The Brahman, Dona, then intervened to remind them about the Buddha's teachings and suggested that they avoid 'strife, war and bloodshed' and split the relics between the eight kingdoms demanding a portion so that "far and wide Stupas may rise".

For over 2000 years the stupa built by the Sakyas remained intact and covered with vegetation outside the village of Piprahwa on the Indian side of the border with Nepal.

[3] In 1897 a particularly large kot or earthen mound caught the attention of William Claxton Peppé, a British colonial engineer and landowner who had been inspired by the recent discovery of the Lumbini pillar that marked the birthplace of the Buddha.

Peppé led a team excavating what Indologist Vincent Smith advised him was an unusually early example of an ancient Buddhist stupa 'probably dating from the era of Asoka the Great.

[6] These reliquaries together held the largest group of precious offerings ever recorded in a single deposit: around 1,800 gemstones and semi-precious stones (many shaped and drilled), rock crystal, pearls, shell, coral, embossed sheet gold and silver, granulated gold, as well as bone and ash assumed to be of great sanctity [7] On one of the vases was a Brahmi script which was translated by Georg Bühler, a leading European epigraphist of the time, to mean:

Vincent Smith, William Hoey, Thomas Rhys Davids, and Emile Senart all translated the inscription to confirm that these were relics of the Buddha.

[13] However, on assuming the role of Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society from Thomas Rhys Davids, Fleet proposed a different reading:[14][15] "This is a deposit of relics of the brethren of Sukiti, kinsmen of Buddha the Blessed One, with their sisters, their children and wives.

Ultimately epigraphists of the time subscribed to the translation by Auguste Barth: "This receptacle of relics of the blessed Buddha of the Śākyas (is the pious gift) of the brothers of Sukīrti, jointly with their sisters, with their sons and their wives.

[19] In the catalogue for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Tree and Serpent exhibition, Curator John Guy writes that 'it is reasonable to surmise that the Piprahwa bone relics represent the Shakya clan's share of the original division by the Brahmin Drona, as implicit in the reliquary inscription, and that the seven surviving reliquary containers and their precious-material contents represent deposits at the time of the stupa's rebuilding in brick during or shortly after the reign of Ashoka.

'[20] In 1997, epigraphist and archaeologist Ahmad Hasan Dani noted the challenges that isolated finds present to paleographical study and to dating materials.

He supposedly killed his brothers to ascend to the throne but, after the brutality of the Kalinga War where he slaughtered '100,000 men and animals', he renounced all violence and embraced Buddhism.

It most likely adhered to the Buddha's instruction to be buried under earth that was 'heaped up as rice is heaped in an alms bowl' and that the stupa be sited beside a crossroads so that passersby might pause to pay their respects and by their veneration gain in understanding and merit.

Peppé unearthed the second Asokan phase which was characterized by well fired mud bricks made with rice and straw and laid in clay mortar in concentric circles.

The stupa and the coffer it held show all the trademarks of high quality Asokan craftsmanship but the enlargement likely extended for years after the Emperor's death.

[26] However, in introducing the discovery to the members of the Royal Asiatic Society in April 1900, its secretary, Thomas Rhys Davids, stressed that 'the hypothesis of forgery in this case is simply unthinkable'.

[27] Over a century later there have been assumptions that such doubts must therefore have existed most likely because government archaeologist, A.A. Führer, had been working some eighteen miles away from Peppé on his own dig and was subsequently exposed as a plagiarist and forger.

[28] Prince Prisdang (aka Jinavaravansa), a former ambassador to Siam and cousin to the King Rama V, had been ordained as a Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka and arrived at Piprahwa shortly after the discovery.

It was an obvious solution that might appease Buddhists who were upset that the recently discovered Bodh Gaya, believed to be the place of the Buddha's enlightenment, had remained under Hindu control.

This led some scholars to believe that modern-day Piprahwa was the site of the ancient city of Kapilavastu, the capital of the Shakya kingdom, where Siddhartha Gautama spent the first 29 years of his life.

King Śuddhodana and Queen Māyādevī lived at Kapilavastu, as did their son Prince Siddhartha Gautama until he left the palace at 29 years of age.

[47] In 2015, relics from the Peppé discovery that were donated to the Waskaduwe Vihara in Sri Lanka drew an estimated 2 million devotees.

In October 2015, the same relics were exhibited at Nagpur in India to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Dr Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian Constitution.