Almost 2,000 years ago in modern-day Uttar Pradesh, India, someone deposited a cache of gems inside a reliquary (a container for holy relics), along with some bone fragments and ash. The gems were precious, but the bones and ash even more so, for according to an inscription on the reliquary, they belonged to Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha.
The Piprahwa gems were placed along with the Buddha’s bodily relics (śarīra) as an offering inside a stūpa (A Buddhist funerary structure that contains relics and acts as a place of pilgrimage). Such an offering is not only supposed to generate “merit” (puṇya) and hopefully a good rebirth for the devotee, but is also an act of devotion and gratitude to the Buddha.
In 1898, a British land owner, William Claxton Peppé, ordered the excavation of that same stūpa on his land in colonial India and discovered the reliquary. The bodily relics were sent to the Buddhist king of Thailand, many of the gems went to the former Imperial Museum in Calcutta and Peppé was permitted to keep the rest.
