From Stupa to Sotheby’s Auction – Crisis of India’s Archaeological Sovereignty

“Until the Lion learns to write, every story will always glorify the hunter.”

~ African Proverb

 Forgotten Embers of Ancient Indian Civilization

As a tourist guide at the National Museum in New Delhi, I often found myself drawn to one quiet corner of the gallery—the glass shrine holding the sacred relics of the Buddha. I spent countless hours there, recounting the story of these ancient fragments to visitors from around the world. Over time, it felt less like a job and more like a pilgrimage—I felt as though I had time-travelled to 500 BCE, standing not in a museum but in the presence of the Enlightened One himself. I watched Buddhist pilgrims from distant lands step into the gallery barefoot, some silently weeping, others whispering prayers with folded hands. In those moments, I felt a quiet discomfort at standing there in shoes. Slowly, reverence overcame routine—I began to remove my shoes too, not out of obligation, but out of a deeply personal recognition that I was standing before something of immense national and spiritual importance. These relics were not just ancient bones—they were fragments of India’s soul, carried through centuries of faith, fire, and silence.

These relics—excavated from Piprahwa in Uttar Pradesh, long identified as ancient Kapilavastu—belong to Siddhartha Gautama, the Enlightened One. Born to King Suddhodhana and Queen Mayadevi around 563 BCE, he renounced royalty, attained enlightenment beneath the Bodhi tree, and spent four decades walking barefoot across Bharat, preaching the Dharma and building the Sangha. When he died at 80 in Kushinagar, the Mallas of that town cremated him with the honours of a Universal Monarch. But the relics nearly triggered war. To prevent bloodshed, a Brahmin diplomat named Drona brokered a radical peace: the relics would be divided among eight kingdoms, from Magadha and Vaishali to Kapilavastu and Ramagrama. These fragments became the first stupas—embodied Dharma, not just empty tombs.

Centuries later, Emperor Ashoka opened many of these stupas and redistributed the relics into 84,000 more stupas across India. He understood whoever holds the relics holds the memory—and whoever controls memory, controls the future.

A Colonial Extraction Disguised as Excavation

In 1898, British engineer William Claxton Peppé, with no archaeological training, unearthed a stupa at Piprahwa containing a steatite casket inscribed in Brahmi script, which translated to: “This noble deed of depositing the Buddha’s relics was carried out by the brothers, sisters, and children of the Sakyas.”

Some relics were handed to the King of Siam (Thailand), others sent to Calcutta. Yet a significant portion was quietly retained by Peppé himself—relics that should have remained sacrosanct were instead pocketed, privatized, and stashed in imperial estates in England.

What followed was not archaeology. It was loot—colonial plunder dressed in khaki and crowned with academic arrogance.

After India gained independence, further excavations by the Archaeological Survey of India (1971–77) uncovered two more relic caskets with 22 bone relics and over 40 terracotta sealings from the 1st–2nd centuries CE bearing inscriptions such as “Maha Kapilavastu Bhikshu Sanghasa.” These confirmed Piprahwa as ancient Kapilavastu.  Today, 20 relic fragments are preserved at the National Museum, and two are at the Indian Museum, Kolkata—silent witnesses to a civilization of profound devotion.

The rest? They vanished into private hands, behind velvet curtains, under glass domes in drawing rooms that will never echo with prayer.

From Stupa to Sotheby’s: The Global Auction of India’s Sacred Past

On May 5, 2025, the Ministry of Culture of the Government of India issued a legal notice to Sotheby’s and Mr. Chris Peppé, demanding the immediate halt of the auction titled “The Piprahwa Gems of the Historical Buddha, Mauryan Empire, Ashokan Era, circa 240–200 BCE” scheduled for May 7 in Hong Kong. India also called for the unconditional repatriation of the sacred relics—gems interred alongside the remains of the Buddha—back to Indian soil. This move, while legally sound, also underscores a broader and more pressing concern: the long-standing colonial appropriation of Indian history and the continuing erosion of India’s intellectual and archaeological sovereignty.

Sotheby’s—the first recipient of the legal notice—is not merely a neutral player in the global antiquities market. It is a colonial remnant of Pax Britannica, whose practices have often involved auctioning items stripped from colonized nations under questionable legality. From illegally auctioning artifacts looted during civil unrest in Cambodia to proposing sales of sacred Nigerian Benin masks, Sotheby’s has built a legacy of commodifying cultural trauma. Even in 1997, the auction house was caught attempting to smuggle antiquities from India and Italy, underscoring a persistent disregard for ethical provenance.

The second recipient of the legal notice, Mr. Chris Peppé, claims to be a “generational custodian” of the Piprahwa gems—an assertion both historically inaccurate and morally bankrupt. His ancestor, Mr. William Claxton Peppé, a British colonial engineer, excavated the Piprahwa Stupa in 1898 in what is now Uttar Pradesh. Without archaeological training, he removed sacred gems and relics associated with Lord Buddha. Although some relics were gifted to the King of Siam and others housed in Calcutta’s Indian Museum, the British government allowed Mr. Peppé to retain a significant portion of the artifacts. These sacred items have since languished in private European hands—unseen, unvenerated, and desacralized.

