Secrets of the Dead (2000–…): Season 12, Episode 6 - Bones of the Buddha - full transcript
in India in 1898, a British foreman called Willie Peppe supposedly found a jar that contained the remains of Gautama Buddha himself. Historian Charles Allen investigates this claim.
Coming up,
an amateur archaeologist
stumbles
on something extraordinary.
Nothing like it has ever
been found in India.
It's almost like some sort
of Egyptian sarcophagus.
Did he find the tomb
of the real Buddha?
You've been staring
at this for a long time.
Is this a fake?
The answer will mean the world
to Buddhists everywhere.
Everyone knows of Bodhgaya,
but whoever has heard
of Piprahwa?
And yet it could be
hugely significant
within the world of Buddhism.
"Bones of the Buddha"
on "Secrets of the Dead."
"Secrets of the Dead"
was made possible
by contributions
to your PBS station
from viewers like you.
Thank you.
On a spectacular journey
through northern India...
renowned historian
Charles Allen follows
in the footsteps of a real man
of flesh and blood...
the historical Buddha...
and uncovers a real-life
Indiana Jones tale
of buried treasure.
In 1898, a colonial landowner
made an extraordinary
archaeological find...
perhaps thousands of years old,
perhaps even the tomb
of the Buddha himself.
Imagine finding
the bones of Christ.
But the find
has been dogged by rumors
of forgery ever since.
You've been staring
at this for a long time.
Is this a fake?
This film aims to
resolve a series of mysteries.
Is this little-known monument
in northern India
really the Buddha's tomb?
Is the find genuine?
And if it is,
who created it and when?
For the nearly 400 million
Buddhists worldwide,
the stakes could not be higher.
This is Bodhgaya
in northern India,
Buddhism's holiest site.
Here, more than 2,400 years ago,
a former prince,
Shakyamuni Gautama,
found enlightenment and became
"The Awakened One,"
the Buddha.
Bodhgaya is home to scores
of Buddhist memorial mounds
known as stupas.
Could the Piprahwa Stupa
200 miles away
be the holiest of them all?
To answer that question,
historian Charles Allen
begins his quest...
not in India,
but on a quiet suburban
street in England,
home to the treasure that he
first saw several years ago...
launching his fascination
with this extraordinary
unresolved mystery.
Neil, hello.
Hello!
Like Charles Allen,
Neil Peppe was raised
in British India, and is
the grandson of W.C. Peppe,
the man who made the remarkable
discovery at Piprahwa,
a site on his colonial estate.
That is patently
William Claxton Peppe,
your grandfather, is it not?
Yes, it's his old chest.
There are some of the photos.
And there he is.
Then that is the Piprahwa Stupa.
This is
the excavation site?
Yes.
And you can see
the trench that was cut
through the middle of it.
Beneath the Piprahwa Stupa,
Willie Peppe found
a huge stone sarcophagus
over 20 feet down.
In it were some reliquary urns
and more than a thousand
separate jewels,
carved semi-precious stones,
and gold and silver objects
of incalculable value.
A fraction of
the jewels, duplicates,
were given to Peppe more than
a hundred years ago
and preserved here by
the family.
Well, I have
to say, Neil, this is
really what I've come here
to see, which is
the Piprahwa Treasure.
Well, these ones
were the original frames
done by my grandfather.
What strikes me is how
absolutely fabulous they are,
the exquisite workmanship
that's displayed here.
Look at all
these beautiful jewels.
And the other thing is, these
must be thousands of years old.
Yes, I think they are.
But the awful thing is we
don't quite know how old
or why there's such
an extraordinary collection.
Yes.
And I suppose
that is really what I've
got to find out.
Well, I very much hope you do.
A cloud still hangs
over this amazing find,
one that has deterred
serious scholarship...
and blackened the name
of Willie Peppe.
And, Neil, here we are,
more than a century
after your grandfather's
famous discovery,
and there is
still talk of hoaxes
and conspiracy theories.
What do you make of that?
I find it quite extraordinary.
Really, I don't understand it.
It seems quite illogical.
As far as my family is
concerned,
the man was incapable
of forging anything.
Neil grew up
on his grandfather's estate,
Birdpore, in northern India,
where Willie Peppe made
his remarkable discovery.
And here's Birdpore House
itself, the home
the family left
more than 50 years ago.
4,000 miles away,
Birdpore House still stands.
Here, Charles Allen begins
his search for answers
to the Piprahwa Mystery.
Yes, it's faded,
it's not looking at its best,
but it is the same house.
Three generations of the Peppes
grew up in this house,
and Neil, who's now in his 70s.
He must have
played on these lawns.
He must have played
along the veranda up there.
The house was
first built by the Peppe family
when they arrived
in India in the 1840s,
during the early days
of Britain's Indian empire.
The family created a vast,
30,000-acre estate here,
growing crops
like sugarcane and rice.
The question is,
did the man who lived
here in the 1890s
really discover
the remains of the Buddha?
Or was he the victim
of a hoax...
or even the hoaxer himself?
Willie Peppe, estate manager
and engineer,
was in his mid-40s
when he turned
amateur archaeologist in 1897.
The landscape of this part
of northern India
is low and flat...
but at the northern edge
of the Birdpore estate is
a mysterious mound
known as Piprahwa.
It was here that Peppe set
his men digging.
I don't think
we'll ever know exactly what
motivated William Peppe,
but the fact is this was
the golden age
of Indian archaeology.
All sorts of exciting
discoveries were being made
at this time,
in particular a discovery
of some lost Buddhist sites,
one of them very near here.
After weeks
of clearing away soil
at the mound, Peppe's men
had exposed the top
of a large brick structure.
But what lay beneath?
This is the Piprahwa
Stupa as it is today,
beautifully restored...
but this is not what it
would been like in 1898.
You have to imagine that I would
now be standing deep underground
because the surface level
of the ground
would have come about
20 feet above my head.
So the first thing
Mr. Peppe has to do is
to expose the top
of this vast mound,
and his workmen uncover
a lovely brick dome.
So, in January 1898,
the first thing they do
is run a great trench right
the way through the monument.
Then they dig down deep
into the ground,
when, finally, they've got
to the bottom,
and what do they find?
A neat little alcove,
and inside it,
this vast stone coffer.
Nothing like it has ever
been found in India.
It's almost like some sort
of Egyptian sarcophagus.
Will they find a body?
Will they find treasure?
You can imagine
the excitement building.
It must have been
an extraordinary moment.
On the morning
of January 18, 1898,
Peppe and his men
went down into the shaft.
This was the moment they
had been waiting for.
The huge lid,
weighing nearly
a quarter of a ton,
was slid aside,
and for the first time,
Peppe was able to look inside.
He waved his workers back
to give himself room
and began to remove
what he found.
We know from family accounts
that William Peppe reached
down into the box
and produced a water pot.
I suspect a great sense
of anticlimax.
Here is an ordinary
little water pot,
as you might find
in India today.
