Office Of Siridantamahapalaka
The Hswagata Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation Private Museum
BHOJPUR STUPA NO. 7 Archaeological, Epigraphic, Relic-Deposit, Historical, Museum, and Evidence-Critical Research HIRR-2026-0029
Venerable Dhammasami
Ph.D(Thesis),M.A(Pali),Dip in Social Work,B.A
ORCID: 0009-0000-0697-4760
Copy Right By
Venerable Dhammasami
Office of Siridantamahāpalaka
The Hswagata Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation Private Museum
Hswagata International Relic Registry
Integrated Relic Custodianship Model
Official Website: www.hswagata.com
Secondary Website: www.siridantamahapalaka.com
OFFICIAL CERTIFICATE OF DOCUMENTED RELIC DEPOSIT, ARCHIVAL CORRELATION, AND HERITAGE DOCUMENTATION RECORD
Institutional Research Certification under the HIRR–IRCM Framework
DYNAMIC METADATA BLOCK
Certificate Number: CERT-HIRR-2026-0029
Project Reference: HIRR-2026-0029
Case ID: CASE-2026-0029
Registry Number: REG-2026-0029
Publication Number: PUB-2026-0029
Site or Object Name: Bhojpur Stupa No. 7
Historical Region: Greater Sanchi / Bhilsa Buddhist landscape
Modern Country: Madhya Pradesh, India (Murelkhurd, Raisen District)
Archaeological Period: Approx. latter half of the 3rd century BCE (Cunningham's historical proposal)
Excavator or Documenting Authority: Alexander Cunningham and F. C. Maisey
Excavation or Documentation Date: 1851 (Published 1854)
Documented Relic Quantity in the Historical Record: Not specified in the surviving documentation reviewed for this project (recorded as two inscribed earthenware vases).
Evidence Classification: CLASS A — DOCUMENTED EXCAVATION RECORD / CLASS C — ARCHIVAL CORRELATION
Confidence Classification: High (Archaeological Recovery and Container Identity)
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22007664
Publication Version: v1.0
Date of Issue: 19 August 2026
CENTRAL EVIDENCE IMAGE PANEL
Image 1: Analytical schematic of Bhojpur Stupa No. 7 form and dimensions. [Source: Author reconstruction based on Cunningham, 1854, p. 334; Scholarly reconstruction]
Image 2: Diagram of the recorded central shaft and off-centre relic chamber. [Source: Author analytical reconstruction; Scholarly reconstruction]
Image 3: Container relationships documented for Stupa No. 7 (Red earthenware box and two inscribed vases). [Source: Author reconstruction based on Cunningham, pp. 334-336; Scholarly reconstruction]
Image 4: Claim-separation diagram distinguishing documented Stupa 7 evidence from conflated Stupa 2 and Stupa 9 claims. [Source: Author analytical diagram; Conceptual diagram]
DECLARATION OF FINDINGS
This certificate records that the archaeological and archival documentation associated with Bhojpur Stupa No. 7 has undergone systematic historical, archaeological, epigraphic, and archival reviews under the Integrated Relic Custodianship Model.
The examined records document the reported presence of two inscribed earthenware vases from a disturbed off-centre relic chamber, as recorded by Alexander Cunningham in 1851. The exact quantity of biological relics was not specified in the surviving core documentation.
The available evidence supports CLASS A and CLASS C certification with High confidence regarding the documented relic deposit, its historical context, and its recorded excavation history.
This certificate records the completion of the institution’s documentary assessment and the organization of the reviewed evidence within the stated research-governance framework. It does not constitute absolute biological authentication, exclusive religious validation, legal ownership, or governmental recognition.
SUMMARY ASSESSMENT PANEL
AUTHORIZATION AND SIGNATURE BLOCK
(Left Side)
[Official Embossed Institutional Seal]
(Centre)
PENDING FINAL APPROVAL
Certificate Serial Number: CERT-HIRR-2026-0029
(Right Side)
Signature: ___________________________
Date: _______________________________
Issued By:
Sao Dhammasami
(Bhikkhu Indasoma Siridantamahāpalaka)
RESEARCHER
Founder and Custodian of the Relics
Office of Siridantamahāpalaka
The Hswagata Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation Private Museum
INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW
Reviewed for institutional consistency and publication governance by Venerable Indaka, Co-Founder of the Hswagata Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation Private Museum.
DIGITAL VERIFICATION
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Scan to access the full research monograph and verification record.
DOI STATUS: 10.5281/zenodo.22007664
The Hswagata Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation Private Museum | No. 19, 1st Street, 1st Ward, Mayangone Township, Yangon, Myanmar | www.hswagata.com | saodhammasami@hswagata.com | (+95) 9 79 888 4129 | DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22007664 | CERT-HIRR-2026-0029 | Version 1.0
See reverse side for Certificate Governance Charter, Terms, Conditions, and Research Ethics.
CERTIFICATE GOVERNANCE CHARTER
Terms, Conditions, Research Ethics, and Use Restrictions
ARTICLE 1 — ACADEMIC INTERPRETATION
The certificate records documentary, archaeological, historical, epigraphic, numismatic, archival, or custodial findings.
It does not automatically establish biological identity.
ARTICLE 2 — CERTIFICATION SCOPE
This certificate specifically certifies:
The documented archaeological excavation of Bhojpur Stupa No. 7 as recorded in 1851/1854.
