Ancient Buddhist Relics Returned by Burmese Locals

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Bago, Myanmar -- Hundreds of 1,000-year-old Buddhist statues have been returned by workmen after an ancient pagoda site in Prome (Pyay) Township, Pegu (Bago) Division, dating from the Sri Ksetra era of the Pyu Kingdom, was ransacked.

<< Some of the 1,000-year-old Buddhist statues unearthed in Prome Township. (Photo: Warazein Moekyo)

Local people handed the antique Buddhist relics to the authorities on Thursday after they began to worry about possibly being arrested for stealing the artifacts. Prome residents sent a letter to The Irrawaddy about the discovery last week.

The Irrawaddy reported that the valuable antiques were being hidden and then removed from the site by car. However, after word got out those responsible eventually decided to hand the treasures back to the proper authorities.

“After news spread to the media, they were afraid and this is why they had to give them back,” said a worker who operates a drill at the site.

Local people who stay near the excavation area told The Irrawaddy that it was a shame that the township authorities did not prevent the ancient ruins being destroyed. However, the authorities ordered the digging to halt after complaints were filed in the wake of the relics being discovered on Nov. 5.

The area of Prome Township is called Pagoda Hill and belongs to a man called Thai Thai who recently bought the land from its original owner, Tin Ngwe, who moved to live in Rangoon earlier this year.

The entire plot is valued at 60 million kyat (US $70,000) with the pagoda site alone is worth five million kyat ($6,000). A group of workers found the Buddhist statues after beginning demolition work using a bulldozer on Oct. 15. The find dates from around 700 to 1300 AD, according to Burmese researchers.

Pyu was a civilization that lasted for nearly a millennium until the early ninth century when a new group of “swift horsemen” from the north, the Mranma (Burmans), entered the Upper Irrawaddy Valley. In the early ninth century, the Pyu city-states of Upper Burma came under constant attack from the Nanzhao Kingdom of the present-day Yunnan Province of southwestern China.

In 832, the Nanzhao sacked then-Halingyi, which had overtaken Prome as the chief Pyu city-state. A subsequent Nanzhao invasion in 835 further devastated Upper Burma. While Pyu settlements remained in the region until the advent of the Pagan Empire in the mid-11th century, then Pyu was gradually absorbed into the expanding Burman kingdom of Bagan over the next four centuries.

The Pyu language continued to exist until the late 12th century. By the 13th century, the Pyu had assumed the Burman ethnicity. The histories/legends of the Pyu were also incorporated into those of the Burmans.

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Pakistan struggles with smuggled Buddhist relics

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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Lacking the necessary cash and manpower, Pakistan is struggling to stem the flow of millions of dollars in ancient Buddhist artifacts that looters dig up in the country's northwest and smuggle to collectors around the world.

<< Photo credit: AP | In this photo taken on July 6, 2012, A Pakistani official looks at Buddha statues confiscated by custom authorities in Karachi, Pakistan. Lacking the necessary cash and manpower, Pakistan is struggling to stem the flow of millions of dollars in ancient Buddhist artifacts that shadowy criminal gangs dig up from the country’s northwest and smuggle to collectors around the world. (AP Photo/B.K. Shakil Adil)

The black market trade in smuggled antiquities is a global problem that some experts estimate is worth billions of dollars per year. The main targets are poor countries like Pakistan that possess a rich cultural heritage but don't have the resources to protect it.
The illicit excavations rob Pakistan of an important potential source of tourism revenue, as valuable icons are spirited out of the country, and destroy any chance for archaeologists to document the history of the sites.

"We are facing a serious problem because Pakistan is a vast country, and we have very meager resources," said Fazal Dad Kakar, head of the government's department of archaeology and museums. "We have no manpower to watch the hundreds of Buddhist sites and monasteries in the country, most of which are located in isolated valleys."

Many of the sites are in the Swat Valley, a verdant, mountainous area in the northwest that was once part of Gandhara, an important Buddhist kingdom that stretched across modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan more than 1,000 years ago.

