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Timeline since 1898

1898  In August, the stone coffer, the five reliquary vases
and the majority of the jewels are given to the Indian
Museum in Kolkata, where they remain to this day. W. C.
Peppé is allowed to retain a number of duplicates from
the excavation. These have remained within the Peppé
family since 1898.

Newspapers including The Minneapolis Journal, The

Philadelphia Inquirer, The Baltimore Sun and The New
York Tribune run stories on the discovery.

1899  The relics from the Piprahwa stupa are handed

over to representatives of King Rama V of Thailand
Gorakhpur. They are then taken with great ceremony to
Bangkok where they are once again divided: two portions
are given to the Buddhist community of Myanmar and
three portions to Buddhists of Sri Lanka. The remainder of
the relics are enshrined in the Golden Mount pagoda in
Bangkok.

1900 W.C. Peppé retires from his position as Manager of

the Birdpur Estates. He returns to England with the jewels
where he has them mounted in three cases by Spink &
Son. in London.

T.W. Rhys Davids gives an illustrated lecture on the

Piprahwa find at the Royal Asiatic Society. W.C. Peppé
answers questions. . He also donates some of the
Piprahwa jewels to The Royal Asiatic Society. These are
eventually passed on to the Buddhist Society in London
after its founding in 1924. They lie in a box in a cabinet but
are 're-discovered' in 2003 as part of a routine inventory.

BOX OF JEWELS FROM PIPRAHWA STUPA

'GIVEN TO THE BUDDHIST SOCIETY. PICTURE
COURTESY OF CHARLES ALLEN.

1920 W. C. Peppé returns to India and once again

assumes responsibility for the running of the estates after
the death of the previous manager F. H. Warren.

1926 W.C. Peppé returns to England leaving E.

Mackenzie as manager and his son, Humphrey, as
assistant manager.  Humphrey becomes manager when
Mackenzie retires in 1931.
1937 W.C. Peppé dies. Humphrey asks his siblings for
permission to take the jewels back out to India for
exhibition purposes. They are shown to pilgrims and
visitng VIPs touring Lumbini and other Buddhist sites.

1947 The Indian Independence Act is passed in the

British Parliament. Proposals for Land Reform are
introduced including the abolition of the Zamindari system
ultimately resulting in the nationalisation of all estates
including Birdpur.

1951-52 The Zamindari system is finally abolished in Uttar

Pradesh. Humphrey Peppé hands over the family estates
to the government but stays on at Birpdpur to receive
compensation from the government. The Archaeological
Survey of India take ownership of Piprahwa.

The Dalai Lama & Panchen Lama stay at Birdpur and

view the jewels. 

1960 In January, the Dalai Lama, now in exile following

the Tibetan uprising against the Chinese, makes a second
visit to Birdpur. Humphrey Peppé brings the Piprahwa
jewels back to England. One of the cases has returned
broken from an exhibition. Its contents are put in a box
marked 'relics'. The other two cases are displayed at his
home in Buxted, Sussex.

1971 - 73 A team from the Archaeological Survey of India

led by K.M. Srivastava resume excavations at the site of
Piprahwa. Srivastava digs beneath what Peppé would
have considered to be ground level and discovers further
reliquary vases containing fragments of charred bone. 
1981 Humphrey Peppé dies. His wife Elfie passes away in
1991 and the Piprahwa collection is handed down to their
son, Neil.

2000 Over one hundred years after the discovery, the

suggestion that Dr. A.A. Führer may have tampered with
the Piprahwa find is made by a Buddhist history
enthusiast on the internet

2003 Historian Charles Allen views the collection for the

first time. He notes that the gems from the broken case
marked 'relics' are wrapped in cloth while some 'cruder'
stones are stored in a jar. Allen speculates that the cruder
pieces resemble items found in reliquary vases from the
Kushan period and that these may have originated from
the smashed vase that was unearthed by Peppé early on
in the excavation at a depth of around ten feet. 

The jewels that W.C. Peppé donated to the Royal Asiatic

Society are discovered by Paul Seto as part of a routine
inventory at the Buddhist Society in London.

2004 Charles Allen returns to Neil Peppé with Paul Seto

and a journalist from the Sunday Times. Vicki Mackenzie’s
article ‘Bones of the Buddha’ revives interest in the
Piprahwa discovery. A BBC documentary is discussed.

2006  Bricks used to build the stupa were made of rice

straw. A grain of rice taken from one of them during the
excavation is carbon dated to a range of 60-160AD, a
date consistent with the final phase of the building of the
stupa in the Kushan era following Ashoka.

Leading academics meet at Harewood House to discuss

the Piprahwa find (Controversy). There are only two
speakers at the conference who challenge the find’s
authenticity. However, letters kept by W. C. Peppé
documenting key aspects of the find are brought to light
for the first time . Their contents render the conspiracy
untenable.