The historically reported relic quantity (specifically, two inscribed earthenware vases, with no exact biological quantity specified in the primary source).
The epigraphic designation (the names Patito/Patibho and Upahitakasa).
The archival correlation distinguishing the finds of Stupa No. 7 from those of Stupa No. 2 and Stupa No. 9.
Research-process integrity under the HIRR–IRCM Framework.
ARTICLE 3 — INSTITUTIONAL NEUTRALITY
The certificate does not invalidate, diminish, compete with, or rank other Buddhist relic traditions.
It must remain non-sectarian and non-nationalistic.
ARTICLE 4 — NO OWNERSHIP OR EXCLUSIVE CUSTODIANSHIP
The certificate does not confer:
ownership;
proprietary rights;
exclusive religious authority;
legal title;
right of sale;
right of transfer.
ARTICLE 5 — PROTECTION AGAINST MISUSE
The certificate must not be used for:
commercial valuation;
relic trading;
illicit transfer;
political propaganda;
sectarian superiority;
nationalist claims;
deceptive fundraising;
false scientific claims.
ARTICLE 6 — RESEARCH ETHICS
The research respects:
sacred heritage;
cultural sensitivity;
Theravāda monastic discipline where applicable;
non-destructive research principles;
documentary transparency;
citation integrity.
ARTICLE 7 — EVIDENCE–INTERPRETATION–HYPOTHESIS SEPARATION
This certification package distinguishes:
Evidence: The physical dimensions, the off-centre chamber, the disturbance, the red earthenware box, and the two inscribed vases directly documented by Cunningham.
Interpretation: Cunningham's translation of "Relics of Upahitaka" and his explanation of the Patito inscription.
Hypothesis: Cunningham's proposal of a destroyed second relic chamber and his estimated 3rd-century BCE dating.
Doctrine: A religious or commentarial position regarding the nature of the relics.
These categories are never merged.
ARTICLE 8 — DOCTRINAL HUMILITY
Doctrinal statements, devotional traditions, Dhātu-pāṭihāriya accounts, Adhiṭṭhāna interpretations, or guardian-deity traditions may be recorded respectfully as religious heritage.
They must not be represented as modern archaeological or biological proof.
ARTICLE 9 — ARCHIVAL INTEGRITY
Historical gaps are disclosed. The unresolved present repository status of the Patito/Patibho and Upahitakasa vessels is explicitly noted.
Missing records are not replaced by invented narratives. The contents of Stupa No. 9 (bone/teeth) or Stupa No. 2 (crystal reliquary) have not been transferred to Stupa No. 7 to fill an evidentiary void.
ARTICLE 10 — RIGHT TO AMEND
The issuing institution may amend, update, suspend, replace, or revoke a certificate where new evidence materially affects the original assessment.
Every amendment receives a revision number, a new issue date, a correction record, and a preserved previous version.
ARTICLE 11 — CERTIFICATE VERIFICATION
A certificate is valid only when its serial number, DOI, QR destination, registry record, and publication version correspond.
ARTICLE 12 — COPYRIGHT AND REPRODUCTION
The certificate may not be altered, edited, cropped misleadingly, or commercially reproduced without authorization.
Academic citation and non-commercial scholarly reference may be permitted with full attribution.
ARTICLE 13 — DATA PROTECTION
Sensitive custodial locations, security information, storage arrangements, and private contact data are not published unless authorized.
ARTICLE 14 — PUBLICATION RESPONSIBILITY
The principal researcher remains responsible for the scholarly content.
Institutional review confirms documentary and governance consistency only, unless a reviewer has explicitly endorsed a specific conclusion.
ARTICLE 15 — RELIGIOUS HUMILITY STATEMENT
The spiritual significance of relics transcends material analysis and remains connected to faith, devotion, doctrine, and Buddhist community practice.
The certificate must be presented with humility and respect.
EVIDENCE BASIS AND CONFIDENCE ASSESSMENT
EVIDENCE BASIS AND CONFIDENCE ASSESSMENT
A. CASE IDENTIFICATION
Project Reference: HIRR-2026-0029
Site Name: Bhojpur Stupa No. 7
Deposit: Off-centre disturbed relic chamber containing a red earthenware box and two inscribed earthenware vases.
Excavator: Alexander Cunningham and F. C. Maisey
Excavation Date: 1851
Historical Period: Approx. latter half of the 3rd century BCE (Cunningham's historical proposal)
Documented Relic Quantity: Not specified in the surviving documentation reviewed for this project (recorded as two inscribed earthenware vases).
Current Location: Current Location Unconfirmed
DOI:10.5281/zenodo.22007664
B. EVIDENCE MATRIX
C. RELIC QUANTITY BASIS
The quantity certified on Page 1 derives from Alexander Cunningham, The Bhilsa Topes (1854), pp. 334-336. The primary source explicitly documents the recovery of two inscribed earthenware vases and a red earthenware box from a disturbed chamber, but does not record a numerical count of biological fragments or tooth relics for Stupa No. 7.
D. CONFIDENCE CATEGORIES
Very High: Supported by multiple independent, undisputed primary and modern scientific sources.
High: Supported by direct primary excavation or epigraphic records with minimal ambiguity. (Applicable to the archaeological recovery and container identity in this case).
