In the Mahaparinibbana Sutta the Buddha himself indicates four places – Lumbini, Bodh Gaya, Isipatana and Kushinara, as pivotal points in his spiritual journey in search of enlightenment.
At one point in his life, one of his disciples asked him ‘Who are you? Are you a prophet, are you a heavenly creature? Are you a god? The Buddha replied I am one who has awakened.
Sri Lanka that has preserved his message in its pristine form for 2563 years was awakened to his noble doctrine when Arahant Mahinda missionary extraordinary and son of Asoka the beloved of the gods setout on his mission from the hallowed precincts of Sanchi.
Both Arahant Mahinda and Therni Sanghamitta who carried a sampling of the Bo tree at Bodh Gaya hailed from Sanchi.
Sri Lanka’s abiding interest in Sanchi is rooted in the intrinsic role Sanchi has played in shaping its civilizational ethos since that historic encounter between Arahant Mahinda and King Devanam Piya Tissa of Sri Lanka. Devanam Piya means beloved of gods. The King of Sri Lanka became a beloved of gods due to the mission of Arahant Mahinda of Sanchi.
Sri Lanka thence became the repository of Theravada Buddhism with the ‘Tripitaka’ the complete texts of Theravada teaching together with commentaries were rendered in to Sinhala Prakrit.
In the 20th Century Sri Lanka assumed the ancient role played by Sanchi by pioneering the spread of Buddhism to the world.
The founder of the Mahabodhi Society Anagarika Dharmapala is credited with the 20th Century reawakening of Buddhism both in Sri Lanka, India and the rest of the world.
It is he who initiated the movement to preserve Buddhist sites in India commencing with his indefatigable struggle to restore Bodh Gaya as the preeminent shrine of the Buddhist world.
The great Stupa at Sanchi together with two other Stupas and remains of monasteries constitute a complex that testifies to the architectural brilliance of the Mauryan dynasty during the reign of the great king Ashoka.
More than that, Sanchi is a living monument that testifies to the splendor and glory of an empire that flourished under the rule of Dharma Ashoka whose rule adopted the dictates of the Buddha.
Today, Sanchi is regarded as one of the most sacred Buddhist shrines with unique forms of Buddhist art and architecture traced to the Mauryan period. Together with the Ashokan pillar it is the most demonstrative symbol of the great king Ashoka.
In 1851 while excavating inside a stupa at Sanchi, Fred C Maisey and Alexander Cunningham British Archaeologies found two boxes of gray sandstone which contained the relics of the two principal disciples of the Buddha-Arahants Sariputta and Moggallana.
These relics were taken to England and placed in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
As Professor Torkel Breke of the University of Oslo states in a meticulously researched paper “the return of the relics of these two prominent disciples of the Buddha has become the most significant historical point of reference in the memory of the Maha Bodhi Society and a celebration of pan Asian Buddhism.
It was a symbolic extraction of respect and recognition by the former colonial power in regard to “the history and religion of a sub-continent that was looking for ways to resolve the turbulent consequences of posy colonial nation building.
The first request for the return of the relics of Arahants Sariputta and Moggallana was made to the Victoria and Albert Museum by the then General Secretary of the Mahabodhi Society – the distinguished Sinhala Buddhist revivalist and freedom fighter Devapriya Walisinghe during a visit to London in 1938.
Cunningham’s discovery at Sanchi created ripples among erudite Buddhist scholar monks in Sri Lanka almost at the same time of Cunningham’s excavations.
Our scholar monk Battaramulle Sri Subhuthi thero 1835-1917) wrote to Cunningham on 11th September 1874. “I am informed, that, in your explorations in the wilds, you have recovered some sacred Relics of
Buddhism from some of the ancient ascents and ruins of Buddhist Temples.”
Cunningham responded on 23rd October 1874. “There were authentic relics of Sariputta and Maha Moggallana as well as Mogaliputta and Majjhima, the contemporaries of Asoka, and several others. But all are now lost.”
As a matter of fact, it is now established that the relics in the custody of the Victoria Albert Museum were in the private collection of Fred C Maisey.
On 4 May 1921, in a letter addressed to the Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum (Indian Section) Maisey’s son authorized his niece, Miss Dorothy Saward, to sell to the Museum, on his behalf for two hundred and fifty pounds, the collection of eight relic boxes and their contents obtained from the Buddhist Stupas by his late father during excavations in the Bhilsa district in 1851.
So much for Cunningham’s claim that the relics were lost!
These priceless relics were now objects of commercial value as indicated by the advice offered by Stanley Clark of the V&A Museum to his higherups.
“I earnestly beg to suggest that sanction for purchase be granted without delay, as the price placed upon the objects is actually a peppercorn value’ generously arranged by the Vendor to enable the Museum to purchase the entire collection. In view of the prices recently given both by American and Japanese agents in the London Sale-Rooms, we are faced with the serious consideration that, should these objects be put up for public auction, the unhappy certainty is that: 1) they will all command very much higher prices; and 2) they will be lost, not to this Museum only, but also to the country.”