So, and he would have handed
that to his foreman,
looked down again.
And this time, he comes up
with a rather beautiful
stoneware object,
a jar of some sort
with a top... OK,
a bit more excitement, perhaps...
Hands it to his foreman.
The next pot seemed
unremarkable, too...
A low stone jar with a lid.
This, too, was carefully
wrapped in newspaper,
but something much more
remarkable was to come.
Now, it's almost as if
William Peppe has saved the best
for last because the fifth time
his hand comes out of the box,
he is holding a beautiful,
shining crystal object.
It has a beautiful lid on top
in the shape of a fish,
and when he lifts the lid off,
you can imagine a gasp
of astonishment because
it glittered with jewels...
and hundreds of little flowers
made of precious stones.
A most thrilling sight
it must have been.
And there's more to come because
when they actually looked
inside the stone coffer,
they saw the entire floor was
covered with glittering items...
Gold and little precious
and semi-precious jewels.
I mean, there were over 1,600
individual items there.
A unique offering
of some sort had been laid
across the floor
of this great coffer.
A complete mystery,
but what an amazing moment
for the Peppe family.
The discovery
was unlike anything found
in India before or since.
And we also know,
from the family's own account,
that one of William Peppe's
nieces was there, and she said
to her uncle, "Oh, Uncle,
will you do dig deeper?"
And he said, "No, that's the end
of it," which, with hindsight,
is a terrible mistake.
Digging deeper might
have answered questions
that clouded this amazing find
for the next hundred years.
But Peppe did not dig deeper,
and why should he?
What he had already found
was little short of miraculous.
Willie was an estate manager,
not an archaeologist.
Little attention was paid
to the details of which jewels
had come from which of the jars.
More importantly,
what everyone had overlooked
in all the excitement
were the bits of bone
and ash mixed in with
the jewels.
Well, that same evening,
Peppe realized
that these fragments
must be human remains.
As to who they were or
how old they might be,
of course, he had no idea,
but he was very careful.
He gathered them all up
and he put them
inside two stone jars,
which he sealed,
and then he sat down to write
two crucial letters.
Well, the first
of the two letters went
to a friend of his,
Vincent Smith.
He was a local district officer
based in Gorakhpur,
about 50 miles to the south,
and he was also
a very keen antiquarian,
indeed quite a specialist.
This second letter, however,
was to a genuine archaeologist,
the only archaeologist
in the entire area,
and he was actually working
about 20 miles to the north
on an excavation, and his name
was Dr. Anton Fuhrer.
Both these men wrote back
almost immediately,
and they were both very excited
by what he'd discovered,
and they both asked exactly
the same question:
"Is there an inscription
anywhere?"
Peppe, in fact,
had already found one.
Around the neck of one
of the reliquary jars
was a line of spidery writing
consisting
of 36 strange letters.
The letters themselves,
let alone the language
they represented,
were completely unknown
and indecipherable to Peppe.
But he painstakingly copied out
the mysterious inscription...
and scribbled a hasty note
to his friend,
Vincent Smith, the local
district officer.
Well, quite amazingly,
this little scrap
of paper has survived.
You can see that Willie Peppe
has very carefully copied
the characters on the urn,
and then underneath it,
you can see that Vincent Smith
has given his first
transcription
of what it might mean.
Then, if you turn
this little scrap of paper over,
on the back you find
Vincent Smith's reply,
and it begins,
"The relics appear
to be those of
the Buddha himself."
Hard to imagine what must
have been going
through Peppe's mind
when he saw that.
This is mind-blowing stuff.
Mind-blowing indeed.
No relics of the Buddha,
dead for almost 2,500 years,
had ever been found.
If Peppe had located them,
it was a discovery
of huge importance,
akin to finding a piece
of the true cross.
Fuhrer's response
was just as enthusiastic.
He wrote back,
"Your shrine contains
real relics of Lord Buddha."
Within weeks,
Dr. Fuhrer, in his role
as official archaeologist
for much of northern India,
was on his way to see Peppe...
a visit that would have
dire consequences.
No one knew it yet,
but Dr. Fuhrer was a fraud.
The enigmatic
Dr. Anton Fuhrer...
Roman Catholic priest
turned reverend,
turned amateur curator,
turned bogus Sanskritist,
turned professional
archaeologist.
I spent years trying
to understand this man
and years trying to find
a photograph, and the best
I've been able to come up with...
There's one that shows him
at the scene of one
of his early digs,
and you can see him
standing by a statue.
And the other one,
here he is at Piprahwa,
and he's standing
with William Peppe.
But in both those pictures,
he's a kind of shadowy figure,
and really that's
the shadow that he casts
over the Piprahwa Stupa
excavation.
An unsuspecting Peppe
met Dr. Fuhrer at Piprahwa,
4 weeks or so after the find.
Soon, a scandal would
surround Fuhrer.
The German archaeologist
had sold bogus Buddha relics,
falsified numerous reports,
and worst of all,
had faked at least one
ancient inscription.
He resigned before he
could be fired.
In its capital in Calcutta,
India's British government
faced its own scandal.
Dr. Fuhrer, after all,
was one of their most
senior archaeologists.
The reaction of
the government was one
of embarrassment: "What on earth
are we going to do?"
And the first thing
they did was to try
and destroy all his records
that were patently bogus.
The best thing to do was just
simply wipe them out.
Then they had
the problem of Piprahwa.
Now, here had been
discovered not only
some rather wonderful jewels,
but also some actual bones
and ashes, and I think
the immediate response was,
"Let's get them out of
the country as fast as we can."
The government
saw an opportunity
to kill two birds
with one stone.
They'd long wanted
to ingratiate themselves
with the neighboring
state, Siam,
so they formally presented
the Piprahwa ashes and bones...
to Siam's Buddhist king,
Rama V,
scoring a diplomatic victory
and brushing the affair
under the carpet
before the Fuhrer scandal
could boil over.
But where did that leave Peppe
and his extraordinary find?
The suspicion had to be
that Dr. Fuhrer had interfered
in some way with
the Piprahwa excavation.
He had the opportunity,
perhaps, to go
into the excavation itself,
down to the coffer, perhaps even
put some items in there...
or even have conspired
with Mr. Peppe.
Perhaps he even conspired,
with the other officials,
some gigantic hoax.
But the key conspiracy
theory involves
the Piprahwa inscription.
The basis of that theory
is that Dr. Fuhrer had
the opportunity
and the expertise
to fake it himself.
Over a century later,
that conspiracy theory has never
been entirely disproved.
The crucial piece of evidence
is here, in Calcutta.
Stored in the city's museum,
the original inscribed
Piprahwa urn.
Stone cannot be carbon-dated,
nor can the inscription.
But for the right expert,
there are vital clues
in the text itself.
Now, I'm hoping that
waiting for me at the museum
will be Professor Harry Falk.
Now, he is the world's
leading authority
on ancient Indian languages.