Moderate: Supported by historical or textual evidence that is subject to scholarly debate or alternative readings. (Applicable to the 'Patito'/'Patibho' epigraphic reading).
Limited: Plausible but reliant on indirect inference or heavily disturbed contexts.
Under Review: Subject to ongoing verification and object-level concordance.
Not Verifiable: Lacking any primary documentary trace in the active dataset. (Applicable to the biological authentication).
E. RESEARCH GAPS
Uncertain museum location: The present institutional repository of the Patito/Patibho and Upahitakasa earthenware vases remains unconfirmed.
Incomplete custody chain: The object-level movement of the two vases from 1851 to the present lacks a continuous, documented trail.
Unverified biological material: No direct description or scientific verification of calcined bone or tooth fragments for Stupa No. 7 exists in the inspected core pages.
Epigraphic uncertainty: Disagreement exists between Cunningham’s reading of Patito and Maisey’s later observation of Patibho, requiring specialist reassessment.
Missing excavation records: 19th-century shafting methods lack modern stratigraphic profiles.
F. CERTIFICATION CONCLUSION
Supported with Limitations. The archaeological existence of Bhojpur Stupa No. 7, its disturbed relic chamber, and the recovery of two inscribed earthenware vases are firmly supported by the 1854 primary publication. Archival correlation strongly supports the separation of this assemblage from the Stupa 2 crystal reliquary and the Stupa 9 biological remains. However, current institutional custody and the presence of biological relics remain unverified.
LEGAL, ETHICAL, AND INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW RECORD
A. LEGAL COMPLIANCE STATEMENT
This publication does not constitute a formal legal opinion. The issuing institution affirms its intention to respect applicable cultural heritage, antiquities, museum, archival, copyright, and cross-border transfer requirements. This certificate does not adjudicate legal title, ownership, or sovereign rights regarding the Bhojpur Stupa No. 7 site or its unlocated artifacts.
B. SACRED ARTIFACT HANDLING STATEMENT
The present research was conducted exclusively through archival comparison, historical documentation review, and epigraphic analysis. No physical access to the Patito/Patibho and Upahitakasa earthenware vessels was required or undertaken during this project, as their current physical repository remains unconfirmed. Consequently, no non-invasive imaging or destructive testing was proposed or executed.
C. ARCHIVAL INTEGRITY STATEMENT
It is hereby confirmed that all 19th-century primary sources, modern museum records, and historical field logs utilized in this assessment were accurately cited. Analytical reconstructions, such as the off-centre chamber diagrams, are clearly labeled as scholarly models. Historical gaps, specifically the interrupted chain of custody and the unresolved present museum registration of the two earthenware vases, have been explicitly disclosed. Unverified biological and anatomical claims supplied in the candidate record have not been upgraded to empirical facts.
D. INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW RECORD
Principal Researcher:
Name: Sao Dhammasami (Bhikkhu Indasoma Siridantamahāpalaka)
Role: Founder and Custodian of the Relics
Review Scope: Historical, archaeological, epigraphic, and archival assessment of the 1851 excavation and subsequent museum custody tracking.
Date: 19 August 2026
Signature: ___________________________
Limitation of Endorsement: Assumes responsibility for the scholarly content and documentary synthesis; does not certify absolute biological identity or unverified physical custody.
Institutional Governance Review:
Name: Venerable Indaka
Role: Co-Founder
Review Scope: Institutional consistency, policy alignment, and publication-governance review.
Date: 19 August 2026
Signature: ___________________________
Limitation of Endorsement: Confirms documentary and governance consistency within the HIRR-IRCM framework only; does not independently verify archaeological findings or resolve the epigraphic debate.
E. APPROVAL RECORD
Drafted by: Office of Siridantamahāpalaka
Reviewed by: Venerable Indaka
Approved by: Sao Dhammasami (Bhikkhu Indasoma Siridantamahāpalaka)
Issue Date: 19 August 2026
Version: v1.0
Revision: R00
Certificate Number: CERT-HIRR-2026-0029
Seal Status: Pending Physical Embossing
BHOJPUR STUPA NO. 7
Archaeological, Epigraphic, Relic-Deposit, Historical, Museum, and Evidence-Critical Research
HIRR-2026-0029
EXT-CAND-0007
Institutional Research Monograph
Version 1.0 | 19 August 2026
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22007664
Office of Siridantamahāpalaka
The Hswagata Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation Private Museum
Hswagata International Relic Registry (HIRR)
Integrated Relic Custodianship Model (IRCM)
Publication Record and Evidence Boundary
Publication Classification: Institutional Research Publication
Research Governance Model: Integrated Relic Custodianship Model (IRCM)
Evidence boundary. This monograph does not treat the candidate description as a finding. In particular, the inspected 1854 record separates the rock-crystal reliquary of Bhojpur Stupa No. 2 from Stupa No. 7. Stupa No. 7 is described instead through a disturbed relic chamber and two inscribed earthenware vases associated by Cunningham with Patito and Upahitaka. The British Museum object record located for Bhojpur Stupa 9 is likewise kept separate from Stupa 7. These distinctions control the conclusions of this publication.