How the sacred relics of the two principal disciples of the Buddha found their way back to their original; place of discovery at Sanchi needs to be recounted if only to emphasize the role played by the Mahabodhi Society in the great Buddhist revival in Asia and in the world.
A London based representative of our Mahabodhi Society G.A. Dempster wrote to the Director of the Indian museum in Kensington on 17th April 1932.
It demonstrates the activist role played by the Mahabodhi Society in galvanizing global Buddhist opinion in restoring the Buddhist heritage in India – the land of the Buddha.
“You are probably aware that a new Vihara has recently been opened at Sarnath, Benares, called the Mulagandha Kuti Vihara, which site was once connected with the activities of the Buddha himself, and we feel that could the Government be induced to hand the ashes of the Buddha’s most famous disciples to the custody of the Vihara authorities, it would not only be doing an act of grace to the Buddhist community throughout the world, but would ensure their safe custody in a Buddhist Shrine on the actual soil from whence Buddhism sprang.”
The request was politely and promptly rebuffed. Trustees of the museum were precluded by law from giving up object in their custody.
By this time Srimath Anagarika Dharmapala the founder of the Mahabodhi Society had succeeded in building the Mulagandhakuti Viharaya in Saranath. Then on October 18th 1932 the Honorary Secretary of the Mahabodhi Society Dr.E.W. Adikaram took a more subtle approach.
He pleaded with the V&A museum to allow Buddhist devotees to worship the relics on the 2476th death anniversary of Arahant Sariputta, falling on November 13, 1932.
He requested that the relics be sent to the headquarters of the Mahabodhi society in London for a few hours on the designated day. The museum authorities were willing to allow the request provided the relics were venerated at the museum itself.
The intervening war years delayed the project of recovery and return. But the government of India then preparing for full independence from the raj was now heavily involved in the project thanks to the Buddhist revivalists steered by the Mahabodhi society. In 1939 the India office took up the issue with the museum. It wished to know if the V&A had the relics of the two disciples of the Buddha.
The India Office had received representations from the Buddhist Society of Bombay. Dated 11th December 1938 it contained a resolution passed unanimously by the Buddhist society. “As desired by the meeting of the Buddha Society of Bombay held at the Ananda Vihara” in Bombay, on the 11th of December, 1938, I beg to enclose herewith a resolution passed unanimously at the said meeting regarding the handing over of the ashes of Shariputra and Moggallaina, the two chief disciples of Lord Buddha, to the Maha Bodhi Society of Calcutta. The above-mentioned relics are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in England. The removal of these valuable relics of the two chief disciples of Lord Buddha has caused great unrest and displeasure amongst the Buddhists of India, the birthplace of Lord Buddha.
I, therefore, request you very earnestly on behalf of my society to kindly write to the Victoria and Albert Museum to kindly hand over the said relics to the Maha Bodhi Society of Calcutta so that they may be enshrined at Sarnath in India.”
With the war over, and India and Sri Lanka poised to become independent nation states, the recovery process gathered momentum.
On 20th February 1947, the relics were handed over to Daya Hewavitharane the representative of the Mahabodhi Society by the secretary of State for India.
That was not the end of the story. The relics were brought to Sri Lanka where the Sri Lankan people venerated them for two years. But all was not in order. Something was amiss. It emerged that the Victoria & Albert Museum had not been quite forthcoming on the matter. The relics handed over were not in the original caskets that were retrieved in the excavations of Sanchi. The museum had given the relics in plaster casts of the original!
In June 1948, India’s high commissioner in Britain had to again write to the under-secretary of state of the Commonwealth Relations Office. He asked for the return of the original caskets.
The original caskets were handed over to Sir D.N.Mitra the legal advisor to the Indian High Commissioner on October 1948.
The Prime Minister of Sri Lanka handed over the relics to India’s high commissioner in Colombo on January 6, 1949.
The relics were brought to Kolkata on the naval vessel HMIS Tir and were received by the then Governor of Bengal, K N Katju.
It was a full-fledged state ceremony involving a guard of honor and a 19- gun salute.
On November 1952, the relics were finally re-enshrined at the Chetiyagiri Viharaya that was specially built as the final reliquary of Arahsants Sariputta and Maha Mogglannana.
This journey of the relics is also a parallel narrative of India’s rediscovery of its Buddhist heritage and Buddhist reawakening in Asia. My association with Sanchi begins with my arrival at this sacred precinct as a young Dharmadutha monk of the Mahabodhi society. I moved to Sanchi in 1968 at age 18. I completed my secondary education in Sanchi and pursued my tertiary education in Vidisha and then at the university of Bhopal.
Sanchi, Vidisha and Bhopal make up the chemistry that has shaped me into what I am. The events I have recorded are intrinsic to that process and hence I have chosen to record them.
This carefully crafted, assiduously gathered work by Mr.Ambuj Maheswari earns my unreserved admiration. .
My heartfelt gratitude and blessings to him.
Ven. Banagala Upatissa
President Mahabodhi Society