We've corresponded,
but I've never met him,
so I've no idea
what's going to happen.
Harry Falk is a professor
at Germany's oldest institute
of Indology in Berlin.
Harry! Ha ha ha!
This must be you.
Must be Harry.
He's been studying
ancient Indian languages
for more than 40 years.
What will his verdict be
on the possible involvement
of fellow German
Anton Fuhrer?
This is grand.
So, here we are,
into the holy of holies.
Oh, there it is.
Look at this, Charles.
This is wow, wow, wow.
I've been looking at pictures
of this for 6 years, Harry.
What strikes me is
how clear the writing is,
how each character has
been clearly defined.
So, Harry, you've
been staring at this
for a long time.
Is this a fake?
I can definitely say
this is not a fake.
How can you say that?
First, the script is
absolutely authentic,
the object is authentic,
the language is
the language of that time
in that area of India.
Now, the obvious
perpetrator is Dr. Fuhrer.
Now, surely he could
have done this.
Yes, he was employed
as an archaeologist,
but his knowledge
of Sanskrit was deficient.
The text uses vocabulary
like "nidhane,"
which is not found
at any other place.
Harry, that unusual word
you used...
What's the significance of that?
The term is "nidhane,"
and it means "container"
in a neutral sense.
This only found on this casket,
no other place.
So, in other words, it'd be
very unusual for Fuhrer
to have picked on
this very obscure word.
Yes.
Since Fuhrer was a not
so skilled Sanskritist,
to say it mildly,
he would have copied terms
from other reliquaries
and not coined the term
on his own.
Everything surpasses
the capacities
of Dr. Fuhrer immensely.
So it is a genuine
and unique inscription?
Absolutely, yes.
And then he ran out of space
and he added two letters
on top of it,
saying...
Now, for me, Harry,
what does that say?
"This reliquary,
"which is the reliquary
of the Buddha,
"the Lord of the Shakya clan
in the Terai."
So, Harry, you're
absolutely confident
that this reliquary
contained the remains
of the Buddha?
Yes, we can be
absolutely confident
because the text says...
That means,
"These are the relics
of the Buddha,
the Lord."
So the world expert is convinced
that the vital inscription
is genuine,
clearing the name
of Willie Peppe.
But now a deeper
mystery emerges.
According to Harry Falk,
the script used
for the inscription
didn't exist
when the Buddha died,
and the only comparable urns
are from long afterwards, too.
So, Harry, you are confident
that this urn contained
the remains of the Buddha,
but it does not date from
the time of the Buddha.
It dates from about
a century and a half,
perhaps, after the Buddha?
Would you agree with that?
This is absolutely correct, yes.
So how can it be
that an urn that claims
to have contained the remains
of the Buddha...
was made at least
150 years after he died?
The answer to that question
lies back in time,
around 2,300 years
before Peppe made his find,
at the time
of the Buddha himself.
How did an ordinary man
of flesh and blood
start a world religion?
How and where did he die?
And how might his remains
have ended up
in the tomb Peppe found?
These are some
delightful paintings
of the Buddha, the life
of the Buddha,
which we see depicted
in Janakpuri folk art.
And when you look at images
like this, it's very hard
to remember that this
is a real person.
But the fact is the Buddha
was a real person
of flesh and blood.
In fact, we know as much
about him as we know
about Jesus Christ or, indeed,
the prophet Muhammad.
He lived in the Gangetic Plains
in the fifth century BCE,
he was probably born about 500,
and he probably died
about 410 BCE.
The Buddha was born in Lumbini,
not far from Piprahwa.
He was raised a royal prince,
but in his early 30s,
he fled the luxury
of the palace...
and witnessed
human suffering, old age,
illness, and death
for the first time.
When he saw an old hermit
at prayer,
he rejected his former life...
and became a hermit himself.
For 6 years, he led
a life of extreme denial,
earning himself
a new name... Shakyamuni...
Holy man of his own clan,
the Shakyas.
Then he came to the place
that would bring him
to enlightenment...
Bodhgaya.
When Buddha first came here,
it was nothing
but trees and jungle...
but over the centuries,
Bodhgaya has grown
into a great holy site,
as sacred as Mecca or Jerusalem.
It's really very humbling
to think that this,
for millions and millions
of Buddhists,
this is the center
of their universe
and that there are people here
from Tibet, from China,
from Burma,
from Thailand,
from Sri Lanka, and indeed,
foreigners from
the West as well.
And there's a very real sense
of spirituality here
which I find very, very moving.
This is the epicenter
of the Buddhist faith,
and of course,
everyone knows of Bodhgaya,
but whoever has heard
of Piprahwa?
And yet it could be
hugely significant
within the world of Buddhism.
At the heart of this
holy site is the Bodhi Tree.
Meditating here,
Buddha finally understood
the causes of human suffering
and attained enlightenment...
and so a new religion
was born...
Buddhism.
In his footsteps,
the pilgrims still walk
2,500 years later.
Here, at Bodhgaya,
the Buddha transcended time,
entering an eternal present
without future or past.
For Bhante Piyapala Chakma,
a descendant of
the Buddhist Shakya clan,
it is this eternal present
that gives Buddha his power.
When he was born
in Lumbini, he was born
just an ordinary person
who sometimes used to live
in the past or in the future,
not in the present.
But after he became enlightened
at the Bodhi Tree,
then he started living
exactly at the present moment.
But the thing is
that the differences
between an ordinary person
and the person
of enlightenment,
like a Buddha, that's...
Buddha lives only at
the present moment.
Don't live in the past,
don't live in the future.
But, on the other hand,
an ordinary person lives either
in the past or in the future,
not in the present.
At around the age of 80,
Buddha set out
on his final journey,
back to his homeland
close to Piprahwa.
His route was marked later
by memorial stupas
and stone columns:
where he delivered
his last sermon...
where he turned back the crowds
and continued
with just his close disciples.
Sixty miles short
of Lumbini, at Kushinagar,
he lay down between two trees
that suddenly flowered
out of season,
and he died.
This huge statue
at Kushinagar marks the spot
where he experienced
what Buddhists call
"the final extinguishing."
But it's what happened
after his death that provides
the vital clues to locate
Buddha's true burial place.
Soon as the Buddha had
died, his body was cremated.
Now, over the years, he'd
gathered a very large following,
so there was
an almighty squabble
because everybody wanted
a share of his remains,
and this could only be resolved
when it was decided
that the remains should be
divided into 8 portions,
which would go to 8 kings,
including the Shakya family,
the members of his own
Shakya clan.
The inscription states
that the Piprahwa urn contained
this precious
Shakya family portion.
Since Piprahwa is at the heart
of Shakya territory,
Buddha's homeland,
was it possible
that Peppe had found
this original burial site
of Buddha's remains...
the only one of the 8 portions
to be found?
Perhaps.
But that original burial
would have been simple...
the bones and ashes laid
in the ground with flowers,
buried under a mound of earth...