Abstract
This monograph reassesses the nineteenth-century excavation record for Bhojpur Stupa No. 7, one monument in the Buddhist stupa landscape southeast of Sanchi. It begins from the 1851 exploration associated with Alexander Cunningham and F. C. Maisey, but it does not inherit later summaries without checking them against the published record. The central finding is corrective: the candidate record conflates Stupa No. 7 with the celebrated rock-crystal stupa reliquary from Bhojpur Stupa No. 2. Cunningham’s own chapter structure, page sequence, and description place the crystal reliquary under Stupa No. 2 and describe Stupa No. 7 separately.
For Stupa No. 7, Cunningham recorded a monument on the eastern edge of the second terrace or “stage,” a central shaft, a relic chamber displaced about three feet south of the monument centre, signs of disturbance, a red earthenware box, and two inscribed earthenware vases. One vase carried the reading Patito; the other carried Upahitakasa, which Cunningham interpreted as “Relics of Upahitaka.” The archaeological condition is therefore significant but not intact. The record supports an ancient relic-related deposit and named commemorative associations, while it does not support an intact crystal reliquary, a secure claim of calcined bone fragments in Stupa No. 7, or attribution of bodily material to the historical Buddha.
The study also reviews Maisey’s later treatment, the British Library record for the Maisey drawings, present British Museum records for related Bhojpur material, the official ASI protected-monument listing for the Murelkhurd Buddhist stupas, and modern collection-history scholarship. Museum evidence confirms that Bhojpur material entered British collections, but object-level matching is required before assigning any present accession number to the two Stupa No. 7 vases. The publication therefore distinguishes archaeological provenience, later collecting history, museum custody, and legal title throughout.
Executive Evidence Summary
The evidence is strongest for monument identity, the 1851 opening, the unusual off-centre chamber, the disturbed condition of the deposit, the existence of two inscribed earthenware vases, and the two personal-name readings reported by Cunningham. These points rest directly on the near-primary publication and are reinforced by the way the Bhojpur chapter separates individual stupas and their finds.
The candidate’s most visually impressive claim is the least secure for Stupa No. 7. The rock-crystal reliquary shaped as a miniature stupa belongs to Bhojpur Stupa No. 2 in Cunningham’s account and in later museum literature. A British Museum reliquary with retained human bone and teeth belongs to Bhojpur Stupa 9, not Stupa 7. This monograph treats those objects as comparative controls: they show how easily finds from the same stupa field can be reassigned when monument numbers are not checked.
Chronology is also handled conservatively. Cunningham proposed the latter half of the third century BCE on palaeographic and architectural grounds. That proposal remains historically important but is not reproduced as a laboratory date or an exact construction year. The present research uses it as an early chronological argument that requires comparison with later epigraphic and archaeological scholarship.
Keywords
Bhojpur; Murelkhurd; Sanchi; Buddhist stupa; relic chamber; reliquary; Patito; Upahitaka; Brahmi; Cunningham; Maisey; central India; Madhya Pradesh; archaeological provenance; museum custody; relic studies.
Table of Contents
Institutional Research Certification under the HIRR–IRCM Framework 2
Publication Record and Evidence Boundary 19
Abbreviations and Conventions 25
PART I - RESEARCH FRAMEWORK AND SOURCE BASE 27
Chapter 1 - Introduction and Research Problem 27
1.1 Why Stupa No. 7 Requires a Fresh Study 27
1.2 Background and Rationale 27
1.4 Research Questions and Objectives 29
1.5 Scope, Delimitations and Terms 29
PART I - RESEARCH FRAMEWORK AND SOURCE BASE 31
Chapter 2 - Methodology, Source Criticism and Historiography 31
2.2 Source Hierarchy Is Claim-Specific 31
2.3 Inspection Status and Locator Discipline 32
2.4 Historiography of the 1851 Investigations 33
2.5 Claim Decomposition and Negative Evidence 33
PART II - SITE, MONUMENT AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT 35
Chapter 3 - Bhojpur / Murelkhurd in the Greater Sanchi Landscape 35
3.2 Regional Buddhist Landscape 35
3.3 Stupa Fields and Commemorative Diversity 36
3.4 Modern Protection and Heritage Identity 37
3.5 Research Geography and Comparative Control 38
PART II - SITE, MONUMENT AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT 39
Chapter 4 - The 1851 Opening and the Architecture of Stupa No. 7 39
4.1 Monument Position and Dimensions 39
4.2 The Central Shaft Method 40
4.3 The Off-Centre Relic Chamber 41
4.4 Evidence of Disturbance 41
4.5 Chamber Capacity and the Two-Vase Problem 42
PART III - RELIC ASSEMBLAGE, INSCRIPTIONS AND MATERIAL EVIDENCE 43
Chapter 5 - Containers, Inscriptions and Reported Relic Associations 43
5.1 The Red Earthenware Box 43
5.2 The Larger Vase and the Patito Reading 44
5.3 Cunningham’s Interpretation of “Patito” 45
5.5 What the Core Account Does Not Report 46
PART III - RELIC ASSEMBLAGE, INSCRIPTIONS AND MATERIAL EVIDENCE 47
Chapter 6 - Comparative Reliquaries and the Risk of Cross-Monument Conflation 47
