RESEARCH GROUPS

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Relics and Relic Worship in the Early Buddhism of India and Burma

Convenor: Professor Janice Stargardt, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge

This research group has its conceptual basis in a problem common to all religions with an historical or perceived founder, namely the importance of direct contact with the corporeal remains or personal possessions of that founder in order continually to renew inspiration and define the religious identity of adherents after the founder’s death. Buddhism, Christianity and Islam — in chronological order — exemplify these phenomena in different ways, as do some new sects and cults of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Interdisciplinary in both concept and method, the group has a precise and innovative basis in Buddhist studies. Its theoretical implications radiate out into related areas of comparative religion, textual analyses, landscape archaeology and art history. The fundamental problem of the role of relics in Buddhism is being explored in the wider context provided by other world religions with relics and relic worship. Questions examined include the significance of the founding figure, the quest for physical immediacy and the proliferation of relics. The following specific topics are being addressed, each having its own set of references to broader issues and debates; each being studied through the range of academic disciplines that the members of the project represent:

  1. The study of early relics, reliquaries, relic chambers and their contents in India and Burma.
  2. Geographical and ritual continuities between pre-Buddhist and Buddhist landscapes. The delineation and analysis of a devotional Buddhist landscape (natural or man-made) around relics.
  3. The complex relations between Buddhist relics and relic substitutes, such as images, possessions and texts, and their implications for the development of Buddhist architecture and iconography.
  4. The equally complex relations between Buddhist textual sources on relics and relic worship and the archaeological evidence on early Buddhist practices — convergent and divergent traditions.
  5. Distinctions between Buddhist relics, foundation deposits and burials in sacred places.

Steatite container inscribed with the name of Kotiputa Kasapagota. From Sonari stupa 2, 1st century BCE. Courtesy of the British Museum.

Group Members

  • Professor Janice Stargardt (Convenor and Principal Coordinator) Department of Geography and Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge.
  • Professor Karel van Kooij (Joint Coordinator) Kern Institute, University of Leiden.
  • Professor Krishna Kumari Myneni, Department of Ancient History and Archaeology, University of Andhra, Vishakapatnam.
  • Dr K. Rajan, Department of Archaeology, Tamil University, Thanjavur.
  • Mr Joe Cribb, Keeper of Coins and Medals, Department of Coins and Medals, The British Museum.
  • Dr Michael Willis, Department of Asia, The British Museum.
  • Dr Elizabeth Errington, Department of Coins and Medals, The British Museum.
  • Dr Akira Shimada, Department of Asia, The British Museum.
  • Mr Lance Cousins, Wolfson College, Oxford.
  • Dr Julia Shaw, Institute of Archaeology, UCL., London
  • Ms Anna Slaszcka, Kern Institute, University of Leiden.
  • Mr Jason Hawkes, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge.