Where the Relics Went, and the 2025 Return

The find was quickly dispersed. The bone relics were handed by the colonial government to King Chulalongkorn of Siam, who shared portions with Buddhist communities in Burma, Ceylon and Japan; the caskets and most of the gems went to the Indian Museum in Calcutta, and later part of the material to the National Museum in New Delhi, which today exhibits the Kapilavastu relics as national treasures. A portion of the gemstones, however, was allowed to remain with the Peppe family as a memento of the dig, and passed down for four generations.

In 2025 those gems were consigned to a Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong, expected to fetch millions. The prospect of selling objects buried with the Buddha's remains provoked an international outcry from Buddhist leaders and scholars and a formal legal demand from the Government of India; Sotheby's postponed and then withdrew the sale, and the collection was acquired, reportedly by an Indian industrial group, for return to India. The episode, 127 years after the excavation, became a landmark case in the repatriation of sacred relics.