Bihar seeks Kolkata archaeologist’s help to bring back Buddha’s bowl

Kolkata: The Bihar government is gearing up to bring back

Buddha

’s bhikshapatra (

begging bowl

) from

Afghanistan

, the last wish of form-er Union rural development minister and Vaishali MP Raghuvansh Pratap Singh.

The state’s CMO has got in touch with Kolkata-based

archaeologist

and former regional director of ASI Phanikanta Mishra, whose painstaking research proved that the bowl in Kabul National Museum was indeed Lord Buddha’s.

In a letter to PM Narendra Modi and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar from his deathbed at AIIMS, Singh had urged them to bring back the alms bowl to its place of origin, Vaishali. Modi has asked Nitish to take care of Singh’s last wish.

A report of ASI’s first director general Sir Alexander Cunningham says the giant 350-400kg stone artefact was Lord Buddha’s bhikshapatra that he donated to the people of Vaishali before leaving for Kushinagar (UP) for Parinirvana. In the 2nd century, Kanishka took the bowl from Vaishali to his capital Purushpura (modern-day Peshawar) and then to Gandhara (now Kandahar). In the 20th century, the bowl was taken to Kabul museum.

Singh had raised in Parliament why a team of archaeologists must be sent to Kabul to retrieve the bowl. In 2014, Mishra and G S Khwaja, director-Arabic and Persian Epigraphy of Nagpur ASI, were nominated for the job.

“After our successful research in Kabul, I have no doubt that it is nothing but Buddha’s alms bowl. The intact Brahmi script on the fifth and sixth line clearly says that it is Lord Buddha’s bowl,” said Mishra, whose report has gathered dust at Delhi’s ASI headquarters since 2014.

There was contention because of six lines of Persian inscription on its outer wall. The inscription, probably verses from the Quran, led to the belief that it could be of Islamic origin. Closer scrutiny revealed that they were of a later period, Mishra said.

He said 24 lotus petals, six of which remain unscathed, confirmed that they were of an earlier period. These untouched petals evidently revealed that the original bowl had plain petals.

Buddhist relics in Afghanistan had been a cause of concern for Singh after the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by Taliban in 2001. The bowl remained untouched thanks to the Quranic verses, said Mishra.

Celebrated Chinese travellers Fa Hien and Xuan Zang had made references to Vaishali’s begging bowl in their accounts. Detailed descriptions by Fa Hien matched the bowl’s descriptions.