Sotheby’s in Hong Kong postponed an auction of gems with ties to early Buddhism on Wednesday after opposition from India, which said the jewels were the country’s religious and cultural heritage.
The Piprahwa gems, which the auction house said dated back to around 200 BC and were unearthed in 1898 by Englishman William Claxton Peppe in Piprahwa, present-day Uttar Pradesh, were scheduled to go under the hammer in Hong Kong on Wednesday.
The Indian Ministry of Culture issued a legal notice on Monday calling the jewels “inalienable religious and cultural heritage of India and the global Buddhist community” and said the sale violated Indian and international law.
It asked for the auction to be cancelled and the jewels sent back to India, as well as an apology and full disclosure of provenance documents, according to the notice posted on X.
The ministry added that Mr Peppe’s great-grandson, Los Angeles-based TV director and film editor Chris Peppe, lacked the authority to sell the gem relics.
There has been a growing international outcry against the sale of the gems, which many Buddhists believe are imbued with the presence of the Buddha and should be treated as corporeal remains.
The 334 gems, which were expected to sell for about HK$100 million ($16.6 million), include amethysts, coral, garnets, pearls, rock crystals, shells and gold, either worked into pendants, beads and other ornaments or in their natural form.
The gems were originally buried in a dome-shaped funerary monument, called a stupa, in Piprahwa in about 200BC, when they were mixed with some of the cremated remains of the Buddha, who died in about 480BC.
Indian authorities said an inscription on one of the caskets confirms the contents – which include bone fragments – as “relics of the Buddha, deposited by the Sakya clan”.
The British crown claimed Mr Peppe’s find under the 1878 Indian Treasure Trove Act, with the bones and ash presented to the Buddhist monarch King Chulalongkorn of Siam. Most of the 1,800 gems went to the colonial museum in Kolkata, while Mr Peppe was permitted to retain about a fifth of them.
In an article written for Sotheby’s, Mr Chris Peppe said his ancestor “gave the gems, the relics and the reliquaries to the Indian government” and that his family kept “a small portion” of the discovery.
Sotheby’s said on Wednesday morning that the auction has been postponed “in light of the matters raised by the government of India and with the agreement of the consignors”.
“This will allow for discussions between the parties, and we look forward to sharing any updates as appropriate,” the auction house said.
India’s Ministry of Culture wrote on X that it was “pleased to inform” readers that the auction was postponed following its intervention.
AFP