6.1 Bhojpur Stupa No. 2 as a Control Case 47
6.2 Bhojpur Stupa No. 9 as a Museum Control 47
6.4 Container Count Is Not Relic Quantity 49
6.5 Biological Identification and Sacred Attribution 49
PART IV - CHRONOLOGY, EPIGRAPHY AND HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION 51
Chapter 7 - Dating Stupa No. 7 and Reading the Inscriptions 51
7.1 Cunningham’s Proposed Date 51
7.3 Palaeography and Reading Uncertainty 52
7.4 Upahitakasa and Commemorative Formula 52
7.5 Historical Meaning Without Overdating 53
PART V - MUSEUM, PROVENANCE AND CUSTODY 54
Chapter 8 - From Excavation Record to Museum Record 54
8.1 The Collecting History Problem 54
8.2 British Museum Evidence 54
8.3 Victoria and Albert Museum Evidence 55
8.4 Custody, Possession and Title 56
8.5 Outstanding Museum Verification 56
PART VI - EVIDENCE ASSESSMENT AND CONTRADICTION ANALYSIS 58
Chapter 9 - Claim-by-Claim Assessment 58
9.5 Duplicate Check and Reason for Inclusion 61
PART VII - DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 62
Chapter 10 - Synthesis, Answers and Final HIRR Assessment 62
10.4 What Remains Unverified 64
10.5 Final HIRR Assessment and Research Priorities 64
Research Tables and Evidence Synthesis 66
Appendix A - HIRR Candidate Record 72
Appendix B - Source Register 73
Appendix C - Claim Register 75
Appendix D - Chronology Register 76
Appendix E - Museum and Custody Register 77
Appendix F - Outstanding Verification Log 78
Appendix G - Entity Hierarchy 79
Appendix H - Source Independence Register 80
Appendix I - Terminology Concordance 81
Appendix J - Measurement Register 82
Appendix K - Disturbance Indicators 83
Appendix L - Comparative Controls 84
Appendix M - Public Wording Guide 85
Appendix N - Research Ethics and Sacred-Material Boundaries 86
Appendix O - Visual Register 87
Appendix P - Bibliographic Verification Targets 88
Appendix Q - Research Question Answer Matrix 89
Appendix R - Evidence Tier Justification 90
Appendix S - Version and Correction Record 91
Appendix T - Colophon and Verification Notice 92
Appendix U - Page-by-Page Commentary on Cunningham’s Bhojpur Chapter 92
U.1 - Cunningham, printed page 327 92
U.2 - Cunningham, printed page 328 93
U.3 - Cunningham, printed page 329 93
U.4 - Cunningham, printed page 330 94
U.5 - Cunningham, printed page 331 94
U.6 - Cunningham, printed page 332 95
U.7 - Cunningham, printed page 333 95
U.8 - Cunningham, printed page 334 96
U.9 - Cunningham, printed page 335 96
U.10 - Cunningham, printed page 336 97
U.11 - Cunningham, printed page 337 97
U.12 - Cunningham, printed page 338 97
U.13 - Cunningham, printed page 339 98
U.14 - Cunningham, printed page 340 98
U.15 - Cunningham, printed page 341 99
Appendix V - Comparative Monument Register for the Bhojpur Stupa Field 100
Appendix W - Museum Concordance and Future Verification Programme 103
W.1 Object concordance priorities 103
W.2 Archival drawing programme 103
W.3 Epigraphic reassessment 104
W.4 Archaeological re-documentation without re-excavation 105
W.5 Biological and scientific evidence threshold 105
W.6 Publication and registry update triggers 106
Primary and Near-Primary Archaeological Sources 107
Official Archaeological, Archive, and Museum Sources 108
Secondary and Collection-History Scholarship 108
GENERAL HSWAGATA-HIRR INSTITUTIONAL APPENDIX 109
Funding and Institutional Independence 110
Leadership and Custodianship 110
Director of International Relations and Public Engagement 111
Research and Academic Publications Coordinator 111
Institutional Status and Governance 111
Statement on the Purpose, Neutrality, and Use of Research Findings 112
Historical and Textual Research 113
Museum and Custody Research 114
International Collaboration 114
Five-Year Strategic Collection Plan 114
Phase 1 — Digital Archiving and Standardization 114
Phase 2 — Advanced Interdisciplinary Research 115
Phase 3 — Global Open-Research Integration 115
Research and Publication Framework 115
Tier 2 — Case Study Report 115
Tier 3 — Academic Monograph 115
Tier 4 — Museum / Institutional Archive Record 115
Integrated Relic Custodianship Model (IRCM) 116
Doctrinal and Devotional Dimension 116
Core Institutional Policies 118
Transparency and Accountability 118
Impartiality and Conflict-of-Interest Control 118
Zero Tolerance for Bribery and Corruption 118
Peaceful Management and Safeguarding 118
Evidence–Interpretation–Hypothesis Separation 118
Custody and Provenance Documentation 118
Confidence and Limitation Disclosure 118
Permanent Registry and Version Control 119
Institutional Research Framework 119
Source and Evidence Collection 120
Source Inspection and Verification 120
Historical and Archaeological Correlation 120
Provenance and Custody Review 120
Evidence and Confidence Assessment 120
Registry and Archival Preservation 120
Scholarly Review Framework 121
Legal and Ethical Statements 121
Provenance and Lawful Movement 121
Governmental and International Endorsement 122
Doctrinal and Devotional Traditions 122
Religious Heritage and Devotional Tradition Statement 123
Traditional Accounts of Protective Beings 123
Interpretive Boundary for Devotional Statements 123
Contact and Institutional Identification 123
Recommended Placement in HSWAGATA–HIRR Publications 124
Abbreviations and Conventions
Research Timeline
Figure 1. Geographical and analytical relationship of Bhojpur/Murelkhurd to the greater Sanchi stupa research network. Author reconstruction; not a measured map.