Police seized a large container filled with nearly 400 artifacts in the southern port city of Karachi in July that were being trucked north to be smuggled out of the country. About 40 percent were found to be genuine, including nearly 100 Buddhist sculptures up to 1,800-years-old worth millions of dollars, said Qasim Ali Qasim, director of archaeology and museums in southern Sindh province.
There were effectively no restrictions on whisking Buddhist relics out of Pakistan's northwest in the first few decades after the country achieved independence from Britain in 1947, said Malik Naveed, a former police chief of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where the Swat Valley is located.

That changed in 1975 when the government passed a set of laws criminalizing the practice. But Kakar, the federal archaeology chief, said the laws are difficult to enforce given a lack of funds, and people who are caught rarely receive punishments severe enough to act as much of a deterrent.

Police arrested several people connected to the seizure in Karachi in July, but they have yet to be formally charged.

Two men who were arrested last October for excavating a statue of Buddha from a site in Swat were only fined about $50 each, far less than the maximum punishment of a year in prison and a fine of more than $800 they could have received, said Syed Naeen, a public prosecutor in the area.

A Manhattan art dealer, Subhash Kapoor, is under arrest in neighboring India for allegedly smuggling millions of dollars in antiquities out of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan that he sold to museums and private collectors from his gallery in New York and online, according to police investigators involved with the case.
Rather than dig up Buddhist relics, some Pakistanis have focused on making replicas, such as the ones seized in Karachi, that they often try to pass off as the real thing -- although this practice is also illegal in the country. Many operate covertly around the ancient Buddhist site of Taxila, a short drive from the capital, Islamabad.
"I learned the practice from my fellow villagers in my childhood and can fake anything using cement, small stones, some colors and chemicals," said Salahud Deen, who works out of his home in a village near Taxila.

The 30-year-old high school dropout was contacted by The Associated Press through the owner of a tea shop in the area and showed off a sample of his wares, including a small statue of the Buddha's head. He said he recently received an order from a man in Sri Lanka to make a 3-foot tall "fasting Buddha" statue and expected to make a little more than $200 in the process.

Locals who deal in real Buddhist artifacts they have stolen from sites in the northwest likely make much more money, but it's almost nothing compared to what people higher up the food chain earn. Looters receive on average less than 1 percent of the final sale price of an item, while middlemen and dealers get the other 99 percent, according to the former head of the U.N. Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, Sandro Calvani.

Kakar, the federal archaeology chief, tried to stop Christie's auction house in New York from selling a "fasting Buddha" from the 3rd or 4th century last year as well as dozens of other Buddhist relics he claimed were smuggled out of Pakistan illegally.

Christie's went ahead and sold the Buddha for nearly $4.5 million and has asked Pakistan to provide proof of its claims, the auction house said.

Kakar was more successful with two shipments of Buddhist artifacts from Dubai and Tokyo that were seized by U.S. customs authorities in 2005, he said. He was able to prove the sculptures came from Pakistan by analyzing the age and composition of the stone, and the U.S. returned them, said Kakar.

Neil Brodie, an expert on the illicit trade in antiquities at the University of Glasgow, said it was critical for authorities to put pressure on private collectors and museums whose demand for ancient relics is fueling the black market. Some museums, particularly in Italy and Britain, have become more diligent about avoiding antiquities with questionable histories, but those in the U.S. have much more work to do, he said.

"You are losing the archaeological record on the ground by the destruction that is entailed by digging these relics out," said Brodie.

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Associated Press writers Sherin Zada in Mingora, Pakistan, Adil Jawad in Karachi, Pakistan, and Ashok Sharma in Chennai, India, contributed to this report.

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Historians dig out 9th century Buddhist relics

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BHUBANESWAR, India -- Historians have stumbled upon what is believed to be remnants and relics of a Buddhist monastery belonging to the Bhaumakara dynasty of the ninth century, near Panaspur village in Cuttack district.

