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Jewels linked to Buddha remains go to auction, sparking ethical debate
The jewels comprise nearly 1,800 pearls, rubies, sapphires, and patterned gold sheets
On Wednesday, a cache of dazzling jewels linked to the Buddha’s mortal remains, which have been hailed as one of the most astonishing archaeological finds of the modern era, will go under the hammer at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong.
For over a century these relics, unearthed from a dusty mound in northern India in 1898, have sat largely unseen, cradled by a private British collection.
Now, as the gems prepare to leave the custody of their keepers, they are stirring not just collectors’ appetites but also some unease.
They come from a glittering hoard of nearly 1,800 pearls, rubies, topaz, sapphires, and patterned gold sheets, first glimpsed deep inside a brick chamber in present-day Uttar Pradesh in India, near the Buddha’s birthplace.
Their discovery – alongside bone fragments identified by an inscribed urn as belonging to the Buddha himself – reverberated through the world of archaeology. Nicolas Chow, chairman of Sotheby’s Asia and worldwide head of Asian Art, believes this is “among the most extraordinary archaeological discoveries of all time”.
Yet as these relics now face the glare of the auction room, experts tell the BBC that a question hangs heavy: can the sale of treasures so intimately woven into India’s sacred past be considered ethical?
William Claxton Peppé, an English estate manager, excavated the stupa and found the jewels
In 1898, William Claxton Peppé, an English estate manager, excavated a stupa at Piprahwa, just south of Lumbini, where the Buddha is believed to have been born. He uncovered relics inscribed and consecrated nearly 2,000 years ago.
Historians agree these relics, intact until then, are the heritage of both the Buddha’s Sakya clan descendants and Buddhists worldwide. The bone relics have since been distributed to countries such as Thailand, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, where they continue to be venerated.
“Are the relics of the Buddha a commodity that can be treated like a work of art to be sold on the market?” wonders Naman Ahuja, a Delhi-based art historian. “And since they aren’t, how is the seller ethically authorised to auction them?
“Since the seller is termed the ‘custodian’, I would like to ask – custodian on whose behalf? Does custodianship permit them now to sell these relics?”
Chris Peppé, great-grandson of William, told the BBC the family looked into donating the relics, but all options presented problems and an auction seemed the “fairest and most transparent way to transfer these relics to Buddhists”.
Julian King, Sotheby’s international specialist and head of sale, Himalayan Art, New York told the BBC the auction house had made a thorough review of the jewels.
“As is the case with any important items and collectibles that are offered for sale at Sotheby’s, we conducted requisite due diligence, including in relation to authenticity and provenance, legality and other considerations in line with our policies and industry standards for artworks and treasures,” King said.
Ashley Thompson, of Soas University of London, and curator Conan Cheong, both experts in Southeast Asian art, have more questions. In a joint statement they told the BBC: “Other ethical questions raised by the sale are: should human remains be traded? And who gets to decide what are human remains or not? For many Buddhist practitioners around the world, the gems on sale are part and parcel of the bones and ash.”
The sale of the relics has also sparked concern among Buddhist leaders.
“The Buddha teaches us not to take other people’s possessions without permission,” Amal Abeyawardene of London-based British MahaBodhi Society, told the BBC. “Historical records indicate that the Sakyamuni clan were granted custody of these relics, as the Buddha emanated from their community. Their wish was for these relics to be preserved alongside adornments, such as these gems, so that they may be venerated in perpetuity by the Buddha’s followers.”
The jewels were unearthed from this stupa in Piprahwa, northern India in 1898
Chris Peppé has written that the jewels passed from his great-uncle to his cousin, and in 2013 came to him and two other cousins. That’s when he began researching their discovery by his great-grandfather.
The Los Angeles-based television director and film editor wrote he had found 1898 newspaper reports – from Reuters to the New York Tribune – announcing the find of Buddha’s remains.
