The jewels are delicate, some only millimeters in length, arranged in intricate patterns of circles and lines. The tasks of British-Cupia India in 1898, the jewels were discovered along with bone and ashes, which is said to be the remains of Buddha. The collection is perhaps one of the most sacred relics of contemporary religion.
Now, it is on sale, lighting a legal battle between the government of India and Sotheby’s, the International Auction House will sell religious treasures in an auction. The artifacts are sold on behalf of the English descendants of the explorer who unearthed them more than 120 years ago.
On Monday, the Ministry of Culture of India issued a legal order, saying that relics should be returned to India for “religious preservation and veneration.” Initialic of Sotheby Delicó the sale, but then announced that postponing the auction, originally scheduled to take place on Wednesday in Hong Kong. “This will allow discussions between the parties,” he said in a statement.
The sale goes to the heart of an awkward question that has discarded post -imperial nations: how should invaluated relics be handled by generations of territories that are once occupied?
“We are in this movement that a long time ago, to rethink the state of culturally significant works of art,” said Ashley Thompson, an art professor from Southeast Asia at University of London. “Who do they belong to? What are they worth? Can they be consulted as products?”
A large number of countries have fought with such questions in recent years. Some US institutions have slowly begun relics to indigenous tribes. Dutch museums have returned colonial-bearers to countries like Nigeria and Sri Lanka. In all of Britain, the museums have been repatient the looted artifacts, including some related to the traditions of Buddhist burial.
But jewels related to Buddha for sale this week, known as Piprahwa gems, have their own unique complications. They are not heroes by a museum or state, but William Kaxton Peppé’s family, the English explorer who excavated the sacred cemetery in 1898.
This discrepancy presents an ethical enigma, said Naman Ahuja, professor of art history at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, who studies the administration and replacement of the museum.
“Observing the ethics of the situation and the public feeling, the British state did the right thing and returned relics in 1952,” said Ahuja, referring to other repatriatic Buddhist articles that England returned. “But the people who occupied a colonial position were not responsible for the hero.”
According to a description of the jewels on the Sotheby’s website, Mr. Peppé discovered the artifacts while excavating land in Piprahwa, a town in northern India. Discovered of a sacred cemetery known as a stupa, the collection was found with bone and ashes remains a long consulting to be those of Buddha, which was believed to be buried in the area.
At that time, Mr. Peppé fulfilled much of his finding to the British state, donating other parts to academics and museums, including the Indian museum in Kolkata. But he was allowed to maintain some of the relics, which have been transmitted during generations in his family.
Chris Peppé, one of the three descendants who now possess the relics, told the BBC that the family had explored to donate the collection to several Buddhist interested parties, but to do so would have presented un specified problems. The auction was the “fairer and transparent way to transfer thesis relics to the Buddhists,” Peppé said.
In his order that requires the sale, which was published on Instagram, the Ministry of Culture of India maintains that Buddhist relics must be returned to the Indian government instead of being auctioned. The Peppé family said, “it lacks the authority to sell these objects.”
Tiffany May Hong Kong contributed reports.
