Artwork historian Naman Ahuja on the repatriation of the Piprahwa Buddha relics
Within the spring of 1897, William Claxton Peppé, an property supervisor, ordered the excavation of a stupa in Piprahwa, a village in modern-day Uttar Pradesh. Piprahwa is extensively believed to be the location of historical Kapilavastu, the historic seat of the Buddha’s household clan, the Shakyas. Peppé’s group unearthed bone fragments, soapstone and crystal caskets, a sandstone…