PART I - RESEARCH FRAMEWORK AND SOURCE BASE
Chapter 1 - Introduction and Research Problem
1.1 Why Stupa No. 7 Requires a Fresh Study
Bhojpur Stupa No. 7 is a small but unusually instructive case because its modern candidate description combines features that belong to different monuments in the same archaeological field. The name of the site is sound, but the relic narrative must be reconstructed at monument level rather than inherited as a site-wide summary.
Cunningham’s chapter XXV separates Stupa No. 2 and its crystal reliquary from Stupa No. 7 and its two inscribed earthenware vases. That internal organization is direct evidence against treating every Bhojpur reliquary as one assemblage.
Correcting the monument assignment does more than repair a catalogue detail. It changes what can be said about materials, biological contents, museum location, chronology, and the identity of the persons commemorated.
The surviving nineteenth-century account was produced through destructive shafting and does not meet modern excavation standards. Its detail is valuable, but absence of a recorded observation cannot always be treated as proof of absence.
This chapter therefore frames Stupa 7 as a source-critical research problem and makes monument identity the first condition for every later claim.
1.2 Background and Rationale
The ASI now lists the Buddhist stupas at Murelkhurd in Raisen District as a centrally protected monument or site. This modern administrative identity also helps avoid confusion with the better-known medieval temple site called Bhojpur elsewhere in Raisen District.
The greater Sanchi landscape contains multiple groups of stupas whose religious and historical meanings emerge partly through comparison. Bhojpur, Sonari, Satdhara and Andher were not interchangeable sites, and the individual stupas within them were not interchangeable containers.
The nineteenth-century spelling “Tope” and the alphabetical letters used by Cunningham belong to the publication history and are preserved when needed. Modern standardized names are used for navigation, not to erase the source’s vocabulary.
A monument-by-monument approach allows the researcher to ask whether a named relic, an inscription, a vessel form, or a museum object can actually be traced to the same excavated structure.
The rationale for inclusion in HIRR is therefore not a preconceived claim about Buddha relics but the unusually rich opportunity to test how an early relic excavation was recorded, later interpreted, and potentially conflated.
1.3 Problem Statement
The candidate record describes an intact rock-crystal reliquary containing organic bone remains and assigns it to Stupa No. 7. It also gives the British Museum as repository and uses the phrase “Buddha-relics / sacred bone fragments.” Those statements form the problem to be tested rather than the conclusion.
The error illustrates a common risk in relic studies: objects from a single cemetery-like stupa field become associated with the wrong monument when later summaries compress a complex excavation into one story.
In the 1854 publication the miniature crystal stupa is discussed under Bhojpur Stupa No. 2, while Stupa No. 7 is introduced on p. 334 and followed by the relic-jar discussions on pp. 335-336.
The research problem is thus to recover the narrowest stable chain from monument to chamber, container, inscription, person-name, later record, and present status.
No inspected source used here establishes a competent biological identification of human remains from Stupa No. 7, and no inspected museum record securely maps the two inscribed Stupa 7 jars to a current accession number.
1.4 Research Questions and Objectives
The objectives are practical: separate Stupa 7 from neighbouring stupas, reconstruct the find sequence, preserve uncertain readings, identify unsupported candidate claims, and create a custody register that marks gaps instead of filling them.
The project asks what Cunningham and Maisey actually recovered from Stupa No. 7, how the chamber was positioned and disturbed, what the two vase inscriptions say, what chronology was proposed, and what later sources add or revise.
The principal evidence requirements include page-level inspection of Cunningham, comparison with Maisey, modern museum catalogues for related Bhojpur objects, archival evidence for the Maisey drawings, and current ASI site identity.
A further objective is comparative control. Stupa No. 2 and Stupa No. 9 are discussed only where they demonstrate why object-number discipline matters; their relic contents are not imported into Stupa No. 7.
The final assessment answers the questions in graded language and identifies which further records would materially change the result.
1.5 Scope, Delimitations and Terms
“Relic deposit” is used for a deliberately commemorative or sacred assemblage documented in a stupa context. “Reliquary” refers to a container whose function is supported by context or inscription; “contents” remain a separate category.
“Human remains,” “bone,” “calcined bone,” and “Buddha relic” are not synonyms. Each requires a source with the relevant level of identification. The present project does not convert a nineteenth-century ritual interpretation into anatomical or personal identification.
The geographical focus is the Bhojpur or Murelkhurd stupa group southeast of Sanchi, with Sanchi, Sonari, Satdhara and Andher used as contextual comparanda. The object focus is Stupa No. 7, its recorded relic chamber, red earthenware box, and two inscribed vases.
These delimitations keep the monograph focused even while it provides the wider historical setting necessary to understand why the excavation mattered.
Custody is likewise distinguished from ownership, and museum association from an unbroken chain of custody. A British collection history can be relevant without proving that every Bhojpur object travelled through the same route.
The same boundary applies to chronology and biological identification. A nineteenth-century archaeological date remains an interpretation unless supported by the relevant dating evidence, and a relic inscription does not by itself identify surviving organic material. These limits are carried forward into the claim matrix so that later chapters can add context without silently upgrading the evidence class of the Stupa No. 7 deposit.
