Piprahwa
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Piprahawa Piprahava |
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|---|---|
| village | |
 Piprahawa
Piprahawa
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| Coordinates: 27°26′35″N 83°07′40″E / 27.443000°N 83.127800°ECoordinates: 27°26′35″N 83°07′40″E / 27.443000°N 83.127800°E | |
| Country |
 India
|
| State | Uttar Pradesh |
| District | Siddharthnagar |
| Languages | |
| • Official | Hindi |
| Time zone | IST (UTC+05:30) |
Piprahwa is a village near Birdpur in Siddharthnagar district of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Kalanamak, a scented and spicy variety of rice is grown in this area.
Piprahwa is best known for its archaeological site. A large stupa and the ruins of several monasteries are located within the site. Ancient residential complexes and shrines were uncovered at the adjacent mound of Ganwaria. Some scholars have suggested that modern-day Piprahwa-Ganwaria 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. Others suggest that the original site of Kapilavastu is located 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) to the northwest, at Tilaurakot, in what is currently Kapilvastu District in Nepal.
A buried stupa was discovered by William Claxton Peppe, a British colonial engineer and landowner of an estate at Piprahwa in January 1898. Peppe led a team in excavating a large earthen mound on his land. Having cleared away scrub and jungle, they set to work building a deep trench through the mound. Eventually they came to a large stone coffer which contained five small vases containing bone fragments, ashes and jewels. On one of the vases was a Brahmi inscription which was translated by Bühler to mean "This relic-shrine of divine Buddha (is the donation) of the Sakya-Sukiti brothers, associated with their sisters, sons, and wives", implying that the bone fragments were part of the remains of Gautama Buddha. In the following decade or so epigraphists debated the precise meaning of the inscription. One scholar, John Fleet, challenged the opinion of such fellow academics as M. Senart and M. Barth and proposed that it referred to the Buddha’s kinsman rather than the Buddha himself. However, Harry Falk agrees with the original interpretation as translated by Georg Buhler and Vincent Smith that the depositors believed these to be the remains of the Buddha himself. Falk translates the inscription as "these are the relics of the Buddha, the Lord" and concludes that the reliquary found at Piprahwa did contain a portion of the ashes of the Buddha and that the inscription is authentic.
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Wikipedia