INDIA-SRILANKA-MALDIVES

Exposition of Sacred Kapilavastu relics in Sri Lanka

This is the second exposition of the sacred Relics in Sri Lanka. In fact, when India organised the first exposition outside the country’s shores in 1978, Colombo was the chosen venue for the rare honour

Respecting the sentiments of the Sri Lankan people, the Government of India sent the sacred Kapilavastu relics in 1978 for their first exposition in the island nation soon after their discovery. Now, after 34 years the relics are in Sri Lanka again at the request of President Mahinda Rajapakse to enable the faithful to offer their homage to the Enlightened.

Sacred Kapilavastu Relics housed in the National Museum, New Delhi as a venerable object, were taken to Sri Lanka on August 19 by a special IAF aircraft. Culture Minister Kumari Selja accompanied the Relics heading a high power delegation that included Dr Gautam Sengupta, Director General of Archaeological Survey of India.

This is the second exposition of the sacred Relics in Sri Lanka. In fact, when India organised the first exposition outside the country’s shores in 1978, Colombo was the chosen venue for the rare honour. About 10 million worshipped the Relics in Sri Lanka. In later years, such expositions were held in Mongolia (August 1993), Singapore (July 1994), South Korea (1995) and Thailand (1996). Subsequently, however, India decided to not take the Relics out of the country since they are very delicate in nature and highly venerated.

Delhi has made an exception now at the personal request Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his state visit to India in June 2010. The two leaders decided to jointly commemorate the 2600th year of the attainment of enlightenment of Prince Siddhartha as Gautama Buddha, Sambuddhatva Jayanthi.   The exposition in Colombo and seven other cities the holy city of Anuradhapura is a part of these celebrations.

Just before the Special IAF plane with the Sacred Relics, Buddhist priests of Sri Lankan Maha Sangha, who are living in various Buddhist sites in India, offered special puja and prayers and invoked blessings for the success of the mission as well as for stronger India-Sri Lanka ties.

This exposition is the biggest event in Sri Lanka in recent times. The only celebration that comes close in scale was that held to mark the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in May 2009. In 1978,

Sri Lanka government accorded to the Kapilavastu Relic the status of a Head of State. President Mahinda Rajapakse was at the tarmac in Colombo to receive the venerated guest in ceremonial splendour. Walking barefoot, Rajapakse carried the Relics from the tarmac to the VIP lounge where about 100 senior monks chanted pirith (Sinhala word for protection from all directions). After the chanting, they were taken in a procession to Kapilawasthu Hall, Manel Watta Maha Viharaya in Kelaniya to enable public to pay their respects for two days.
 
 The Relics of the Gautama Buddha, known to the world as the ‘Kapilavastu Relics’ were discovered in Bihar  in 1898 at a place which is believed to be the ancient city of Kapilavastu. This epoch making discovery was at a stupa site, Piprahwa. The inscription on the relic casket read: “The shrine for relics of the Buddha, the August One, is that of the Shaakyas …”

The life of the Siddhartha (Buddha)

Born as Siddhartha to king Shuddhodhana and Mayadevi around 566 B.C. at Lumbini (now in Nepal), Buddha had spent the first twenty-nine years in Kapilavastu and later renounced earthly pleasures in a tireless quest for salvation. While leaving the city he declared in a lion’s roar that “I shall not enter Kapilavastu till I have seen the borne beyond life and death.”

He sat under a pipal tree, with an intense desire for insight. He declared: “I will not stir from this seat until I have attained supreme and absolute insight”. With the realisation of enlightenment he became Gautama (his gotra) Buddha (the Enlightened One). Thereafter, during 45 year of his illustrious sojourn he visited many places on foot teaching his doctrine (saddharma), organizing them into a community (sangha).  

After bidding farewell to Vaishali he proceeded towards Pava (identified with Padaraona and Fazilpur), halting at places on the way. The Buddha, as he reached the last days of his illustrious sojourn spoke to Ananda, his beloved disciple saying,

“I too, O Ananda, am now grown old, and full of years, my journey is drawing to its close, I have reached my sum of days, I am turning eighty years of age; and just as a worn-out cart, Ananda, can only with much additional care be made to move along, so, me thinks, the body of the Tathagata can only be kept going with much additional care.”

On reaching Pava, the Buddha halted in the mango-grove of Chunda, a smith. Soon after taking the meal offered by Chunda he had an attack of dysentery, but he persisted in his journey till he reached the suburbs of Kushinagara (Kasia) in Uttar Pradesh, the capital of the Mallas. There Ananda spread a couch between two shaala trees on which the Buddha laid himself on his right side and passed away in the last watch of the night. He breathed his last, with the words,

               “Behold now, brethren, I exhort you, saying,
              Decay is inherent in all component things!
              Work out your own salvation with diligence!”

The Mallas of Kushinagara cremated His body with ceremonies befitting a universal king. His corporeal relics from the funeral pyre were collected and divided into eight shares and distributed among Ajatashatru of Magadha, the Lichchhavis of Vaishali, the Shaakyas of Kapilavastu, the Bulis of Allakappa, the Koliyas of Ramagrama, the Mallas of Pava and a Brahmin of Vethadipa.

They built the first eight shaaririka stupas over the corporeal remains of the Buddha as he had suggested that stupas should be erected over His mortal remains. Thus, these stupas are the earliest surviving Buddhist shrines.

The mound at Piprahwa is rich in Buddhist remains and reveals the secret in identifying it with the ancient Kapilavastu. The discovery of one inscribed casket in 1898 by W.C. Peppe refers to the relics of the Buddha and his clan, ‘Sakya’ and the inscription runs thus:

“Sukiti bhatinam sa-bhaginikanam sa-puta-dalanam iyam salila nidhane Buddhasa bhagavate sakiynam”.( This shrine for the relics of the Buddha, the August One, is that of the Shaakyas, the brethren of the Distinguished One, in association with his sisters and with their children and their wives.”).

The Archaeological Survey of India conducted more excavations at Piprahwa during 1971-77. These resulted in the discovery of two more steatite caskets – one each from the northern and southern chambers. There were no inscriptions on them but the discovery was an epoch-making event. Because the caskets contained a total of 22 sacred bone relics, of which, four have been brought to Sri Lanka for this Exposition.

Also found at Piprahwa, which is nine miles from Lumbini were more than 30 terracotta sealings from different levels and spots in the eastern monastery with the legends “Om, Devaputra Vihare, Kapilavastu, Bhikshu Sanghasa” (Community of the Buddhist monks of Kapilavastu living in Devaputra Vihara’ and Maha Kapilavastu Bhikshu Sanghasa) in Brahmi characters of 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. These have provided adequate evidence to establish that Piprahwa was the ancient Kapilavastu.

Finally, the remains of the main township of Kapilavastu were unearthed at Ganwaria, which had its beginning in the eight century B.C.

-m rama rao

 

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