“The colonisation of India by the British had been a source of some cultural shame for me [and continues to be] but, amidst the treasure hunters who hauled their finds back to England, there had also been people focused on the pursuit of knowledge,” Chris Peppé writes.
He noted his research revealed a lot about his ancestors who he had dismissed as “prejudiced Victorians from a bygone era”.
“I learned that Willie Peppé’s first wife chose to travel around India for her honeymoon and loved the country and its culture. Sadly, she died from an unspecified illness. I learned that my grandmother was outraged at the land laws that applied to Indian women.
“And I learned that the excavation of the stupa was an attempt by Willie Peppé to provide work for his tenant farmers who had fallen victim to the famine of 1897.”
The jewels are considered among the most extraordinary archaeological finds of all time
He writes his great-grandfather’s “technical diagrams of ramps and pulleys suggest that he was also a trained engineer who couldn’t resist a project”.
William Peppé handed the gems, relics and reliquaries to the colonial Indian government: the bone relics went to the Buddhist King of Siam (Rama V). Five relic urns, a stone chest and most other relics were sent to the Indian Museum in Kolkata – then the Imperial Museum of Calcutta.
Only a small “portion of duplicates”, which he was allowed to keep, remained in the Peppé family, he notes. (Sotheby’s notes say Peppé was allowed to keep approximately one-fifth of the discovery.)
Sources told the BBC the auction house considers the “duplicates” to be original items considered surplus to those donated, which the “Indian government permitted Peppé to retain”.
Over the past six years years, the gems have featured in major exhibitions, including one at The Met in 2023. The Peppé family has also launched a website to “share our research”.
Four containers made of steatite (a type of stone) and one made of rock crystal were found inside a sandstone box at the Piprahwa stupa
Some scholars argue Buddha relics should never be treated as market commodities.
“The Sotheby’s auction transforms these highly sacred materials into saleable objects, in continuation of acts of colonial violence which extracted them from a stupa and called them ‘gems’ and ‘objects of interest to Europeans’, creating a false division with the ash and bone fragments they were consecrated with,” say Thompson and Cheong.
Chris Peppé told the BBC that in all the monasteries he had visited “no Buddhists regard these as corporeal relics”.
“A few Buddhist academics at western universities have recently offered a convoluted, fact-defying logic whereby they may be regarded as such. It’s an academic construct that is not shared by Buddhists in general who are familiar with the details of the find,” he said.
Peppé said the family “looked into donation [of the relics] to temples and museums and they all presented different problems on closer scrutiny”.
“An auction seems the fairest and most transparent way to transfer these relics to Buddhists and we are confident that Sotheby’s will achieve that.”
Some also point to The Koh-i-Noor, seized by the British East India Company and now part of the Crown Jewels, with many Indians viewing it as stolen. Should the Buddha’s jewels be next?
“Repatriation, I believe, is seldom necessary,” says Ahuja. “Such rare and sacred relics that are unique and which define a land’s cultural history, however, deserve the government’s exceptional attention.”
– Soutik Biswas
(India correspondent – BBC News)
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Cash, tinned food and radio news: Making it through one of Europe’s biggest ever power cuts
People use candles in the streets of the city Ourense in north-western Spain
The power is out and nothing is working. How am I supposed to get through the day?
That was the question faced by millions of people on Monday across Spain and Portugal during the worst electricity blackout in their history.
We ask people who spent the day without electricity about what helped them get on with life and what outage essentials they were missing.
Cash
People form a queue at a cash point in Madrid
Paying with phone and card has become the norm, but in cities across Spain and Portugal, queues formed at cash machines – at least the ones that were still working – as shops switched away from card payments.
“We managed to pay for our coffees with card when the outage first started, [but later] we didn’t have any cash so we couldn’t buy a thing,” Ed Rowe, 26, in Madrid told the BBC.
“All the restaurants that were open were cash only.”
Grace O’Leary, 32, who also lives in Spain’s capital, said she and her mum were counting coins to see if she had enough money to buy wine from a corner shop.
