David N. Snyder wrote:
I have noticed this too with the so-called relics of Buddha, Sariputta, Moggallana, etc. There are so many temples with supposedly bone fragments of the Buddha that if they are real, the Buddha must have been about 1,000 feet tall to produce so many remains.
According to one theory the relics can multiply if the person in possession of them is a virtuous Buddhist.
What with all this shilly-shallying among the experts – who can’t even agree on whether this find is authentic, never mind its dating – it’s now perfectly obvious that the only way to resolve this critical issue is to subject the finds themselves to rigorous scientific testing. The Siamese received organic material from inside the Piprahwa coffer in 1898 – bones, sandalwood pieces, and ‘dark dust’ – and though the bones might present a problem to the faithful, there can be no objection to carbon-dating the other stuff. Likewise the terracotta ‘sealings’ from the 1973 claims, which should be subjected to thermoluminescence testing to reveal when they were fired. Otherwise it’s just ‘he says she says’, and a century of that has led us nowhere. Test the stuff, and settle the matter once and for all.
diptych4 wrote:What with all this shilly-shallying among the experts – who can’t even agree on whether this find is authentic, never mind its dating – it’s now perfectly obvious that the only way to resolve this critical issue is to subject the finds themselves to rigorous scientific testing. The Siamese received organic material from inside the Piprahwa coffer in 1898 – bones, sandalwood pieces, and ‘dark dust’ – and though the bones might present a problem to the faithful, there can be no objection to carbon-dating the other stuff. Likewise the terracotta ‘sealings’ from the 1973 claims, which should be subjected to thermoluminescence testing to reveal when they were fired. Otherwise it’s just ‘he says she says’, and a century of that has led us nowhere. Test the stuff, and settle the matter once and for all.
"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:
'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta
So it seems that recent National Geographic documentary was a 40 min. advertisment of the auction?
That's about the size of it , though there are also signs that Uncle Sam might be contemplating their use as diplomatic /political pawns also. Watch this space.
