In form, the silver vessel is wholly atypical of Buddhist reliquaries and is said to have been a wine goblet, similar to others found in Gandhara and Kapisa regions.

The inscriptions on the silver reliquary provide important new information not only about the history of the kings of Apraca dynasty themselves but also about their relationships with other rulers of the far north-western region of traditional India i.e. modern northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan around the beginning of Christian era.

[2] The lower part of the reliquary with fluted surface, carination and small stem and foot is extremely similar to the "drinking goblets" that have been found in good numbers mainly in Gandhara (Taxila) and Kapisa (Kapisi).

Gandharan art of Bacchanalian or Dionysiac drinking scenes are the motifs which represent assimilation of local folk traditions of remote river valleys of the Kafiristan where viticulture and wine festivals are known to have been widely practiced.

Similar customs are also well documented in recent times in the region of Nuristan (pre-Islamic Kafiristan) which area had formed integral parts of ancient Kapisa.

It was undoubtedly a ceremonial silver drinking cup of Indo-Iranian king Kharaosta and later of his successor prince Indravarman who converted it into a sacred reliquary for the bones of Buddha".

[4] The Nuristani customs represents the survival in remote region of a local (Bajaur) tradition of ritual wine drinking which, in Buddhist world of Gandhara, may have been assimilated to and rationalized by the cosmological realm of the 'Sadamattas', who dwell on the slope of Mt Meru.

Noteworthy among the former are prince Indravarman and king Khara(y)osta who is to be identified with ruler Kharahostes or Kharaosta who had been known from numismatics and Mathura Lion Capital inscriptions.

These people, identified as sub-branch of the Kambojas, had earlier offered stubborn resistance to Macedonian invader Alexander in 326 BCE and later also constituted an important component of the grand army of Chandragupta Maurya.