To coincide with Mongolian Budhha Purnima festivities, four Holy Relics of Lord Buddha are being transported to Mongolia for an 11-day display. On Monday, a 25-member team led by Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju will accompany the relics on their journey to the Batsagaan Temple in the Gandan Monastery complex in Ulaanbaatar, where they will be displayed.
The four relics are among 22 Buddha relics on display at the National Museum in Delhi. They’re dubbed the ‘Kapilvastu Relics’ because they came from a site in Bihar that’s thought to be the ancient city of Kapilvastu. The site was discovered in 1898.
Buddha obtained salvation in Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar area at the age of 80, according to Buddhist traditions. His corpse was burned with rites befitting a worldwide ruler by the Mallas of Kushinagar. The Ajathsatrus of Magadha, the Licchavis of Vaishali, the Sakyas of Kapilavastu, Mallas of Kushinagar, Bullies of Allakappa, the Mallas of Pava, the Koliyas of Ramagrama, and a Brahmana of Vethadipa collected his relics from the funeral pyre and divided them into eight shares to be distributed among the Ajath The goal was to build stupas over precious treasures. Two further stupas appeared, one over the urn containing the relics and the other over the flames.
The earliest surviving Buddhist shrines are stupas built over Buddha’s corporeal relics (Saririka stupas). According to legend, Ashoka (272–232 BC), a devout Buddhist, opened seven of the eight stupas and collected the majority of the relics for enshrinement within the 84,000 stupas he erected in an effort to popularise Buddhism and the stupa cult.
The discovery of an engraved casket at the stupa site at Piprahwa (near Siddharthnagar, Uttar Pradesh) in 1898 helped to link the location to the ancient Kapilavastu. ‘Sukiti bhatinam sa-bhaginikanam sa-puta-dalanam iyam salila nidhare Bhaddhasa bhagavate sakiyanam,’ says the inscription on the casket’s lid, referring to Buddha’s relics and his Sakya society.
According to Ministry of Culture documents, this finding sparked a flurry of research. The Archaeological Survey of India excavated the stupa again in 1971-77, uncovering three phases of construction as well as two additional steatite relic caskets containing a total of 22 holy bone relics, which are currently in the custody of the National Museum.
This was followed by the discovery of more than 40 terracotta sealings from various levels and locations in Piprahwa’s eastern monastery, which read “Om Devaputra Vihare Kapilavastusa Bhikshu Sanghasa,” which means “community of Buddhist monks of Kapilavastu living in Devaputra Vihara,” and “Maha Kapilavastu Bhikshu Sanghasa” in Brahmi script dating from the first and second centuries.
The antiquities will be treated like a ‘state guest’ in Mongolia throughout the 11-day visit, and will be transported in the same temperature control case in which they have been maintained at the National Museum.
The Indian Air Force has sent a special plane for the visit, the C-17 GlobeMaster, which is one of India’s largest planes. The Indian group is transporting two bullet-proof casings as well as two ceremonial caskets for both treasures.
The Holy Relics were listed in the ‘AA’ category of Antiquities and Art Treasures in 2015, indicating that they should not be moved out of the nation for exhibition due to their fragile condition. However, at the request of the Mongolian government, the government has created an exception and allowed the Holy Relics to be shown in Mongolia.
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