PART I - RESEARCH FRAMEWORK AND SOURCE BASE
Chapter 2 - Methodology, Source Criticism and Historiography
2.1 Research Design
This is a documentary historical-archaeological study rather than a new excavation or laboratory project. It reconstructs an old recovery event through publications, archival descriptions, museum records and later scholarly criticism.
The principal near-primary source is Cunningham’s 1854 volume, checked at the specific Bhojpur pages. Maisey’s 1892 book is treated as a participant’s later reassessment rather than as a simple repetition.
The method is appropriate because the physical excavation cannot be repeated in its original condition. The records are therefore part of the archaeological evidence left by a destructive nineteenth-century intervention.
The design cannot recover observations that were never recorded, and it cannot assign present custody without object-level concordances. These limitations are recorded rather than repaired through inference.
The study moves from source inspection to atomic claims, contradiction analysis, synthesis and only then public conclusion.
2.2 Source Hierarchy Is Claim-Specific
The British Library catalogue confirms a Maisey corpus that includes thirteen relic-casket drawings from Sanchi, Sonari, Satdhara and Bhojpur and related manuscripts. This archival record is especially valuable for identifying a further verification route.
No single source type is strongest for every question. Cunningham is closest to the opening of Stupa 7; Maisey can be stronger for his own reading of a sign; the British Museum is stronger for its current registration data; ASI is stronger for present protected-site naming.
Published texts can contain interpretation embedded within description. Cunningham’s explanation of Patito as a disciplined monk is therefore separated from the physical inscription and vessel record.
Claim-specific hierarchy prevents a later museum webpage from being used to rewrite an excavation context, while also preventing an 1854 book from being used to assert a twenty-first-century display location.
The source hierarchy used here is functional rather than ceremonial: authority follows the question being asked.
2.3 Inspection Status and Locator Discipline
A bibliographic title is not evidence until the relevant content is inspected. For the core argument, the project records the exact pages where Stupa 7 is described and where Stupa 2 is separately assigned the crystal reliquary.
Using multiple locators reduces the risk of a later OCR or index error. It also makes the correction reproducible for a reader who wants to see whether the candidate has merged two monuments.
The 1854 contents page itself functions as a locator cross-check because it enumerates the Bhojpur sequence: Stupa 2, crystal casket, Stupa 7, opening, Patito jar, Upahitaka jar, and proposed date.
The resulting citation practice favours fewer, stronger locators over a long list of uninspected references.
OCR text is useful for finding words but is not treated as the final witness for unusual spellings, measurements or inscriptions. Published page images remain the preferred verification target where available.
2.4 Historiography of the 1851 Investigations
Historiography matters because the same action can be described as exploration, opening, excavation, collecting or removal depending on the source. The terms are not neutral and should not be collapsed.
The 1851 work belongs to an early phase of archaeological exploration in central India, before stratigraphic excavation and modern conservation protocols. Cunningham and Maisey were active within overlapping military, antiquarian and administrative worlds.
Recent scholarship on princely archaeology notes Maisey’s earlier work in the Upper Betwa districts and Cunningham’s joining him at Sanchi in 1851; it also situates their excavations within the politics of preservation and removal.
Modern criticism must avoid anachronism. The nineteenth-century investigators should not be credited with methods they did not use, but their detailed measurements and drawings can still be valuable evidence.
A historically situated reading permits critique without discarding the information that only those early interventions preserved.
2.5 Claim Decomposition and Negative Evidence
The source set supports some parts of the broader Bhojpur story but not that combined Stupa 7 sentence. The crystal reliquary belongs to Stupa 2, while the registered BM bone-and-teeth contents located in this research belong to Stupa 9.
Decomposing the claim shows precisely where contamination occurs and prevents one genuine object from lending authority to another unsupported statement.
A sentence such as “Bhojpur Stupa 7 yielded Buddha’s bone in a crystal reliquary now in the British Museum” contains several independent claims: monument identity, material, container type, biological identification, personal attribution and present custody.
This method makes the monograph suitable for later revision if an object register, drawing, unpublished note or conservation record adds evidence.
Negative evidence is phrased narrowly. The study says that no direct Stupa 7 bone description was located in the inspected core account; it does not claim that biological material never existed in the chamber.
PART II - SITE, MONUMENT AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT
Chapter 3 - Bhojpur / Murelkhurd in the Greater Sanchi Landscape
3.1 Site Identification
The modern protected-site name “Murelkhurd” is important because “Bhojpur” can refer to more than one well-known heritage location in Madhya Pradesh. The stupa group discussed by Cunningham belongs to the greater Sanchi landscape, not the monumental Śiva temple complex commonly associated with the name Bhojpur.
The ASI protected-monument list names “Buddhist stupas” at Murelkhurd in Raisen District. Cunningham, by contrast, consistently uses Bhojpur in his 1854 narrative.
Maintaining both names provides historical continuity while reducing modern geographic ambiguity. Alternative spellings such as Morel Khurd and Murelkhurd are treated as authority-record variants rather than separate sites.
This project does not publish precise security-sensitive coordinates. Spatial relationships are described at the level required to understand the stupa group and Cunningham’s internal measurements.
A controlled name record is therefore the foundation for linking older publications, museum catalogues and present heritage administration.