Nothing like the tomb
that Peppe had discovered.
So even if the fragments
of bone and ash belonged
to the Buddha,
the elaborate tomb
must have been created
later by someone else.
So who could have built it,
and when and why?
There's one place
that could hold the answers
to these vital questions,
a remarkable site
at the very heart of India...
Sanchi, 450 miles away.
There it is.
Very striking.
We're sweeping into Sanchi Hill,
and there it rises out
of the plains,
and right on the top is
the great stupa
with its magnificent carvings,
one of the Wonders of the World.
With its huge stupa
50 feet high,
Sanchi is a monument to
the spread of Buddhism.
Could it be that the man
who first built this site
was also responsible
for the spectacular tomb
that Peppe found?
The carving here is monumental.
It's a miracle, you might say,
that it survived
2,000 years plus,
and there it is and it's
the only one like it.
It's breathtaking.
The monument was
begun by a great emperor
who converted his Indian
empire to Buddhism
150 years after the Buddha died.
His name was Ashoka,
and his conversion marked
a dramatic personal
transformation.
It's impossible not to be moved
by the character of Ashoka.
Here is an extremely
violent, unpleasant,
ruthless emperor who seizes
the throne by violence,
kills all his brothers,
and then suffers some
extraordinary change of heart
and is suddenly converted,
completely becomes a new man,
and from that moment onwards,
Asia has a ruler
who actually rules
by principles of morality.
He is the one
who changes this minor cult
into what is initially
a national religion
and then a world religion.
Three crucial facts
suggest possible connections
between Ashoka and Piprahwa.
Sanchi shows how Ashoka
built hundreds
of brick stupas
all over India...
how he dug up the original
portions of Buddha's remains...
and redistributed them
to these new sites.
Was Piprahwa among them?
A clue may be found in one
of India's earliest languages.
Ashoka used a form of Sanskrit
to create written edicts,
first on rocks...
and later on a series of huge
sandstone pillars.
They were written in script
called Brahmi...
the very script used to make
the Piprahwa inscription.
That inscription,
according to Harry Falk,
was made around 150 years
after Buddha died...
Exactly when Ashoka reigned.
But if Ashoka did create
the tomb at Piprahwa,
if it did mark the burial site
of Buddha's own family...
The Shakya clan...
It would have been one
of Buddhism's holiest sites.
How could such a place
possibly have been forgotten?
The answer to that question lies
in what happened
to Buddhism after Ashoka died.
Ashoka wanted
to transform his kingdom
into a Buddhist country,
and in a sense,
that was a step too far.
These statues did not
lose their heads by accident.
Buddhism challenged
the authority
of India's Hindu priests,
who saw it as a heresy
to be suppressed, and what
the Hindu priests started,
Muslim invaders completed.
Over the centuries, Ashoka,
the Brahmi script,
and Indian Buddhism itself were
all erased from memory,
almost as if they had
never been.
It wasn't until the 1800s that
Buddhism was all rediscovered,
mainly by British scholars.
Brahmi was deciphered.
Ashoka was identified.
So were places like
the Sanchi monument,
and Piprahwa... among
the last sites to be found...
Was unearthed by Willie Peppe
in 1898.
All the evidence seems
to point toward Ashoka
as the man who created
this remarkable tomb.
For world expert Harry Falk,
the huge sarcophagus is
the clincher.
So this is 132,
a little less.
The dimensions
of the chest seem to fit
the typical measurements
of Ashokan art work.
The looks, the feel...
Everything smacks
of Ashokan perfectionism.
Harry Falk is
convinced that the sarcophagus
is made of sandstone
from the same quarry
Ashoka used for his pillars...
and that it may even have been
made at the same time
as the nearby pillar at Lumbini.
So does that mean
it's possible to give
this stone chest a date?
This should have been done
when Ashoka was in Lumbini
and in that area.
That means around
his 20th regnal year,
which comes down to
245 BC, roughly.
You've given me a very
specific date, Harry.
Highly unusual.
Such a precise date
is a breakthrough,
but vital questions remain.
Why did Ashoka choose Piprahwa?
Was it the original burial place
of Buddha's remains
by his own Shakya family?
If Peppe had dug deeper,
as his niece suggested in 1898,
he might have found the answer.
But many years later,
someone else did.
It was 1971.
The excavator this time was not
a British colonial,
but a young Indian
archaeologist...
K.S. Srivastava.
His daughter Mridula recalls
how it all began.
Actually, when
my father started excavation
in 1971,
we just ask him,
"With what intentions
you are doing this?"
And he said that
"I want to do something
which no one has done,
something which will
stand in my name."
Srivastava was convinced
that the chamber where Peppe
had found the sarcophagus
wasn't at ground level,
and that there might be
something beneath it.
Peppe's excavation had long
since been filled in,
so Srivastava had to go down
through the whole stupa again
from the top.
Every month
and when he was to come back
to the headquarters, my brother,
myself, and my sister,
we used to just keep waiting
at the door for him.
As soon as he started
climbing the stairs,
you'd say, "Papa,
did you get anything?"
Every time when he used
to say that, "No,
not this time,
not this time," we could see
the tension and worry
on my father's face.
But ultimately, in '72,
when he got the relic caskets,
and he came to Patna
and we asked,
"Papa, did you get
something?"
he said, "Oh, yes,
I have done it!"
And he had.
Just below Peppe's find,
he located an earlier burial...
two small chambers,
each with a soapstone casket
and some broken red ware.
Srivastava was convinced
that this find
was from the time of
the Buddha himself.
For Charles Allen,
it's the final piece
of the jigsaw puzzle,
suggesting that this lower site
was the original Shakya
burial place...
and that Buddha's ashes
were moved from here
to the elaborate new tomb above,
just as the inscription said.
When Peppe comes along
and he finds this huge,
great box, we're talking
about a different era.
Somebody has come along and
disturbed the original ashes,
and then he's added
his own particular tribute,
his offering of all
these wonderful jewels.
And we know that that person
is almost certainly Ashoka
because this great box
was Ashokan.
The writing, almost certainly,
added to that inscription
is from the time of Ashoka.
I can't tell you
how relieved I feel
because when I set out
on this journey, I had no idea
if we'd come up
with real answers, but we have.
I'm pretty excited
by it, frankly.
I can now go back to England
and tell Neil Peppe
that his grandfather
is not a liar,
that the inscription is
genuine, and not only that,
I can say that the jewels that
he possesses are indeed genuine.
I can hardly believe it.
It's a fantastic ending.
But Charles Allen
has done far more
than clear the name of one man.
For nearly 400 million
Buddhists worldwide...
he has confirmed
that Piprahwa is,
in all likelihood,
the very place
where the Shakyas buried
their holy clansman...
and where the emperor Ashoka
later built a magnificent tomb
to give honor to
the Lord Buddha himself.
"Secrets of the Dead"
was made possible
by contributions to your PBS
station from viewers like you.
Thank you.
The "Secrets of the Dead"
investigation continues online.
For more in-depth analysis
and streaming video
an amateur archaeologist
stumbles
on something extraordinary.
Nothing like it has ever
been found in India.
It's almost like some sort
of Egyptian sarcophagus.
Did he find the tomb
of the real Buddha?
You've been staring
at this for a long time.
Is this a fake?
The answer will mean the world
to Buddhists everywhere.
Everyone knows of Bodhgaya,
but whoever has heard
of Piprahwa?
And yet it could be
hugely significant
within the world of Buddhism.
"Bones of the Buddha"
on "Secrets of the Dead."
"Secrets of the Dead"
was made possible
by contributions
to your PBS station
from viewers like you.
Thank you.
On a spectacular journey
through northern India...
renowned historian
Charles Allen follows
in the footsteps of a real man
of flesh and blood...
the historical Buddha...
and uncovers a real-life
Indiana Jones tale
of buried treasure.
In 1898, a colonial landowner
made an extraordinary
archaeological find...
perhaps thousands of years old,
perhaps even the tomb
of the Buddha himself.
Imagine finding
the bones of Christ.
But the find
has been dogged by rumors
of forgery ever since.
You've been staring
at this for a long time.
Is this a fake?
This film aims to
resolve a series of mysteries.
Is this little-known monument
in northern India
really the Buddha's tomb?
Is the find genuine?
And if it is,
who created it and when?
For the nearly 400 million
Buddhists worldwide,
the stakes could not be higher.
This is Bodhgaya
in northern India,
Buddhism's holiest site.
Here, more than 2,400 years ago,
a former prince,
Shakyamuni Gautama,
found enlightenment and became
"The Awakened One,"
the Buddha.
Bodhgaya is home to scores
of Buddhist memorial mounds
known as stupas.
Could the Piprahwa Stupa
200 miles away
be the holiest of them all?
To answer that question,
historian Charles Allen
begins his quest...
not in India,
but on a quiet suburban
street in England,
home to the treasure that he
first saw several years ago...
launching his fascination
with this extraordinary
unresolved mystery.
Neil, hello.
Hello!
Like Charles Allen,
Neil Peppe was raised
in British India, and is
the grandson of W.C. Peppe,
the man who made the remarkable
discovery at Piprahwa,
a site on his colonial estate.
That is patently
William Claxton Peppe,
your grandfather, is it not?
Yes, it's his old chest.
There are some of the photos.
And there he is.
Then that is the Piprahwa Stupa.
This is
the excavation site?
Yes.
And you can see
the trench that was cut
through the middle of it.
Beneath the Piprahwa Stupa,
Willie Peppe found
a huge stone sarcophagus
over 20 feet down.
In it were some reliquary urns
and more than a thousand
separate jewels,
carved semi-precious stones,
and gold and silver objects
of incalculable value.
A fraction of
the jewels, duplicates,
were given to Peppe more than
a hundred years ago
and preserved here by
the family.
Well, I have
to say, Neil, this is
really what I've come here
to see, which is
the Piprahwa Treasure.
Well, these ones
were the original frames
done by my grandfather.
What strikes me is how
absolutely fabulous they are,
the exquisite workmanship
that's displayed here.
Look at all
these beautiful jewels.
And the other thing is, these
must be thousands of years old.
Yes, I think they are.
But the awful thing is we
don't quite know how old
or why there's such
an extraordinary collection.
Yes.
And I suppose
that is really what I've
got to find out.
Well, I very much hope you do.
A cloud still hangs
over this amazing find,
one that has deterred
serious scholarship...
and blackened the name
of Willie Peppe.
And, Neil, here we are,
more than a century
after your grandfather's
famous discovery,
and there is
still talk of hoaxes
and conspiracy theories.
What do you make of that?
I find it quite extraordinary.
Really, I don't understand it.
It seems quite illogical.
As far as my family is
concerned,
the man was incapable
of forging anything.
Neil grew up
on his grandfather's estate,
Birdpore, in northern India,
where Willie Peppe made
his remarkable discovery.
And here's Birdpore House
itself, the home
the family left
more than 50 years ago.
4,000 miles away,
Birdpore House still stands.
Here, Charles Allen begins
his search for answers
to the Piprahwa Mystery.
Yes, it's faded,
it's not looking at its best,
but it is the same house.
Three generations of the Peppes
grew up in this house,
and Neil, who's now in his 70s.
He must have
played on these lawns.
He must have played
along the veranda up there.
The house was
first built by the Peppe family
when they arrived
in India in the 1840s,
during the early days
of Britain's Indian empire.
The family created a vast,
30,000-acre estate here,
growing crops
like sugarcane and rice.
The question is,
did the man who lived
here in the 1890s
really discover
the remains of the Buddha?
Or was he the victim
of a hoax...
or even the hoaxer himself?
Willie Peppe, estate manager
and engineer,
was in his mid-40s
when he turned
amateur archaeologist in 1897.
The landscape of this part
of northern India
is low and flat...
but at the northern edge
of the Birdpore estate is
a mysterious mound
known as Piprahwa.
It was here that Peppe set
his men digging.
I don't think
we'll ever know exactly what
motivated William Peppe,
but the fact is this was
the golden age
of Indian archaeology.
All sorts of exciting
discoveries were being made
at this time,
in particular a discovery
of some lost Buddhist sites,
one of them very near here.
After weeks
of clearing away soil
at the mound, Peppe's men
had exposed the top
of a large brick structure.
But what lay beneath?
This is the Piprahwa
Stupa as it is today,
beautifully restored...
but this is not what it
would been like in 1898.
You have to imagine that I would
now be standing deep underground
because the surface level
of the ground
would have come about
20 feet above my head.
So the first thing
Mr. Peppe has to do is
to expose the top
of this vast mound,
and his workmen uncover
a lovely brick dome.
So, in January 1898,
the first thing they do
is run a great trench right
the way through the monument.
Then they dig down deep
into the ground,
when, finally, they've got
to the bottom,
and what do they find?
A neat little alcove,
and inside it,
this vast stone coffer.
Nothing like it has ever
been found in India.
It's almost like some sort
of Egyptian sarcophagus.
Will they find a body?
Will they find treasure?
You can imagine
the excitement building.
It must have been
an extraordinary moment.
On the morning
of January 18, 1898,
Peppe and his men
went down into the shaft.
This was the moment they
had been waiting for.
The huge lid,
weighing nearly
a quarter of a ton,
was slid aside,
and for the first time,
Peppe was able to look inside.
He waved his workers back
to give himself room
and began to remove
what he found.
We know from family accounts
that William Peppe reached
down into the box
and produced a water pot.
I suspect a great sense
of anticlimax.
Here is an ordinary
little water pot,
as you might find
in India today.
So, and he would have handed
that to his foreman,
looked down again.
