Two experts from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) will travel to Afghanistan on Friday to examine a large granite bowl known as Lord Buddha?s Begging Bowl, and explore the possibility of bringing it back to India.
The bheeksha patra (begging bowl), a black stone artefact 4.5 feet tall with a diameter of 1.75 metres and an 18 cm thick rim, is now at the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul. It weighs about 400 kg, and at least 12 people are needed to move it.
The ASI?s Nagpur-based director of Arabic and Persian epigraphy, G S Khwaja, and its regional director (East), P K Mishra will submit a report to the ASI director general and the Ministry of External Affairs. The intention is to bring the bowl to Vaishali in Bihar, its ?original place?.
?Quranic verses are inscribed in Arabic and Persian in six lines on the outside of the bowl. It was kept at the Jamia Mosque in Kandahar, and used for storing water and wazu,? Khwaja told The Indian Express.
?When the Taliban started destroying Buddhist relics including the Bamiyan statues, the then Afghan president Najibullah had the bheeksha patra sent to Kabul museum. It was also saved probably because of the Quranic verses inscribed on it,? Khwaja said.
It is believed that the Buddha left the begging bowl to the people of Vaishali before he died, where it became an object of worship. The Kushan king Kanishka took it to his capital Purushpura (modern Peshawar), and the Islamic inscriptions were added around the time of Mahmud of Ghazni, who ruled in the 11th century.
The RJD MP from Vaishali, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, raised the matter of the bowl in Parliament last year, and asked why India was not making an effort to bring it back. Haresh Kumar, a close aide of Singh, said bringing back ?a relic of national importance? was top on the leader?s agenda.