be housed in a new cultural institution that the Godrej Foundation plans to establish in Mumbai.
'This is the first ever public-private partnership (PPP) for the retrieval of Indian antiquities,' minister Shekhawat said.
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