And this time, he comes up
with a rather beautiful
stoneware object,
a jar of some sort
with a top... OK,
a bit more excitement, perhaps...
Hands it to his foreman.
The next pot seemed
unremarkable, too...
A low stone jar with a lid.
This, too, was carefully
wrapped in newspaper,
but something much more
remarkable was to come.
Now, it's almost as if
William Peppe has saved the best
for last because the fifth time
his hand comes out of the box,
he is holding a beautiful,
shining crystal object.
It has a beautiful lid on top
in the shape of a fish,
and when he lifts the lid off,
you can imagine a gasp
of astonishment because
it glittered with jewels...
and hundreds of little flowers
made of precious stones.
A most thrilling sight
it must have been.
And there's more to come because
when they actually looked
inside the stone coffer,
they saw the entire floor was
covered with glittering items...
Gold and little precious
and semi-precious jewels.
I mean, there were over 1,600
individual items there.
A unique offering
of some sort had been laid
across the floor
of this great coffer.
A complete mystery,
but what an amazing moment
for the Peppe family.
The discovery
was unlike anything found
in India before or since.
And we also know,
from the family's own account,
that one of William Peppe's
nieces was there, and she said
to her uncle, "Oh, Uncle,
will you do dig deeper?"
And he said, "No, that's the end
of it," which, with hindsight,
is a terrible mistake.
Digging deeper might
have answered questions
that clouded this amazing find
for the next hundred years.
But Peppe did not dig deeper,
and why should he?
What he had already found
was little short of miraculous.
Willie was an estate manager,
not an archaeologist.
Little attention was paid
to the details of which jewels
had come from which of the jars.
More importantly,
what everyone had overlooked
in all the excitement
were the bits of bone
and ash mixed in with
the jewels.
Well, that same evening,
Peppe realized
that these fragments
must be human remains.
As to who they were or
how old they might be,
of course, he had no idea,
but he was very careful.
He gathered them all up
and he put them
inside two stone jars,
which he sealed,
and then he sat down to write
two crucial letters.
Well, the first
of the two letters went
to a friend of his,
Vincent Smith.
He was a local district officer
based in Gorakhpur,
about 50 miles to the south,
and he was also
a very keen antiquarian,
indeed quite a specialist.
This second letter, however,
was to a genuine archaeologist,
the only archaeologist
in the entire area,
and he was actually working
about 20 miles to the north
on an excavation, and his name
was Dr. Anton Fuhrer.
Both these men wrote back
almost immediately,
and they were both very excited
by what he'd discovered,
and they both asked exactly
the same question:
"Is there an inscription
anywhere?"
Peppe, in fact,
had already found one.
Around the neck of one
of the reliquary jars
was a line of spidery writing
consisting
of 36 strange letters.
The letters themselves,
let alone the language
they represented,
were completely unknown
and indecipherable to Peppe.
But he painstakingly copied out
the mysterious inscription...
and scribbled a hasty note
to his friend,
Vincent Smith, the local
district officer.
Well, quite amazingly,
this little scrap
of paper has survived.
You can see that Willie Peppe
has very carefully copied
the characters on the urn,
and then underneath it,
you can see that Vincent Smith
has given his first
transcription
of what it might mean.
Then, if you turn
this little scrap of paper over,
on the back you find
Vincent Smith's reply,
and it begins,
"The relics appear
to be those of
the Buddha himself."
Hard to imagine what must
have been going
through Peppe's mind
when he saw that.
This is mind-blowing stuff.
Mind-blowing indeed.
No relics of the Buddha,
dead for almost 2,500 years,
had ever been found.
If Peppe had located them,
it was a discovery
of huge importance,
akin to finding a piece
of the true cross.
Fuhrer's response
was just as enthusiastic.
He wrote back,
"Your shrine contains
real relics of Lord Buddha."
Within weeks,
Dr. Fuhrer, in his role
as official archaeologist
for much of northern India,
was on his way to see Peppe...
a visit that would have
dire consequences.
No one knew it yet,
but Dr. Fuhrer was a fraud.
The enigmatic
Dr. Anton Fuhrer...
Roman Catholic priest
turned reverend,
turned amateur curator,
turned bogus Sanskritist,
turned professional
archaeologist.
I spent years trying
to understand this man
and years trying to find
a photograph, and the best
I've been able to come up with...
There's one that shows him
at the scene of one
of his early digs,
and you can see him
standing by a statue.
And the other one,
here he is at Piprahwa,
and he's standing
with William Peppe.
But in both those pictures,
he's a kind of shadowy figure,
and really that's
the shadow that he casts
over the Piprahwa Stupa
excavation.
An unsuspecting Peppe
met Dr. Fuhrer at Piprahwa,
4 weeks or so after the find.
Soon, a scandal would
surround Fuhrer.
The German archaeologist
had sold bogus Buddha relics,
falsified numerous reports,
and worst of all,
had faked at least one
ancient inscription.
He resigned before he
could be fired.
In its capital in Calcutta,
India's British government
faced its own scandal.
Dr. Fuhrer, after all,
was one of their most
senior archaeologists.
The reaction of
the government was one
of embarrassment: "What on earth
are we going to do?"
And the first thing
they did was to try
and destroy all his records
that were patently bogus.
The best thing to do was just
simply wipe them out.
Then they had
the problem of Piprahwa.
Now, here had been
discovered not only
some rather wonderful jewels,
but also some actual bones
and ashes, and I think
the immediate response was,
"Let's get them out of
the country as fast as we can."
The government
saw an opportunity
to kill two birds
with one stone.
They'd long wanted
to ingratiate themselves
with the neighboring
state, Siam,
so they formally presented
the Piprahwa ashes and bones...
to Siam's Buddhist king,
Rama V,
scoring a diplomatic victory
and brushing the affair
under the carpet
before the Fuhrer scandal
could boil over.
But where did that leave Peppe
and his extraordinary find?
The suspicion had to be
that Dr. Fuhrer had interfered
in some way with
the Piprahwa excavation.
He had the opportunity,
perhaps, to go
into the excavation itself,
down to the coffer, perhaps even
put some items in there...
or even have conspired
with Mr. Peppe.
Perhaps he even conspired,
with the other officials,
some gigantic hoax.
But the key conspiracy
theory involves
the Piprahwa inscription.
The basis of that theory
is that Dr. Fuhrer had
the opportunity
and the expertise
to fake it himself.
Over a century later,
that conspiracy theory has never
been entirely disproved.
The crucial piece of evidence
is here, in Calcutta.
Stored in the city's museum,
the original inscribed
Piprahwa urn.
Stone cannot be carbon-dated,
nor can the inscription.
But for the right expert,
there are vital clues
in the text itself.
Now, I'm hoping that
waiting for me at the museum
will be Professor Harry Falk.
Now, he is the world's
leading authority
on ancient Indian languages.
We've corresponded,
but I've never met him,
so I've no idea
what's going to happen.
Harry Falk is a professor
at Germany's oldest institute
of Indology in Berlin.
