A ceramic box containing 2,000 pieces of cremated bones have been uncovered in Jingchuan County, China, which experts say belonged to Siddhartha Gautama.
Siddhartha Gautama, who died about 2,500 years ago, laid the foundations of the Buddhist religion with teachings in Eastern India throughout his 80-year life.
The ceramic box had inscriptions on the side which said the bones belonged to Buddha and there were more than 260 Buddha statues found near to the discovery.
A translated inscription – dated to the year 1013 AD – on the side of the casket reads: “The monks Yunjiang and Zhiming of the Lotus School, who belonged to the Mañjuśrī Temple of the Longxing Monastery in Jingzhou Prefecture, gathered more than 2,000 pieces of śarīra (the cremated remains of the Buddha) as well as the Buddha’s teeth and bones, and buried them in the Mañjuśrī Hall of this temple.”
Some of the statues are at least two metres tall and have been discovered by monks from the Manjursi Temple of the Longxing Monastery in China’s Jingzhou Prefecture, named Yunjiang and Zhiming, over the course of two decades.
The discovery of the box was made by locals conducting roadworks in 2012, but it has only just been reported in English by the journal Chinese Cultural Relics.
The statues depict Buddha and his followers and were carved in China during the Wei dynasty (386 to 534 AD) and the Song dynasty (960 to 1279 AD).
Buddha, or Siddhartha Gautama, is believed to have been born some time between 563 BCE or 480 BCE.
When he died, as legend goes, to avoid fighting, his remains were divided and split among his disciples and royalty.