Speaker
Are relics more than static remnants of the past?
This lecture on the relics of the Buddha excavated from the ancient stupa at Piprahwa, traces their long, contested journey to reveal the deep entanglement of material culture, belief, and power across history and into the present.
Excavated in 1898 and removed from India for over a century, the Piprahwa relics have been shrouded in controversy, from disputes over authenticity to competing claims of ownership and attempted auctions. Their recent return brings new urgency to old questions. Naman P. Ahuja will explain how relics are defined in Buddhist tradition, their role in geopolitics through what scholars call “relic diplomacy,” the legal shifts shaping their custody, and what all this means for museums today.
Image Credit: Jewel relics of the Buddha on view at the exhibition Lotus & the Light, New Delhi 2026.
Venue: Auditorium
Speaker
Naman P Ahuja
Naman P. Ahuja is a curator, Professor of Art History at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, and General Editor of Marg. His studies of small everyday objects from ancient India have examined the foundations of South Asia’s visual aesthetics through the lenses of religion, transculturalism, and gender. His publications and curatorial projects include The Making of the Modern Indian Artist Craftsman (Routledge, 2011), The Body in Indian Art & Thought (Ludion, 2013), India & the World (Penguin, 2017), The Art & Archaeology of Ancient India (Oxford, 2018), and Gandhara: A Confluence of Cultures (Marg, 2019 & 2026). His writings have been widely translated into Hindi, Marathi, French, Dutch, and Spanish.
You might also like
How the Partition Reshaped Indian Politics
The ‘Architecture of Hate’ and the Rise of Majoritarianism in India
RSVP here
