The relics were recovered during the Archaeological Survey of India campaign of 1971-1977 led by K. M. Srivastava, who reopened the Piprahwa stupa to test its stratigraphy. Below the level that William Peppe had treated as original ground in 1898, Srivastava's team found earlier phases of the monument and, set within them, two steatite caskets holding fragments of charred bone. Inscriptions on the caskets were read as recording the relics of the Buddha of the Sakya clan, and the archaeological context placed the deposit in the Mauryan period, the 3rd century BCE.
The finds were transferred to the National Museum in New Delhi, which has held them ever since. In the decades since, the Government of India has treated the relics as an instrument of cultural diplomacy as well as an object of veneration, sending them on carefully guarded expositions to countries including Sri Lanka, Mongolia and Thailand. On such journeys the relics travel with the protocol of a State Guest, a dedicated escort, a ceremonial reception, and enshrinement for public darshan, before being returned to New Delhi.