25-05-2025
Buddha's body can't be on sale. These sacred relics must be repatriated
The auctioneer Sotheby's announced that it had 'postponed' the sale of Buddha's relics that were to go on sale in Hong Kong on the 7th of May, in response to being served a legal notice from the government of India. India's legal notice compiled different ethical and moral principles that have guided the policies of museums, various arms of the UN, as well as legal provisions under which this sale could be stopped. The relics were excavated at Piprahwa in 1898 by William Peppé, a colonial manager of an estate near Gorakhpur in the fertile Terai region. They were found in five reliquaries, one of which is inscribed with vital information, which states that these relics were deposited by the Shakya clan, thus making them the valued deposit of his paternal lineage, and the most precious agnatic deposit. Auctioning these relics can be seen, then, as selling the body of the Buddha on the market.
This is not the first time that the Indian Government has fought for the return of relics from the Buddhist stupas of India. In 1952 relics of Sanchi were returned. Were they all returned? No. As in the case of Piprahwa, human remains and relics from other stupas have not all been repatriated. The law on human remains, on the rights of communities to worship ancestors, and especially sacred individuals is clear. India has taken an unequivocal stance about the sacredness of the Buddha's relics and that they cannot be turned into a commodity. Would one put a price on the body of Christ or Mohammad? It needs to be emphasized that what is being offered for sale is from the holy stupa of Piprahwa regarded as the site of the relics of the Buddha himself, which his paternal family buried with his ashes. It should be noted that India has not taken this stance with regard to all stupas, particularly those where the relics have been taken from uninscribed reliquaries, where the identity of the person whose relics they are is unknown, or from sites that are not the most archaeologically significant. When the evidence is as strong as Piprahwa, the case changes.
The stupas of ancient Vidisha in the vicinity of Sanchi held a status akin to those in the land of the Shakyas. In 1938, the Government of India received a request from the Maha Bodhi Society of Bombay to bring back the relics of the monks Sariputra and Maudgalyana (that were removed from stupas at Sanchi) from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In 1939 the Museum decided to return the relics to the Maha Bodhi Society through an intervention by the Secretary of State for India. It would be useful to make a few clarifications here.
Unlike the Catholic faith where only the bones of the saint make up their relics, the definition of relics in Buddhism is more capacious. The jewels interred with the ashes are clearly referenced in all ancient Buddhist texts as being relics. This is devotional, and the belief carried through ancient legends as well that claim that holy men turn to jewels on attaining samadhi: their minds are akin to crystal, their heavenly domain bejewelled. Suffusing ashes – phool as we commonly call them – with jewels that are also shaped as phool, of fine sheets of gold repoussé flowers, svastikas and lions, amethyst, aquamarine and quartz crystals, carnelian and sardonyx rosettes, make these jewels an integral part of the sacred deposit. They are not 'artefacts' excluded from the Buddhist definition of 'relics'. Stupas attract generations/cumulative offerings. They are devotional offerings, respectfully deposited. No case can be made that the ones that were found at an allegedly post-Mauryan level of circa 250 BC at a depth of 18 feet are less valuable than the ones found even deeper at a pre- or early-Mauryan level of circa 450 BC.
Spiritual merit has invariably trumped archaeological significance and the intention of historical edification via a museum. The Neoliberal turn has been accompanied by an even greater mediatised rise of religion in the public space. Scientific secularism that may once have guided museums has been recalibrated in an age when history is frequently deployed in the service of religion. By putting them up for sale now are we taking a stance to govern them only as artefacts?
The relics from Piprahwa were never meant to be seen, yet they are art historically informed, invaluable exemplars of the aesthetics of that age. In 1952 India was unable to treat them solely as artefacts in museums, because of which art historians had to curate them alongside priests who supervised access to them. We have another set of relics in the National Museum in Delhi. For years monks and pilgrims have sat chanting in the gallery, per a timetable maintained by the Museum's staff. Elsewhere in the same museum, the CISF guards are accustomed to various visitors removing their shoes outside the gallery of bronzes – the devout will not wear shoes before God, the urbane find sculptures to match their mood and outfit to post on Instagram. One seeks aesthetic pleasure while the other is guided by religiosity; we have a long history of serving both constituencies. Seeking to sell Bhagwan Buddha's relics in the bazaar however has raised several questions of ethics in archaeology, the role of the market, on the politics of museum narratives around sacred remains, on issues around repatriation and the commodification of peace (and violence). It poses critical questions on whether the law can keep pace with these ethics and how the museum can be transformed to fulfil dual intentions of religious and scientific edification.
Upholding the precedent for repatriation is relevant here so that future revelations of sacred relics extracted from India under the auspices of colonialism cannot be turned into instruments of private profit for the descendants of colonial civil servants and other functionaries. Once relics are turned into a commodity, many missing, pilfered and other previously sold relics will appear on the market and India will have lost grounds to prevent their sale.
Legend has it wars were waged for ownership of Buddha's relics in antiquity too. Their possession was regarded as talismanic, even if the pacifism of his dhamma was not adhered to. By putting them up for auction, the sellers who call themselves 'custodians' have made clear that they have no interest in fulfilling that role anymore. Custodianship has to pass on, and since it is not ethically possible to put a price on Buddha, Sotheby's has agreed that they will 'postpone' their sale of the body of the Buddha. By what administrative procedures will custodianship be now transferred? And to whom?
Since the excavation, no report has reliably listed an exact count of the relics that were found by Peppé. What the family was not allowed to keep was divided by the State: some were gifted to Buddhist monarchs, and some deposited in the Indian museum, Kolkata. Some reports claimed only 1100+ items were recovered, others claimed there were well over 1600. Still more were found deeper underground in excavations renewed by the ASI between 1971-73. What, you may well ask, does India do with all these important finds? The ones repatriated in 1952 were divided between the Maha Bodhi Society who interred them in a new stupa at the original site of Sanchi, and one set was given to the National Museum. Just as visitors pray to the ones at the National Museum, the Ministry of Culture and the International Buddhist Confederation also send relics out to many Buddhist nations in special aircraft of the Air Force as befits the protocol for a head of state. One set of relics, in fact, is currently on loan to Vietnam. India also has a dedicated Joint Secretary to look after such Buddhist affairs.
Not all things taken from India need to be repatriated. I have argued previously about the very special circumstances when exigencies in the land from which objects come may necessitate their relocation. However, there are circumstances when the facilities afforded the object abroad or even the needs of communities abroad are outweighed by the claim of the land/site and people from which an object comes. The Piprahwa relics are such a case in point.
That said, there is much to be done to improve the research and display of Buddhist archaeology in India for improving tourism and pilgrimage from all of East and Southeast Asia, updating curricula on Buddhist culture, the scientific studies of archaeological artefacts – their dating, comparative gemmology, conservation and display – all leave much to be desired in India.
The story of how the Piprahwa relics have been mobilised by the Peppé family in these directions is instructive. The story of these relics serves as an immediate lesson on the importance of collections research, the accessibility of that research for curatorial administration, the importance of a dynamic administration of loaning collections to maintain their conservation status and research, and in turn maintaining a relevant history and narrative for these museums. This is timely as India has gone on record to say that it is embarking on building the world's largest museum and significantly improving its museum sector. Decolonisation is a buzzword these days and it is imperative to highlight that 'Pīparhwā' has been regrettably misspelt and mispronounced since colonial times as Piprahwa. Until the investments enabled by the agencies of colonialism are not taken over by India perhaps we should retain its nomenclature.
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Views expressed above are the author's own.