The colonial mentality that allows such relics to be treated as private heirlooms and auction commodities is not just an insult to India’s spiritual heritage—it is a crisis of national identity. For over a century, the West has dictated what counts as Indian history, who can study it, and who profits from it.

The Illusion of Equal Partnership in Archaeology

Compounding this crisis is a dangerous trend within Indian archaeology: the uncritical embrace of foreign collaborations. These partnerships, far from being genuine academic exchanges, often result in intellectual dependency. The foreign partner provides funding, designs research strategies, and ultimately writes the reports. The Indian partner, more often than not, becomes a glorified facilitator, responsible only for securing government permissions and logistical support.

Indian Universities have leaned heavily into these collaborations, incentivized by policies that value foreign publications and international conference invites more than substantive contributions to Indian scholarship. Ph.D. dissertations emerging from such efforts are often drafted by the foreign institution’s students, reinforcing the idea that Indian archaeological knowledge is valid only when filtered through Western academic gatekeepers.

Entire generations of Indian scholars are told their work matters only when validated by a Western peer-reviewed journal. This is not partnership. It is intellectual dependency masquerading as globalization. When the site of Rakhigarhi—potentially one of the oldest urban centers in the world—was partially handed to a foreign-funded excavation, it exposed a dangerous truth: even in the 21st century, the story of India’s origins is written in someone else’s hand.

This phenomenon has broader implications. As the global heritage market grows increasingly commercialized, and as foreign academic institutions continue to dominate narratives of ancient India, national security is no longer merely about borders—it is also about who controls the past.

The Politics of Manipulating the  Past

History, especially archaeology, is not value neutral. In fields as interpretative as archaeology—where conclusions often rely on predispositions rather than definitive proof—the researcher’s ideological lens matters profoundly. For example, during the mid-20th century, the introduction of iron in India was widely attributed to West Asian influence. Only later did Indian scholars challenge this, suggesting that India had its own robust metallurgical tradition. But such corrections are rare and often drowned out by dominant foreign narratives.

The idea that the Indus Valley Civilization was a local expression of the broader West and Central Asian civilizational stream is just one example of how archaeological interpretations are weaponized to dilute India’s cultural autonomy. Western-led excavations at major sites like Dholavira, Kalibangan, Rakhigarhi, Lothal etc.—backed by foreign funds such as the Global Heritage Fund—demonstrate how India’s most foundational civilizational symbols are still vulnerable to external reinterpretation and control.

These aren’t just academic debates—they are ideological battlefields. For many Indian archaeologists, the Indus civilization is a cornerstone of Indian cultural continuity and possibly connected to Vedic traditions. But this view is often dismissed or attacked in international circles, which prefer frameworks that diminish India’s civilizational originality.

When the Archaeological Survey of India unearthed copper-plated chariots and warrior burials at Sinauli in 2018, it didn’t just disturb the soil—it disturbed the global academic order. The find, dated to 2000 BCE, threatened to rewrite long-standing colonial narratives that claimed India’s civilizational maturity arrived only with invading Aryans. Instead of celebration, the excavation drew fierce criticism from sections of Western academia—not because the data was flawed, but because it was inconvenient. The fact that this excavation was led entirely by Indian archaeologists made it doubly uncomfortable. For once, the lens wasn’t foreign. And that, more than the copper swords or funeral carts, became the real provocation. In Sinauli, India didn’t just find its warriors—it found its voice.

Even linguistic studies in prehistoric archaeology are being shaped by foreign interests. Fictional language affinities and exaggerated regional claims, often supported by foreign funding, risk inflaming chauvinistic sentiments and further fragmenting national unity.

 Spiritual Desecration and Cultural Vandalism

The Piprahwa gems are not ornamental curiosities; they are sacred relics intimately tied to the corporeal remains of the Buddha. As archaeologist Rhys Davids noted, the steatite casket inscription clearly indicates these were meant for perpetual veneration. The gems were deposited alongside Buddha’s ashes, not as decorative accompaniments, but as sanctified offerings.

To sever them from their context and sell them to the highest bidder is not just unethical—it is sacrilegious. It perpetuates colonial violence by treating sacred relics as marketable commodities. This desecration is cloaked in the language of “art history” and “custodianship,” but in reality, it reflects a brutal commodification of a spiritual tradition that spans centuries and continents.

As Venerable Dr. Yon Seng Yeath, abbot of Wat Unnalom, has said, this auction “disrespects a global spiritual tradition and ignores the growing consensus that sacred heritage should belong to the communities that value it most.” This consensus is now growing not just in Asia but across the Global South, where nations are asserting their rights to reclaim what was stolen under the guise of empire, science, or civilization.

Reclaiming India’s Civilizational Confidence

India cannot afford to treat its past as a playground for foreign researchers and profiteers. The sanctity of our heritage, the narrative of our civilization, and the security of our historical identity must be shielded not only through legal notices but through a complete overhaul of our intellectual posture.

The Indian government’s intervention in halting the Piprahwa auction is commendable, but it should only be the beginning. We must end the academic subservience that idolizes Western institutions while marginalizing homegrown scholars. Archaeological policy must be realigned to prioritize national interest, cultural continuity, and civilizational pride over prestige collaborations and foreign validation.

The real question is not about a handful of gems. The real question is: Who owns the story of India? And until we reclaim that authorship, we will remain archaeologists not of our past, but of our own dispossession.