Ancient Buddha relics sold to India after $13 million auction postponed
Hong Kong – A collection of old jewels linked to the remains of Buddha was repatriated to India after the authorities criticized their auction scheduled for Sotheby’s in Hong Kong.
“A joyful day for our cultural heritage!” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday in a position on X.
The Gems Piprahwa were sold to the Indian Conglomerate Godrej Industries group, which will put the dazzling collection “on a public exhibition for the coming years,” Sotheby’s in a statement said on Thursday.
The auction house refused to reveal how Goddrej paid for gems. “Due to the confidential nature of private sales, the final sale price will not be disclosed,” Sotheby’s told NBC News.
The 334 gems should bring in more than $ 100 million in Hong Kong ($ 12.9 million) at auction.
Precious stones are part of a cache of more than 1,800 artefacts, mainly accommodated at the Indian Museum in Kolkata. Critics of the planned auction of the jewels, which the British colonial land owner William Claxton Peppe unearthed his domain in northern India in 1898, said that he was offensive for the 500 million Buddhists in the world and a violation of Indian and international and United Nations Congassion.
Many Buddhists believe that the precious stones, named after the city in what is now the Indian state of the Uttar Pradesh, where they have been buried in a stupa, or funeral monument, around 200 to 240 BC, are imbued with the presence of Buddha, above the incinerated remains, the precious stones which were said.
“It would make each Indian proud that the sacred relics of Piprahwa by Bhagwan Buddha returned home after 127 long years,” said Modi, referring to Buddha as God in Hindi.
“These sacred relics highlight the narrow association of India with Bhagwan Buddha and its noble teachings,” he added.
Sotetheby postponed the planned auction of gems in May after the Indian government threatened legal action and demanded their repatriation.
The Indian government said at the time that the great-grandson of Peppe, Chris Peppe, television director and editor-in-chief based in Los Angeles, had the authority to sell the jewels. New Delhi also accused Sotheby’s of “participating in a continuous colonial exploitation” by facilitating the sale and declared that the jewels were to be returned to India if peppe no longer wanted to be their goalkeeper.
“I hope they will go to someone who will really value them,” wrote in a February room for Sotheby’s to accompany the auction catalog.
They were presented in public exhibition in Hong Kong in the days preceding the auction in three cases of glass, containing silver stars the size of a penny and gold leaves in relief of symbols. They also include pearls, pearls and flowers cut with precious stones, including Amethyst, topaz, garnet, coral and crystal.
Sotheby’s later announced that the auction was postponed “with the agreement of the sender”, three descendants of the British land owner who searched them.
On Thursday, the auction house said it had “made it easier to return” to India, thanking the Pappe family.
“This has completed our active research in the past two months to identify the best possible goalkeeper for jewels,” said Sotheby’s.
