PHNOM PENH — Following the protests expressed by the Buddhist authorities of several countries, India’s Ministry of Culture on May 5 served a legal notice on the Sotheby’s auction house to prevent relics found in India more than a century ago and believed directly linked to the Buddha to be auctioned in Hong Kong.

As the ministry stated in its press release, “[t]hese relics, excavated from the Piprahwa Stupa—widely recognized as the ancient city of Kapilavastu, the birthplace of Lord Buddha—hold immense historical and spiritual significance.”

According to an article in the Indian Express newspaper on May 6, the auction house had responded that it would take “adequate measures to prevent the auction of sacred Buddhist relics” scheduled for May 7. A notice has since been posted at Sotheby’s website that the auction of the “Piprahwa Gems of the Historical Buddha” has been postponed.

The announcement of the sale had prompted protests among the Buddhist community in several countries.

“The proposed sale of the Buddha’s relics is appalling, a disgrace to all faithful communities around the world, no matter what faith one has or whether one belongs to none,” said Venerable Mahinda Deegalle, a scholar and writer who teaches at Bath Spa University in Great Britain. “The relics are objects of pious devotion and veneration; they should not be commodified for selfish interests and money-making.”

According to Yon Seng Yeath, chancellor of the Preah Sihanouk Raja Buddhist University and head of Phnom Penh’s Wat Ounalom, “[s]elling Buddha’s relics isn’t just a legal or commercial issue: It’s a moral failure. It disrespects a global spiritual tradition and ignores the growing consensus that sacred heritage should belong to the communities that value it most.

“As the world reckons with historical injustices, such sales highlight the urgent need for ethical stewardship of cultural and religious heritage,” he said on April 30. “For Buddhists, relics are not historical curiosities but living connections to the Buddha. The sale can cause emotional distress, seen as a betrayal of the Buddha’s teachings on compassion and non-materialism.”

Yon Seng Yeath, who is also vice-president of the Monastic Secretariat of Sangha Council of Cambodia, added that “the relics should remain in sacred spaces for veneration, not for auction: I strongly condemn and oppose such an unethical action.”

The controversy involves small gold and stone artifacts discovered where the remains of the Buddha are believed to have eventually been deposited after his body was cremated following his death in 280 BC.

In January 1898, British engineer William Claxton Peppé made a discovery on his land in northern India, and handled what he had found more honestly than some Westerners of the time who might never have reported their discoveries.

Peppé’s find is believed to have taken place in present-day Uttar Pradesh in India where a funerary monument, or stupa, had been built around 240-to-200 BC and the Buddha’s remains deposited. He discovered at the site amethysts, coral, garnets, pearls, rock crystals, shells and gold, either worked into pendants, beads, and other ornaments, or left in their natural form. The gems were originally buried in the stupa and had mixed with some of the cremated remains of the Buddha.

After his discovery, the British authorities—India was under British rule at the time—allowed Peppé to keep a portion of his find, which is what his descendants have been hoping to sell in an auction at Sotheby’s on May 7, having enabled several museums to display them over the years.

“One question that arises is whether the Buddha's relics can be sold or auctioned,” said Phra Paisal Visalo, a Thai Buddhist monk, author and abbot of Wat Pasukato pagoda in Thailand’s Chaiyaphum province. “Some people see this as a normal occurrence because, in today's world, almost everything is treated as a commodity.

“[E]ven in a fully capitalist society, there are boundaries defining what can and cannot be sold or auctioned,” Phra Paisal said. “These relics are of great significance, as it is believed that the relics in the stupa at Piprahwa are those received by the Sakya clan after the division of the Buddha's remains into eight parts following his cremation. For this reason, auctioning the Buddha's relics is highly inappropriate, and companies like Sotheby’s should not auction such items.”

Venerable Bour Kry, supreme patriarch of the Thammayut order of Cambodia, said on May 6 that, to the best of his knowledge, relics have never been sold before, and doing so now is unethical and not right. Still, he added, if those selling them are the legal owners of these objects, they legally have the right to do so.  

Venerable Pin Sem, supreme councilor, member of the National Buddhism in the Kingdom of Cambodia and chief monk of Reach Bo pagoda, noted on May 6 that, since the owners of these objects—provided that they have legal rights on them—are not Buddhist, it might be hard to impose Buddhist views on them.

According to Ashley Thompson—professor at the Department of History of Art and Archaeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOSA) of the University of London in Great Britain who spent about 10 years conducting research in Cambodia—having these artifacts auctioned, she wrote in a message, “is a tragic perpetuation of colonial violence that grave goods from a stupa founded by the Sakya clan to hold the relics of the Buddha himself are being sold to the highest bidder on the international art market.

“Why not seize this magnificent opportunity to turn the colonial tide in eschewing financial gain—and avoiding karmic retribution—by reuniting the ‘gem relics’ free of cost with the relics of bones and ash with which they were found and which are now found, in good Buddhist fashion, enshrined in sites of worship across the world,” she wrote. 

“The actions taken by the Indian government participate in a long overdue movement of our times to rethink the status of culturally significant artworks and tangible heritage: who should they belong to? What are they worth,” Thompson wrote. “Can they even be considered to be commodities like any others?...I can’t say to whom the relics properly belong, particularly since they represent a challenge to the institution of personal property itself.

“But if anything can be said to belong to all of humanity it must be these relics [linked to the Buddha], and so it would only be fitting for them to find a home that reflects this fact,” Thompson said.

Ashley Thompson and Reaksmey Yean—adjunct lecturer of art and world history at National University of Management International College—contributed to the story.