Shreevatsa Nevatia

4 days ago | frontline.thehindu.com | C.S. Venkiteswaran |Vaishna Roy |Shreevatsa Nevatia

In 1898, William Claxton Peppé, a colonial landowner, ordered the excavation of a stupa on his estate in Piprahwa, a village in present-day Uttar Pradesh. His team unearthed five reliquaries that had in them bone fragments, ash, and gemstones, one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in Buddhist history. Inscribed in early Brahmi script, an urn identified the depositors as members of the Buddha’s own Shakya clan, who had enshrined here the relics of the Buddha.