India wants to stop selling jewels associated with Buddha

The Indian government threatened that the Hong Kong would take on legal action in Hong Kong, unless they stop the upcoming auction of gems associated with the remains to be returned to India.

Auction, which is set to happen on Wednesday, includes jewels found buried With the bone fragments for more than a hundred years.

The Indian Ministry of Culture said Sales “violates Indian and international laws as well as the UN Convention”, and the requested gems should be treated as holy. Sales also sentenced several Buddhists and artistic scholars on a global level.

Sotheby said that the BBC auction would proceed according to plan.

The Indian Ministry announced a letter sent to Sotheby’s and Chris Peppé, the Great grandson William Claxton Peppé, who excavated the relief of 1898. Years, on Instagram.

The post stated that Sotheby responded to legal notice and convinced that the matter receives his “full attention”.

Post said that Peppé “lacks the authority” to sell the relics and accuse the auction house of participation in the “continuous colonial exploitation” facilitating sales.

William Claxton Peppé was the director of the English estate that excavated the pillar in Piprahwa, just south of Lumbini, believed the birthplace to be. He discovered the relics enrolled and dedicated almost 2,000 years ago.

The findings included almost 1,800 gems, including rubies, topaz, sapphire and gold leaves, stored in brick chamber. This site is now in the North Indian state in Uttar Pradesh.

William Peppé handed over jewels, relics and relics in the colonial Indian government, from where the relic bone went to the Buddhist King Siam (Rama V). Five relicent urn, stone box and most of the other relics were sent to the Indian Museum in Kolkuti – then the Customs Calcuttal Museum.

Only a small “part of the duplicate”, who was allowed to hold on, remained in the family Peppé, said Chris Peppé. (Sothebyby notes say Peppé was allowed to hold about a fifth discovery.)

The Indian Ministry said that the labeling of jewels is as “duplicated” to the misconception and that these relics form “Unburst religious and cultural heritage” India.

Jewelry “cannot be treated as samples”, but as “the Holy Body and was originally intervals of the Body Body” Buddha, said the post.

The Ministry also brought into question the guardianship of gems.

The sellers who call themselves of jewels, have no right to “alienate or misappropriate assets”, which calls the “extraordinary heritage of humanity”.

The statement also mentioned a report to a decade who said that the emptions were left forgotten in the shoe box, which suggest that the mastering site included “safe maintenance”.

The Indian Ministry required a public apology from Sotheby and Peppé. They also asked them to fully discover all records that search for ownership of the engines that are still in their ownership or transmit them.

The Ministry said that failure would lead to legal proceedings in India and Hong Kong for “violation of the Law Learning Act.

He also threatened to launch a “public campaign” by highlighting the role of Sotheby in the maintenance of “colonial injustice”.

Earlier, Chris Peppé told the BBC that the family looked at the giving relic, but all the options presented problems and auction accounted for “the most cruel and most deserted way to transfer these relics in Buddhists.”

Chris Peppé wrote that the gems crossed from his great uncle in his cousin, and in 2013. There were two more relatives.

Over the past six years, the jewels presented at the main exhibitions, including one at a meeting in 2023. years. The Peppé family also launched a website for “Share our research”.

But the Indian Ministry in his statement says that the guardian of the jewel is “included in the public and exhibition”.

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