2008 Historian Charles Allen publishes a detailed

account of the Piprahwa discovery, its historical and
religious significance and the discussions that followed.
'The Buddha and Dr. Führer: An archaeological scandal'
details the revelation that a government archaeologist, Dr.
A. A. Führer, was guilty of plagiarism and forgery. It
concludes that, as Führer arrived at Piprahwa six weeks
after the discovery was made, he could in no way have
contaminated it.

The letters kept by W. C. Peppé are donated to the Royal

Asiatic Society by Neil Peppé and made available to the
public at its Reading Room in London.

2011 Neil Peppé mounts the loose gems from the third
case into two new cases.

2013 The proposed BBC documentary resurfaces as

'Bones of the Buddha' and airs on the National
Geographic Channel on May 11th.  It adopts the dramatic
conceit of W. C. Peppé as a man unjustly doubted for over
a century because of Dr A.A.Fuhrer’s proximity to
Piprahwa. It also provides a detailed argument that the
Emperor Ashoka removed the Buddha’s remains from
their original burial sites before interring them in newly
built stupas as related in the Asokavadana.  World
renowned epigraphist Harry Falk studies the inscription
on the reliquary urn and declares it to be authentic.

2014  LA-ICPMS (Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled

Plasma Mass Spectrometry) is a new technique that is
used to date glass, glaze and other materials.  The jewels
are taken to Cranfield University’s Forensic Analysis
department in the hope that there is glass in the collection
that might yield a date. 
2016 Gemologist Dr. Jack Ogden closely examines the
gems and notes that what appear to be single bore drill
holes - thus more fitting to a later time period - are on
closer inspection the result of drilling from each side and
therefore more likely to be from an earlier period.
Comparisons to other finds date the gems to an era
consistent with the reign of Ashoka.

Research by Cranfield University concludes there is no

glass in the original collection. Specific dating therefore
will be hard to achieve. However, the few glass pieces
that were found and tested among the 'cruder' stones are
likely to date after Kushan times, which puts to rest any
speculation that they possibly came from the stupa.

2017 The piprahwa.org.uk website that was home to

conspiracy theories about both the pillar at Lumbini and
the stupa at Piprahwa is taken down. (see Controversy)

2018 Conservationist Dana Norris removes the stones

from the two newer cases that Neil Peppé made. This
enables Dr. Jack Ogden to conduct a further and more
extensive examination. In his paper 'Report on the beads
and related objects from the Piprahwa Stupa', he
concludes that the range of gem materials and the high
quality lapidary work suggests a date between 300BC
and 100BC.

In 2018, Reflectance Transformation Images (RTI) were

taken of the objects in the case of gold and silver
offerings. These objects were selected for imagining
because some of them have iconography. Dr Charles
Crowther and his PhD student, Taylor Bennett, at the
Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents, the University
of Oxford, kindly agreed to capture and process the RTI
images so they could be available to the public.

The resulting PTM file is available here for downloading.

To view the file, you will also need to download the free
RTIViewer software from Cultural Heritage Imaging here.
ONE OF THE GOLD DISCS WITH LION & SWASTIKA

2018 Harry Falk’s paper ‘The Ashes of the Buddha’ is

published in Bulletin of the Asia Institute.  It offers the most
detailed insight into the internment of the Buddha’s relics
and the relic offerings at Piprahwa since Charles Allen’s
book ten years prior.

From December 13th 2018 - March 31st 2019 the jewels

are loaned to The Museum Rietberg in Zurich as part of
an exhibition called ‘Next Stop Nirvana - Approaches to
Buddhism’. The exhibition explores the life of Prince
Siddharta Gautama and sheds light on the ways in which
people throughout the ages have painted a picture of the
Buddha’s life. Press for the exhibition was enthusiastic; Il
Giornale notes that ‘ A group of gemstones is probably
the most extraordinary loan’. While Deutsche Wells
referred to the Piprahwa Collection as ‘the biggest
sensation of the exhibition.’

2019 The gemstones are displayed as part of the ‘Power

of Objects; Charged With Buddha’s Blessings’ exhibition at
the Rubin Museum of Art in New York from June 2019 for
one year.
THE JEWELS ON DISPLAY AT THE RUBIN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK
2020 The Covid-19 crisis wreaks havoc on museum
schedules everywhere.  The exhibition that was planned
by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a November
opening is postponed.  The Rubin extends its exhibition of
the gems until May 2021.

Conservator, Dana Norris, works on a new third case to

house the loose gems that are currently displayed without
a frame.  Visitors will be able to see more of the jewels’
excellent craftsmanship at the Singapore exhibition in
2022.
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