Buddha's bowl wanted back

Aik TC SG

Hindustan Times HT Correspondent 2013-08-31

August 27 -- Former union minister and RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh has launched a campaign to retrieve Gautama Buddha's Bhiksha Patra (begging bowl) that was taken away to Afghanistan two thousand years ago.

The people of Vaishali (Singh's constituency) are the right claimants of this national treasure, as Buddha had donated it to the people of the region when he was leaving for his mahanirvan (abandoning his mortal body) around 500 BC, after delivering his last speech. For the next 500 years, a regular 'puja' of the begging bowl had been done at Vaishali.

Emperor Kanishka, who invaded India in the 1st century AD, took away the patra to Purushpur (present day Peshawar). During the term of former Afghanistan President Mohammed Najibullah (1987-1992), it was moved to the Kabul museum.

Singh, whose campaign is being supported by 60 international Buddhist 'maths' (schools), has furnished historical material supporting his case to the Archeological Survey of India and the Ministry of External Affairs.

Former foreign affairs minister SM Krishna had assured me that the Indian government would take steps to retrieve the treasure. I have now sent a reminder to the present minister, Salman Khurshid, Singh said. Singh is also planning to write a letter to Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, seeking his cooperation in the matter.

Chinese travelers including Fa Hein and Huang Tsang have referred to the presence of Buddha's begging bowl in Afghanistan, as has Alexander Cunningham (first Director General of the Archeological Survey of India). Historians including Dr. Shreedhar Vasudev Sohani and Romila Thapar have also supported the theory that the 'patra' had been taken away by Emperor Kanishka, Singh said on Monday.

Let Buddha bowl be, say historians

The Telegraph NALIN VERMA 2013-08-29

August 28 -- Patna: Historians have questioned the demand to bring back a bowl said to have been used by Gautama Buddha from its present resting place in Afghanistan to Bihar.

Romila Thapar, professor emerita at Jawaharlal Nehru University, today distanced herself from the claim of RJD MP Raghuvansh Prasad Singh that she supported the demand to get back the bowl, or bhikshapatra, to India. Raghuvansh, speaking in the Lok Sabha on Monday, had said a movement should be launched to bring the bowl from the National Museum in Kabul to Vaishali, where, according to legend, Buddha is said to have donated the vessel to his disciples when on his way to attaining nirvana (salvation) at Kushinagar.

"I am not behind such a demand. It is for the first time that I am hearing from you that there is a demand doing the rounds about shifting of Buddha’s bowl from the museum in Kabul to Vaishali,” Thapar told The Telegraph.

Asked about the historicity of the bowl, Thapar said she had no idea. “I don’t know. I can’t say anything on it,” she said. Raghuvansh, the MP from Vaishali, however, stuck to his guns. “Archaeologist Alexander Cunningham wrote that Lord Buddha’s bhikshapatra that he had gifted to his disciples at Vaishali has been lying in the Kabul museum. The bhikshapatra found mention in the accounts of Fa Hien and Hiuen Tsang as well. My demand, which has taken the shape of a movement, has the backing of Romila Thapar besides several other historians, including I.N. Singh of Delhi University and Siddhartha Singh of Benaras Hindu University,” Raghuvansh told The Telegraph on Thursday.

Historian and social commentator Ramachandra Guha came out with a different perspective on the issue. “It is not the question of tracing the veracity of Buddha’s begging bowl. Be it in Kabul or wherever the vessel is, it carries the great Buddha’s message of universal peace. It is quite parochial to ask for the bowl to be restored back in Vaishali,” he told The Telegraph by phone.

"That the people of Afghanistan have preserved Buddha’s artefact for thousands of years establishes quite clearly that the great preacher, who was born in Nepal and attained enlightenment in Bihar, had a special place in their hearts. The people of that part of the land (Afghanistan) owned Buddha then,” Guha said.

He pointed out that the Taliban vandalised the giant statues of Buddha in the Bamiyan valley in 2001. “That his vessel is still preserved in the National Museum of Kabul is testimony to the fact that the people there respected his message of peace. Instead of asking for the bowl, the people of Bihar should take pride in the fact that Buddha’s message had spread beyond the boundary of Bihar, Nepal and India and is valued in several other parts of the globe even after 2,500 years of his passing away,” Guha said.

Cunningham, in his archaeological survey’s report published in the late 19th century, wrote that Kushan king Kanishka — himself a great patron of Buddhism — had taken Buddha’s bowl from Vaishali to Purushpur (Peshawar) which was shifted to Gandhar (present day Kandahar). The bowl was finally taken to the National Museum of Kabul in the 20th century.

Former head of the department of history, Delhi University, D.N. Jha, who happens to be from Bihar, was sceptical of Raghuvansh’s demand as it is based on Cunningham’s report. “Much water has flown down the Indus and Ganga since Cunningham wrote the report in the late 19th century. There is little archaeological and historical evidence to verify what Cunningham wrote,” he said.

Jha echoed historian Guha, saying Buddha’s message spread beyond the boundary of India and reached out to many countries in Southeast and East Asia. “Buddha belonged as much to Vaishali in India as much to the people of China, Japan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and several other countries. His message of peace was for the entire humanity,” he said.

Officials at the Patna museum said they were not too keen on getting the bowl back. “We have old sculptures of George VI and Viceroy Hardinge, old paintings of Lieutenant Governor Bailey (the first governor of Bihar following separation from Bengal) and Sir Henry Wheeler. They are part of our history and we will feel very sad if the British government demands these artefacts from the museum,” a museum employee said on condition of anonymity.

Raghuvansh, though, is adamant he will carry on with his movement and convince the external affairs ministry to take up his demand.

"The people of Vaishali want Buddha’s bhikshapatra back and I will keep on leading the movement for it. S.M. Krishna as external affairs minister had promised me he would get the artefact back. Besides Indian historians, historians from Pakistan and Afghanistan too have backed our demand,” he said.

BareAwareness SG

The wise tried so hard to let go, while the foolish instead rushes to cling to their wants.

Aik TC SG

In my personal opinion, such important religious relic as the Buddha’s begging bowl should be returned to its original home in Vaishali. When I think of the extremists, (I would preferred to label them ‘Madmen’), going to extreme extend just to blow up the Bamiyan Buddhist statues in the name of their religion; it certainly would be best that such holy relic should be remove from Afghanistan.

It is an unstable place and I certainly hope Mr. Prasad Singh will be successful in his campaign before some madman come along again and decides to do the same nasty thing to the bowl, just like the way they destroy the Bamiyan Buddhas and other historical and cultural heritage items and objects there.