Harry! Ha ha ha!
This must be you.
Must be Harry.
He's been studying
ancient Indian languages
for more than 40 years.
What will his verdict be
on the possible involvement
of fellow German
Anton Fuhrer?
This is grand.
So, here we are,
into the holy of holies.
Oh, there it is.
Look at this, Charles.
This is wow, wow, wow.
I've been looking at pictures
of this for 6 years, Harry.
What strikes me is
how clear the writing is,
how each character has
been clearly defined.
So, Harry, you've
been staring at this
for a long time.
Is this a fake?
I can definitely say
this is not a fake.
How can you say that?
First, the script is
absolutely authentic,
the object is authentic,
the language is
the language of that time
in that area of India.
Now, the obvious
perpetrator is Dr. Fuhrer.
Now, surely he could
have done this.
Yes, he was employed
as an archaeologist,
but his knowledge
of Sanskrit was deficient.
The text uses vocabulary
like "nidhane,"
which is not found
at any other place.
Harry, that unusual word
you used...
What's the significance of that?
The term is "nidhane,"
and it means "container"
in a neutral sense.
This only found on this casket,
no other place.
So, in other words, it'd be
very unusual for Fuhrer
to have picked on
this very obscure word.
Yes.
Since Fuhrer was a not
so skilled Sanskritist,
to say it mildly,
he would have copied terms
from other reliquaries
and not coined the term
on his own.
Everything surpasses
the capacities
of Dr. Fuhrer immensely.
So it is a genuine
and unique inscription?
Absolutely, yes.
And then he ran out of space
and he added two letters
on top of it,
saying...
Now, for me, Harry,
what does that say?
"This reliquary,
"which is the reliquary
of the Buddha,
"the Lord of the Shakya clan
in the Terai."
So, Harry, you're
absolutely confident
that this reliquary
contained the remains
of the Buddha?
Yes, we can be
absolutely confident
because the text says...
That means,
"These are the relics
of the Buddha,
the Lord."
So the world expert is convinced
that the vital inscription
is genuine,
clearing the name
of Willie Peppe.
But now a deeper
mystery emerges.
According to Harry Falk,
the script used
for the inscription
didn't exist
when the Buddha died,
and the only comparable urns
are from long afterwards, too.
So, Harry, you are confident
that this urn contained
the remains of the Buddha,
but it does not date from
the time of the Buddha.
It dates from about
a century and a half,
perhaps, after the Buddha?
Would you agree with that?
This is absolutely correct, yes.
So how can it be
that an urn that claims
to have contained the remains
of the Buddha...
was made at least
150 years after he died?
The answer to that question
lies back in time,
around 2,300 years
before Peppe made his find,
at the time
of the Buddha himself.
How did an ordinary man
of flesh and blood
start a world religion?
How and where did he die?
And how might his remains
have ended up
in the tomb Peppe found?
These are some
delightful paintings
of the Buddha, the life
of the Buddha,
which we see depicted
in Janakpuri folk art.
And when you look at images
like this, it's very hard
to remember that this
is a real person.
But the fact is the Buddha
was a real person
of flesh and blood.
In fact, we know as much
about him as we know
about Jesus Christ or, indeed,
the prophet Muhammad.
He lived in the Gangetic Plains
in the fifth century BCE,
he was probably born about 500,
and he probably died
about 410 BCE.
The Buddha was born in Lumbini,
not far from Piprahwa.
He was raised a royal prince,
but in his early 30s,
he fled the luxury
of the palace...
and witnessed
human suffering, old age,
illness, and death
for the first time.
When he saw an old hermit
at prayer,
he rejected his former life...
and became a hermit himself.
For 6 years, he led
a life of extreme denial,
earning himself
a new name... Shakyamuni...
Holy man of his own clan,
the Shakyas.
Then he came to the place
that would bring him
to enlightenment...
Bodhgaya.
When Buddha first came here,
it was nothing
but trees and jungle...
but over the centuries,
Bodhgaya has grown
into a great holy site,
as sacred as Mecca or Jerusalem.
It's really very humbling
to think that this,
for millions and millions
of Buddhists,
this is the center
of their universe
and that there are people here
from Tibet, from China,
from Burma,
from Thailand,
from Sri Lanka, and indeed,
foreigners from
the West as well.
And there's a very real sense
of spirituality here
which I find very, very moving.
This is the epicenter
of the Buddhist faith,
and of course,
everyone knows of Bodhgaya,
but whoever has heard
of Piprahwa?
And yet it could be
hugely significant
within the world of Buddhism.
At the heart of this
holy site is the Bodhi Tree.
Meditating here,
Buddha finally understood
the causes of human suffering
and attained enlightenment...
and so a new religion
was born...
Buddhism.
In his footsteps,
the pilgrims still walk
2,500 years later.
Here, at Bodhgaya,
the Buddha transcended time,
entering an eternal present
without future or past.
For Bhante Piyapala Chakma,
a descendant of
the Buddhist Shakya clan,
it is this eternal present
that gives Buddha his power.
When he was born
in Lumbini, he was born
just an ordinary person
who sometimes used to live
in the past or in the future,
not in the present.
But after he became enlightened
at the Bodhi Tree,
then he started living
exactly at the present moment.
But the thing is
that the differences
between an ordinary person
and the person
of enlightenment,
like a Buddha, that's...
Buddha lives only at
the present moment.
Don't live in the past,
don't live in the future.
But, on the other hand,
an ordinary person lives either
in the past or in the future,
not in the present.
At around the age of 80,
Buddha set out
on his final journey,
back to his homeland
close to Piprahwa.
His route was marked later
by memorial stupas
and stone columns:
where he delivered
his last sermon...
where he turned back the crowds
and continued
with just his close disciples.
Sixty miles short
of Lumbini, at Kushinagar,
he lay down between two trees
that suddenly flowered
out of season,
and he died.
This huge statue
at Kushinagar marks the spot
where he experienced
what Buddhists call
"the final extinguishing."
But it's what happened
after his death that provides
the vital clues to locate
Buddha's true burial place.
Soon as the Buddha had
died, his body was cremated.
Now, over the years, he'd
gathered a very large following,
so there was
an almighty squabble
because everybody wanted
a share of his remains,
and this could only be resolved
when it was decided
that the remains should be
divided into 8 portions,
which would go to 8 kings,
including the Shakya family,
the members of his own
Shakya clan.
The inscription states
that the Piprahwa urn contained
this precious
Shakya family portion.
Since Piprahwa is at the heart
of Shakya territory,
Buddha's homeland,
was it possible
that Peppe had found
this original burial site
of Buddha's remains...
the only one of the 8 portions
to be found?
Perhaps.
But that original burial
would have been simple...
the bones and ashes laid
in the ground with flowers,
buried under a mound of earth...
Nothing like the tomb
that Peppe had discovered.