“Cash, apparently, is in fact, king.”
Jaime Giorgio, 28, was lucky enough to have some cash on him, which allowed him to buy food and other essentials.
“In Madrid it was quite chaotic, there was no tube and you couldn’t take out any cash.
“I had cash, but my flatmate didn’t, so I had to lend him money to buy things.”
Radio
This windup radio allowed the Buschschluters to tune into radio station
The power cut also led to an information blackout, as people spent the day without internet, WhatsApp, calls, and TV.
“The complete loss of communication was the most confusing and concerning thing… we were only left to speculate as to the cause and piece together news from people in the neighbourhood,” said Daniel Clegg from Barcelona.
The 42-year-old said the absence of information led him to looking at the sky to see if planes were still flying.
For Siegfried and Christine Buschschluter, an old windup transistor radio helped tune in to local radio stations to find out what was happening after their phones stopped working and power went off at their rural home outside Spain’s capital.
Christine, 82, explained: “You had to keep on winding and winding.
“It was quite a strange situation. I was born in Berlin during the war and it reminded me of those days when my parents tried to get some news – it took me back.”
The couple reckon the outage will lead to boom in demand for battery-operated radios.
And it is also on Daniel’s shopping list. “Essential kit for back to basics communication and staying informed that I completely neglected to remember.”
Tinned food
Jaime Giorgio walked across Madrid to take essentials to his family
Microwaves, air fryers and some hobs and ovens all demand electricity.
But on Monday food that does not require electricity to heat or prepare it were in demand.
In supermarkets, shoppers formed long queues and panic-bought essentials – echoing scenes from the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We bought a lot of food that wasn’t going to go off, like tuna in cans, just in case,” says actor Jaime.
“The outage only lasted a day and now we have so much food, but most of it isn’t going to go bad, as it is easily preserved.”
Lesley Elder, in town Fortuna in south-eastern Spain, said: “Trying to find food you don’t need to heat up, that was more difficult than we thought.
“So we ended up having ham and cheese for dinner.”
She adds a little gas stove to heat up food in a pan would have been helpful.
Candles and torches
People turned to candles to light up their homes
Across the Iberian peninsula, people turned to candles to light up dark spaces.
Richard, who lives in the Spanish city of Alcala de Henares, said not a single street light was on when night fell.
“People were finding their way around by torchlight. It was quite surreal seeing the view from my window totally black especially as I live next to a dual carriageway,” he said.
“In my spare time, I make candles and luckily I had a few going spare so I could see in the dark.”
Sarah Baxter, from Barcelona, said she even used a candle stovetop to heat up food.
“We could heat beans and rice, and bring water to a boil for instant potatoes,” she said.
“It was much safer than a propane camping stove inside the apartment.”
Although candles and naked flames can pose a fire risk.
Powerbank
People queued outside shops selling power banks in Madrid
With no power people relied on having battery in their devices.
In Madrid, people queued outside tech shops to get their hands on a power bank.
Luckily for Sarah she had a solar charger that kept her phone charged through ten hours of blackout, and helped her elderly neighbour do the same.
Lesley says her Kindle ran out of battery. “No TV, no Scrabble puzzle on my phone. So having a couple of books would have been helpful,” she said.
Ed, sitting on his balcony during the blackout, enjoyed being away from his devices
But for others, not having access to the internet and their devices was a relief.
“Everyone relies on technology so much that it’s quite a nice reminder you can be more independent,” said Ed.
“You don’t have to be connected with everyone all the time,” said his flatmate Hannah Steiner, 23. “I was having a good time with my flatmates.”
Sara Francisco, 24, from Leiria, in central Portugal, said: “I feel this thing that happened was important to make us be more aware and be more conscious about our habits.”
– André Rhoden-Paul
(BBC News)
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Jewels linked to Buddha remains go to auction, sparking ethical debate