The backyard of a temple in Panaspur village is the place where these relics were first located. Locals informed about the relics to historians Harish Chandra Prusty and Nihar Ranjan Patnaik, who is also the chairman of the Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE).

The two historians started digging the spot and found what seems to be the tip of the iceberg in terms of Buddhist relics. ?We have strong reasons to believe that the relics are part of a Buddhist monastery during the Bhaumakara period. We are yet to put a precise date to the relics, but can safely say that they belong to the ninth century,? said Patnaik.

The relics form an interesting assortment like the Buddha in the Bhumisparsha and Dharmachakra Pravartana (with the head missing) mudras, Padmapani Bodhisattva carved out Khondolite stone and many more. A huge pillar has also been found and the historians guess that it must be a part of the monastery. ?With a well-planned and more thorough excavation, more vital relics can be dug out. This can open up a plethora of knowledge about the times in which the Buddhist monastery flourished,? explained Patnaik.

The two historians are now hoping that the Odisha State Archaeology or the Archaeological Survey of India would take up future excavation of the site. ?With more experienced people with good resources working on the site will help unravel a lot more relics than what we have found till now,? said Patnaik.

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Millions of Sri Lankan devotees pay homage to sacred Buddhist relics

These sacred relics were sent by the Government of Pakistan on the special request of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, during the visit of President Asif Ali Zardari to Sri Lanka. In addition to the millions of devotees the President, the Prime Minister, Speaker of Sri Lankan Parliament, several Parliamentarians and other prominent personalities paid homage to the sacred relics of Lord Buddha during the exposition.

The sacred relics brought from Pakistan to Sri Lanka were taken back to Pakistan on Monday after the conclusion of the exposition of these sacred relics in Sri Lanka, according to a message received here from Colombo.

These relics included the sacred relics of the Lord Buddha, Kanishka Relic Casket from Shah-Ji-Ki-Deheri, stone reliquary in Stupa shape and a Golden Casket.

The exposition of the sacred relics was declared open by the President of Sri Lanka on June 4 at Maligakanda temple in Colombo where these sacred relics stayed for a period of four days from June 5 to 9, 2011 and over 300,000 people paid homage to these relics every day at the Maligakanda temple.

These relics were then taken to the Gangaramaya temple Hunupitiya where they stayed for public exposition for three days from June 10 to 12, during which over 350,000 devotees visited these relics every day.

On June 13, the sacred relics were taken to Tissamaharama temple in Hambantota to mark celebration of Poson Poya day on June 15. The sacred relics remained at Tissamaharama temple for a period of three days where they were visited by over a million devotees.

On June 17, the sacred relics were brought back to Colombo at Mahamewna Asapuwa Malabe from June 16 to 19, where they were kept in the inner chamber of the newly constructed stupa for sanctifying and conferring the blessing of the said sacred relics on the stupa and as a lasting testimony to this blessed event, this stupa was named as ?Siri Gauthama Dharmarajika Stupa?.

There after the sacred relics were exhibited at Mahamewuna Asapuwa, Malabe until June 19.

The exhibition of the sacred relics in Sri Lanka has further strengthened the already existing deep rooted cultural relations between the two friendly nations as it has marked the 2600th Year of the attainment of Enlightenment of Lord Buddha. Buddhism left a monumental and rich legacy of art and architecture in Pakistan.

Despite the vagaries of centuries, the Gandhara region preserved a lot of the heritage in craft and art. Much of this legacy is visible even today in Pakistan.

The Gandhara civilization was not only the centre of spiritual influence but also the cradle of the world famous Gandhara culture, art and learning. It was from these centers that a unique art of sculpture originated which is known as Gandhara Art all over the world.

Today the Gandhara sculptures occupy a prominent place in the museums of England, France, Germany, USA, Japan, Korea, China, India and Afghanistan, together with many private collections world over, as well as a vast collection in the museums of Pakistan.

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