The Indian government has threatened to take legal action against Sotheby’s in Hong Kong unless they stop an upcoming auction of jewels linked to the Buddha’s remains and requested their return to India.

The auction, which is set to take place on Wednesday, includes gems which were found buried with Buddha’s bone fragments more than a hundred years ago.

India’s ministry of culture has said the sale “violates Indian and international laws as well as UN conventions”, and asked for the jewels should be treated as sacred. The sale has also been condemned by several Buddhists and art scholars globally.

The BBC has reached out to Sotheby’s for a comment.

The Indian ministry posted a letter it sent to Sotheby’s and Chris Peppé, the great-grandson of William Claxton Peppé, who excavated the relics in 1898, on Instagram.

The post stated that Sotheby’s has responded to the legal notice and assured that the matter is receiving its “full attention”.

The post said that Peppé “lacks authority” to sell the relics and accused the auction house of participating in “continued colonial exploitation” by facilitating the sale.

William Claxton Peppé was an English estate manager who excavated a stupa at Piprahwa, just south of Lumbini, the believed birthplace of Buddha. He uncovered relics inscribed and consecrated nearly 2,000 years ago.

The findings included nearly 1,800 gems, including rubies, topaz, sapphires and patterned gold sheets, stored inside a brick chamber. This site is now in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

William Peppé handed the gems, relics and reliquaries to the colonial Indian government, from where the bone relics went to the Buddhist King of Siam (Rama V). Five relic urns, a stone chest and most other relics were sent to the Indian Museum in Kolkata – then the Imperial Museum of Calcutta.

Only a small “portion of duplicates”, which he was allowed to keep, remained in the Peppé family, Chris Peppé said. (Sotheby’s notes say Peppé was allowed to keep approximately one-fifth of the discovery.)

The Indian ministry has said that labelling the jewels as “duplicates” is misleading and that these relics make up the “inalienable religious and cultural heritage” of India.

The jewels “cannot be treated as specimens” but as the “sacred body and originally interred offerings to the sacred body” of the Buddha, the post said.

The ministry has also questioned the custodianship of the jewels.

It said that the sellers who call themselves the custodians of the gems do not have the right to “alienate or misappropriate the asset”, which it calls an “extraordinary heritage of humanity”.

The statement also mentioned a decade-old report which said that the relics were left forgotten in a shoebox, suggesting that custodianship also included “safe upkeep”.

The Indian ministry has demanded a public apology from Sotheby’s and Peppé. It has also asked them to fully disclose all records that trace the ownership of the relics that are still in their possession or transferred by them.

The ministry has said that the failure to comply with their demands would lead to legal proceedings in India and Hong Kong for “violation of cultural heritage law”.

It also threatened to launch a “public campaign” highlighting Sotheby’s role in perpetuating “colonial injustice”.

Earlier, Chris Peppé had told the BBC that the the family looked into donating the relics, but all options presented problems and an auction seemed the “fairest and most transparent way to transfer these relics to Buddhists”.

Chris Peppé has written that the jewels passed from his great-uncle to his cousin, and in 2013 came to him and two other cousins.

Over the past six years years, the gems have featured in major exhibitions, including one at The Met in 2023. The Peppé family has also launched a website to “share our research”.

But the Indian ministry in its statement said custodianship of the jewels has been “monetised via publicity and exhibition”.

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