Patna: The recent repatriation of Piprahwa relics, believed to be the physical remains of Lord Buddha, has reignited interest among historians and cultural activists in the state in bringing back Buddha’s begging bowl, currently kept at the Kabul National Museum, to its original site at Vaishali in Bihar. If realised, the installation of the bowl in Vaishali would not only restore a key historical artefact but also strengthen India’s global standing as the guardian of Buddhist heritage.State president of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach), Bhairab Lal Das, said CM Nitish Kumar inaugurated the newly constructed Buddha Museum and memorial stupa built at a cost of Rs 550 crore at Vaishali in July last year. Buddha’s relic kept at Patna’s Buddha Smriti Park was also shifted to the newly created complex. “It is high time efforts should be made to bring back Buddha’s sacred alms bowl from the Kabul Museum to this place,” he said.The demand for the repatriation of Buddha’s bowl is not new. In fact, the then RJD MP Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, who represented the Vaishali constituency, had raised the demand in Parliament in 2013 itself, urging the external affairs ministry and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to take steps to bring it back to India and install it at its “original place in Vaishali”.In response to his demand, the govt of India sent a two-member team of the ASI headed by Phani Kant Mishra to Kabul to officially verify whether the giant relic preserved in Kabul’s National Museum is actually the “begging bowl” that Lord Buddha used during his stay in Vaishali in the sixth century BC. After returning from Kabul, the team submitted its report to the union govt, but no action has been taken in this regard so far.Former regional director and team member Mishra said that in his report he had mentioned that the relic in question, preserved near the entrance of the Kabul museum, is the same artefact that Chinese scholars Fa Hien and Hiuen Tsang and British archaeologist Alexander Cunningham had referred to in their writings.Satya Prakash, son of late Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, said he had written to PM Narendra Modi more than a year ago to fulfil his father’s last wish and take steps to bring back the “celebrated” bowl to Vaishali. He said he had also met the CM and several union ministers in this regard but, unfortunately, none had shown interest in the matter.Describing the historical significance of the bowl, Patna University ancient history and archaeology department’s former head Jayadeo Mishra pointed out that Buddha had given his alms bowl to the people of the Republic of Lichchhavis when he took final leave of them at Vaishali. Buddha was travelling to Kushinagar, where he later died, and the bowl was gifted to the people of Vaishali who had long been following him everywhere. The bowl was later taken away to the capital of Kanishka, “Purushputra” (now Peshawar), by invaders and then further moved to Kandahar (then Gandhar), he added.
