Place · relic stupa · India
Piprahwa
The stupa site in Siddharth Nagar district, Uttar Pradesh, 15 kilometres south of Lumbini, where in 1898 the British estate manager W.C. Peppé opened a brick stupa and found a soapstone casket inscribed 'the relics of the Buddha, of the Shakya clan.' The Brahmi inscription identifying the Shakyas is the strongest material evidence for the eight-way division of the Buddha's relics described in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta. The relics went to the Siamese royal house in 1898 under British diplomatic transfer; some are now at the Indian Museum, Kolkata. Piprahwa is one strand in the long argument over the location of Kapilavastu.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Tradition
- Piprahwa relic casket inscription
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 27.440, 83.130
Connections (1)
- Relic distributed toKushinagar
Piprahwa yielded an inscribed relic casket naming the Śākyas' own deposit — the strongest material evidence anywhere for the eightfold division of the ashes the texts describe. A story about eight claimants at Kushinagar turns out to leave archaeological traces. The casket was opened by a landowner digging on his own estate in 1898, and its contents were divided between the Indian Museum and the King of Siam, which is where most of them still are.
Sources
Piprahwa excavations; relic casket inscription
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