A sense of the sacred permeates the cultural complex at Qila Rai Pithora in Delhi’s Lado Sarai. For the next five months, the formerly defunct gallery space is home to The Light and the Lotus: Relics of the Awakened One, curated by Savita Kumari of the Indian Institute of Heritage and Abira Bhattacharya of the National Museum. The historic exhibition brings together objects from various periods of South Asian art history, chief among which are the jewels and corporeal relics excavated from the stupa site of Piprahwa in Uttar Pradesh.

The Peppé connection

In 1897, colonial estate manager William Claxton Peppè excavated ‘a mound that was more prominent than the rest’ at Piprahwa, and found a large stone coffer with five caskets containing vast amounts of bone and ash, gold foils and carved gemstones. An inscription on one of the reliquaries established that these were likely the relics of the Buddha. They were later apportioned to several parties; the vast majority of the jewels went to the Indian Museum in Calcutta. Peppè was allowed to keep a fifth of his finds.

In the summer of 2025, Sotheby’s Hong Kong announced the auction of the Peppè family’s share. But after receiving backlash from Buddhists and cultural commentators worldwide, the auction was halted. A private-public partnership between the Government of India and the Godrej Industries Group has now brought the relics back to India.

Of gems and caskets

At the centre of the gallery, with scenography by Noida-based Design Factory India, stands a replica of an ancient stupa. Its carved niches, lit from within, display the gem relics and caskets. The circumambulatory path of the stupa has doorways to two larger galleries with objects from the Indian Museum, Kolkata, and the National Museum, Delhi.

Prof. Naman Ahuja, a noted curator and expert on Buddhist art, recounted the story of the Piprahwa relics and their importance at the recent Jaipur Literature Festival. The Magazine asked him which pieces are not to be missed in a visit to the exhibition.

Rock crystal casket

3rd Century BCE, Mauryan, Piprahwa, H. 11.5 Dia.10.3 cm (Indian Museum, Kolkata)

The casket is an example of the finest lapidary workmanship in rock crystal, one of the hardest known substances on earth. This reliquary is one of the most ancient ones known. The fish finial links it with megalithic/Iron-age burials, but its transparency indicates that the relics were meant to be seen [as much as their aura was meant to be sensed]. The fish has been filled with granulated gold, which has a dazzling effect.

Relic gems of Shakyamuni Buddha

3rd century BCE, Mauryan, Piprahwa (Indian Museum, Kolkata)

An array of spectacular gemstones was interred with cremation ash, bits of bone and offerings of rice in the caskets of Piprahwa. This collection shows access to quarries from many different parts of South Asia. Some gems have been carved into beads and talismans, some faceted, and some left cabochon [polished in their natural shapes]. While such gemstones are usually found in all sacred relic deposits, never has such a quantity or variety been found. While I have had the opportunity to study the Peppè collection on several occasions, when they were shown in museums abroad, this is the first time we can see the ones from the reserve collection of the Indian Museum.

Matrikas

2nd century CE, Kushana, excavated at Piprahwa/Ganwaria, Terracotta L. 21 cm, W. 9.8 cm (Piprahwa Archaeological Site Museum, Lucknow Circle)

If the gems interred by the royal Shakyas [the clan to which Siddhartha Gautama belonged] are examples of what is donated by those at one end of the economic spectrum, this object captures the wishes and hopes of those at the other end. Animal-headed matrikas were widely used as ex-voto [devotional] offerings in ancient Indian society. Their presence at multiple Buddhist monasteries shows they were also incorporated into Buddhist practices. They reveal how Buddhist monastic spaces admitted older fertility rituals at their sacred sites.

Worship of a stupa

2nd century BCE, Shunga, Bharhut, Madhya Pradesh, H. 33 cm, W. 39 cm, sandstone (National Museum, Delhi)

This relief is one of the oldest known scenes that shows a stupa in worship. Relics were interred in stupas and the woman leaving the scene here is beside a stupa on which devotees [like her] have left impressions made by their right palm. This ancient ritual practice seldom finds mention in any texts, yet lives on, particularly in women’s rituals. Touching the building that contained the relics was one way of being in contact with them. The object gives us evidence of one of the ways in which stupas were worshipped.

Walking Buddha by Elizabeth Brunner

Mid-20th century, painted reed mat, L. 141 cm, W. 194 cm (National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi)

I’d like to move from hands to feet here. The Buddha taught bhikshus to walk from place to place, spreading the dharma just as he had done. Just as the monks [of Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center] do even now as we watch them ‘Walk for Peace’ across the U.S. on social media these days. Using the common reed mat immortalises the modest objects of everyday life of itinerant monks as the very material of the painting. Many European artists have, over the years, been inspired by India. Elizabeth Sass-Brunner and her daughter Elizabeth Brunner came to India in 1930 from Hungary. Elizabeth [the daughter] lived in India, very much in the spirit of a frugal itinerant, and based herself at Santiniketan directly under the guidance of [artist] Nandalal Bose.

Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra

1350, Pala, Eastern India (National Museum, Delhi)

Like all manuscripts, this Pala manuscript also has two covers. One is Pala, typical of the painting style of Bengal. The other, an extraordinarily well-preserved book cover painted with the story of Vessantara Jataka [one of the jatakas of Theravada Buddhism], however, is in a different style — one that is associated with Nepal. Monks took ancient Indian manuscripts back with them to the countries they came from, which shows the layered history of objects. The perspective created by the dramatic rock formations shows continuities from Ajanta, and the quality of the pigment makes it among the best preserved paintings from Buddhist manuscripts anywhere in the world.

Mahaparinirvana

2nd century CE, Kushan, Loriyan Tangai (ancient Gandhara) Schist L. 70 cm, H. 41.3 cm (Indian Museum, Kolkata)

Key moments of the Buddha’s biography were fixed by the Kushan period. This relief holds great importance for students of art history — to see the quality of the depth of carving and the precise iconographies of the different people present in the lamentations at Buddha’s wake. The rectangular format is akin to a Roman sarcophagus, and the contrast between the two lamenters, the composed Subhadra and the dramatic Hercules-like Vajrapani, shows us that the Buddha’s passing was both a moment of peaceful acceptance of the shift in the soul’s status for some, as it was filled with grief for others.

The Light and the Lotus is on view at the Rai Pithora Cultural Complex, Lado Sarai, New Delhi.

With inputs from Malavika Madgulkar of The Marg, which is launching a volume on Buddhist relic culture with a special focus on Piprahwa.