So even if the fragments
of bone and ash belonged
to the Buddha,
the elaborate tomb
must have been created
later by someone else.
So who could have built it,
and when and why?
There's one place
that could hold the answers
to these vital questions,
a remarkable site
at the very heart of India...
Sanchi, 450 miles away.
There it is.
Very striking.
We're sweeping into Sanchi Hill,
and there it rises out
of the plains,
and right on the top is
the great stupa
with its magnificent carvings,
one of the Wonders of the World.
With its huge stupa
50 feet high,
Sanchi is a monument to
the spread of Buddhism.
Could it be that the man
who first built this site
was also responsible
for the spectacular tomb
that Peppe found?
The carving here is monumental.
It's a miracle, you might say,
that it survived
2,000 years plus,
and there it is and it's
the only one like it.
It's breathtaking.
The monument was
begun by a great emperor
who converted his Indian
empire to Buddhism
150 years after the Buddha died.
His name was Ashoka,
and his conversion marked
a dramatic personal
transformation.
It's impossible not to be moved
by the character of Ashoka.
Here is an extremely
violent, unpleasant,
ruthless emperor who seizes
the throne by violence,
kills all his brothers,
and then suffers some
extraordinary change of heart
and is suddenly converted,
completely becomes a new man,
and from that moment onwards,
Asia has a ruler
who actually rules
by principles of morality.
He is the one
who changes this minor cult
into what is initially
a national religion
and then a world religion.
Three crucial facts
suggest possible connections
between Ashoka and Piprahwa.
Sanchi shows how Ashoka
built hundreds
of brick stupas
all over India...
how he dug up the original
portions of Buddha's remains...
and redistributed them
to these new sites.
Was Piprahwa among them?
A clue may be found in one
of India's earliest languages.
Ashoka used a form of Sanskrit
to create written edicts,
first on rocks...
and later on a series of huge
sandstone pillars.
They were written in script
called Brahmi...
the very script used to make
the Piprahwa inscription.
That inscription,
according to Harry Falk,
was made around 150 years
after Buddha died...
Exactly when Ashoka reigned.
But if Ashoka did create
the tomb at Piprahwa,
if it did mark the burial site
of Buddha's own family...
The Shakya clan...
It would have been one
of Buddhism's holiest sites.
How could such a place
possibly have been forgotten?
The answer to that question lies
in what happened
to Buddhism after Ashoka died.
Ashoka wanted
to transform his kingdom
into a Buddhist country,
and in a sense,
that was a step too far.
These statues did not
lose their heads by accident.
Buddhism challenged
the authority
of India's Hindu priests,
who saw it as a heresy
to be suppressed, and what
the Hindu priests started,
Muslim invaders completed.
Over the centuries, Ashoka,
the Brahmi script,
and Indian Buddhism itself were
all erased from memory,
almost as if they had
never been.
It wasn't until the 1800s that
Buddhism was all rediscovered,
mainly by British scholars.
Brahmi was deciphered.
Ashoka was identified.
So were places like
the Sanchi monument,
and Piprahwa... among
the last sites to be found...
Was unearthed by Willie Peppe
in 1898.
All the evidence seems
to point toward Ashoka
as the man who created
this remarkable tomb.
For world expert Harry Falk,
the huge sarcophagus is
the clincher.
So this is 132,
a little less.
The dimensions
of the chest seem to fit
the typical measurements
of Ashokan art work.
The looks, the feel...
Everything smacks
of Ashokan perfectionism.
Harry Falk is
convinced that the sarcophagus
is made of sandstone
from the same quarry
Ashoka used for his pillars...
and that it may even have been
made at the same time
as the nearby pillar at Lumbini.
So does that mean
it's possible to give
this stone chest a date?
This should have been done
when Ashoka was in Lumbini
and in that area.
That means around
his 20th regnal year,
which comes down to
245 BC, roughly.
You've given me a very
specific date, Harry.
Highly unusual.
Such a precise date
is a breakthrough,
but vital questions remain.
Why did Ashoka choose Piprahwa?
Was it the original burial place
of Buddha's remains
by his own Shakya family?
If Peppe had dug deeper,
as his niece suggested in 1898,
he might have found the answer.
But many years later,
someone else did.
It was 1971.
The excavator this time was not
a British colonial,
but a young Indian
archaeologist...
K.S. Srivastava.
His daughter Mridula recalls
how it all began.
Actually, when
my father started excavation
in 1971,
we just ask him,
"With what intentions
you are doing this?"
And he said that
"I want to do something
which no one has done,
something which will
stand in my name."
Srivastava was convinced
that the chamber where Peppe
had found the sarcophagus
wasn't at ground level,
and that there might be
something beneath it.
Peppe's excavation had long
since been filled in,
so Srivastava had to go down
through the whole stupa again
from the top.
Every month
and when he was to come back
to the headquarters, my brother,
myself, and my sister,
we used to just keep waiting
at the door for him.
As soon as he started
climbing the stairs,
you'd say, "Papa,
did you get anything?"
Every time when he used
to say that, "No,
not this time,
not this time," we could see
the tension and worry
on my father's face.
But ultimately, in '72,
when he got the relic caskets,
and he came to Patna
and we asked,
"Papa, did you get
something?"
he said, "Oh, yes,
I have done it!"
And he had.
Just below Peppe's find,
he located an earlier burial...
two small chambers,
each with a soapstone casket
and some broken red ware.
Srivastava was convinced
that this find
was from the time of
the Buddha himself.
For Charles Allen,
it's the final piece
of the jigsaw puzzle,
suggesting that this lower site
was the original Shakya
burial place...
and that Buddha's ashes
were moved from here
to the elaborate new tomb above,
just as the inscription said.
When Peppe comes along
and he finds this huge,
great box, we're talking
about a different era.
Somebody has come along and
disturbed the original ashes,
and then he's added
his own particular tribute,
his offering of all
these wonderful jewels.
And we know that that person
is almost certainly Ashoka
because this great box
was Ashokan.
The writing, almost certainly,
added to that inscription
is from the time of Ashoka.
I can't tell you
how relieved I feel
because when I set out
on this journey, I had no idea
if we'd come up
with real answers, but we have.
I'm pretty excited
by it, frankly.
I can now go back to England
and tell Neil Peppe
that his grandfather
is not a liar,
that the inscription is
genuine, and not only that,
I can say that the jewels that
he possesses are indeed genuine.
I can hardly believe it.
It's a fantastic ending.
But Charles Allen
has done far more
than clear the name of one man.
For nearly 400 million
Buddhists worldwide...
he has confirmed
that Piprahwa is,
in all likelihood,
the very place
where the Shakyas buried
their holy clansman...
and where the emperor Ashoka
later built a magnificent tomb
to give honor to
the Lord Buddha himself.
"Secrets of the Dead"
was made possible
by contributions to your PBS
station from viewers like you.
Thank you.
The "Secrets of the Dead"
investigation continues online.
For more in-depth analysis
and streaming video