Piprahwa relics are welcome back in India. But it may alter the architecture of restitution – India invoked their return as a right, but the relics returned as part of a private collection on loan to govt
The Buddha relics, on view in Ladakh now, are home in India exactly a year after they surfaced, set to go under the hammer, from a private collection. In 1898, William Claxton Peppé, a British estate manager in colonial India, excavated a large stupa at Piprahwa in what’s now UP, near India-Nepal border. Inside a sandstone coffer were reliquary caskets containing bone fragments believed to be those of the historical Buddha, along with hundreds of gemstones, crystal and soapstone vessels, and gold ornaments.