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Archaeology & History

Buddha's cremated remains found in China

By T.K. Randall
November 15, 2017 · Comment icon 10 comments

Have the cremated remains of Buddha himself been found ? Image Credit: CC BY 1.0 Daderot
A ceramic box thought to contain the remains of Buddha himself has been discovered in Jingchuan County.
According to historical accounts, around 1,000 years ago two monks spent the better part of two decades gathering together all of the bone fragments they could find of the Buddha - the man on whose teachings Buddhism was originally founded.

Now an archaeological team led by Hong Wu from the Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology has revealed that the box has been found beneath a road in China's Jingchuan County alongside a collection of more than 260 Buddhist statues.
Determining whether the remains contained inside are actually those of the Buddha however is extremely difficult and it may be impossible to ever know for sure.

"The monks Yunjiang and Zhiming of the Lotus School, who belonged to the Manjusri Temple of the Longxing Monastery in Jingzhou Prefecture, gathered more than 2,000 pieces of sarira [cremated remains of the Buddha], as well as the Buddha's teeth and bones, and buried them in the Manjusri Hall of this temple," the inscription on the box reads.

Source: Live Science | Comments (10)




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Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #1 Posted by PersonFromPorlock 6 years ago
DNA won't tell if it's Buddha, but it will tell if it's all the same person. Or at least, if any of it is from different people.
Comment icon #2 Posted by OverSword 6 years ago
Also if the remains came from the correct part of the world to be Buddha's.
Comment icon #3 Posted by bison 6 years ago
At this flurry of interest in his supposed remains, Gautama might sigh, and recall the teaching attributed to him, about looking where he pointed his finger, rather than at the finger itself.
Comment icon #4 Posted by pallidin 6 years ago
"According to historical accounts, around 1,000 years ago two monks spent the better part of two decades gathering together all of the bone fragments they could find of the Buddha." What, was he blown apart or eaten by animals? No, he was cremated. Two decades??? Typical Zen mentality to need 20 years to collect bone fragments.
Comment icon #5 Posted by Vox 6 years ago
Will this be like the pieces of the True Cross that if put together would make a whole ship? Maybe all the ash will make a Nephilim? ;)
Comment icon #6 Posted by DieChecker 6 years ago
Considering that even 1000 years ago was 1500 years Post-Buddha, it would be lucky if a single fragment came from the original Buddha. And like was said, it will be impossible to determine if it is or not, since there is nothing to directly compare to. And that is all if this is the same box the monks actually gathered the bones into. Lots of "if"s and "maybe"s here.
Comment icon #7 Posted by Crazy Horse 6 years ago
At the time of Buddha's cremation, all the ashes and bone, teeth, would have been sifted and regarded in the highest possible way. They would have been distributed to various monasteries. There is a temple in Kandy, Sri Lanka with what is given to be the Buddha's tooth. Back in the day, Chineese monks would travel for years and year to India and back, risking life and limb to go fetch sacred texts. They may have been given some remains of the Buddha, it's possible.  
Comment icon #8 Posted by switchopens 6 years ago
Suuuuure they were!
Comment icon #9 Posted by quiXilver 6 years ago
well... there's that then.
Comment icon #10 Posted by Jon the frog 6 years ago
How long it take to a sepulture to be considered like something you can dig in ?


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