Authenticity and Scholarship

The case for the Kapilavastu Relics is stronger, on archaeological grounds, than for many relic claims, because they were recovered in a controlled modern excavation with recorded stratigraphy rather than found loose or handed down without provenance. The inscribed caskets, the Mauryan-period context, and their position beneath the 1898 deposit are taken by supporters as evidence that Piprahwa was a genuine, early relic stupa of the Sakyas and that these bones belong to the deposit the tradition ascribes to the Buddha.

Scholarly caution attaches, as always, to the final step. That the caskets are ancient, inscribed and Mauryan is well founded; that the charred bone within them is physically that of Gautama Buddha cannot be established by any test and rests on the inscriptions and on the continuity of the tradition of relic division recorded in early Buddhist texts. The reading of the inscriptions, and the relationship between the deeper Srivastava caskets and the upper 1898 deposit, have both been discussed in the literature. The considered position is that the relics are authentic Mauryan-period Buddhist relics from a primary Sakya stupa, while their identity as the corporeal remains of the historical Buddha is a matter of faith, so the artifact is recorded here as debated.