3.2 Regional Buddhist Landscape
Cunningham’s volume devotes separate chapters to Sonari, Satdhara, Bhojpur and Andher after extended treatment of Sanchi. That publication sequence reflects his comparative understanding of a wider monumental landscape.
Bhojpur belongs to a dense cluster of Buddhist monumental sites around Sanchi. The regional pattern matters because relic caskets and personal names recur across multiple stupas, creating both a rich comparative archive and a high risk of cross-site confusion.
This is particularly important for research systems that begin from candidate lists. Repeated references to “Bhojpur reliquaries” need to be resolved to an exact stupa number and, where possible, an exact museum registration.
The presence of many stupas allows architectural, epigraphic and ritual comparison, but comparison cannot substitute for provenience. A crystal container from one monument does not become evidence for another because both are near Sanchi.
The regional chapter therefore creates context without diluting object-level identity.
Figure 2. Greater Sanchi research network. Author analytical schematic; relative placement is illustrative, not a survey map.
3.3 Stupa Fields and Commemorative Diversity
A field of stupas can preserve different kinds of commemoration: major monuments, smaller memorial stupas, relic deposits, named monastic figures and later interventions. The differences among monuments may be as historically informative as their shared form.
Commemorative diversity cautions against assuming that every stupa contains bodily relics or that every named vase contains material of the same type. Inscription, architecture and deposit context must be read together.
At Bhojpur, Cunningham’s chapter moves through several numbered stupas and records different states of preservation and different deposit outcomes. The Stupa 7 record is not simply a smaller version of the Stupa 2 record.
The larger field is therefore best understood as a network of discrete evidence units rather than a single “relic hoard.”
The nineteenth-century opening of multiple monuments also created an uneven archival legacy: some finds were removed, some chambers were already disturbed, and some monuments yielded little or nothing.
3.4 Modern Protection and Heritage Identity
This distinction is central to provenance research. A modern state inventory can establish where a monument is recognized and protected while leaving unresolved the movement history of specific excavated containers.
Modern heritage administration protects the site as archaeological property, but protection status does not retroactively settle the identities of objects removed in the nineteenth century. Site governance and object provenance are related yet distinct.
The ASI list is strong evidence for the present protected identity of the Murelkhurd Buddhist stupas. It is not an object catalogue for the Patito or Upahitaka vessels.
The monograph avoids treating modern territorial location as proof of ownership of every object associated with the site. Legal title would require its own historical and jurisdictional evidence.
Such separation allows archaeological, museum and legal questions to be pursued without one category silently deciding the others.
3.5 Research Geography and Comparative Control
The British Museum’s registered Bhojpur Stupa 9 reliquary provides a useful object-level control because its record explicitly names both site and stupa number.
A reliable comparative statement therefore includes a boundary: “Bhojpur Stupa 9 contains…” cannot be rewritten as “Bhojpur Stupa 7 contains…”. The same rule applies to V&A objects from Stupa 2.
The project uses geographical comparison only when it sharpens interpretation. Sonari and Satdhara help explain named monastic relic practices; Stupa 2 and Stupa 9 at Bhojpur help expose the candidate’s conflation; Sanchi provides the broader historical frame.
For HIRR-2026-0029, geography is used to organize relationships while monument number remains the decisive unit of evidence.
The value of this discipline becomes greater, not smaller, when sites are close together and excavation histories overlap.
PART II - SITE, MONUMENT AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT
Chapter 4 - The 1851 Opening and the Architecture of Stupa No. 7
4.1 Monument Position and Dimensions
Cunningham places Stupa No. 7 on the eastern edge of the second stage, about 850 feet from the Great Tope on the uppermost platform. He gives the hemisphere a diameter of 32 feet 4 inches and records its then-present height as 11 feet above a low cylindrical plinth.
The plinth is reported as 1 foot 8 inches high; the terrace is also described as unusually small for the monument, 1 foot 8 inches broad and about one and a half feet high.
These measurements matter because Cunningham later used architectural proportions in his chronological reasoning. They also provide enough evidence for a cautious analytical schematic without pretending to reconstruct vanished masonry.
The dimensions are nineteenth-century field measurements, not a modern total-station survey. Their precision should therefore not be converted into an illusion of modern spatial accuracy.
The monument description nonetheless establishes a distinct physical identity for Stupa 7 within the group.
Figure 3. Bhojpur Stupa No. 7 form and dimensions recorded by Cunningham. Author reconstruction from the 1854 description; not to scale.
4.2 The Central Shaft Method
At less than three feet depth, the edge of the relic chamber appeared on the south side of the excavation. The discovery itself shows why the shaft method can provide dramatic finds while preserving only limited information about construction sequence.
The investigators sank a shaft down the centre of the stupa, a method Cunningham describes as usual. This intervention sought relic chambers by cutting vertically through the monument rather than by exposing stratigraphic relationships across a controlled area.
No Harris matrix, context-number system, sediment sampling programme or contamination protocol is documented. None should be attributed retrospectively.
For modern interpretation, the shaft is both a source of evidence and a source of damage. The act that revealed the chamber also removed part of the monument’s physical relationships.
The excavation method therefore sets the maximum resolution of later claims.
4.3 The Off-Centre Relic Chamber
Measurement led Cunningham to place the centre of the relic chamber about three feet south of the centre of the stupa. He treated this displacement as suspicious and compared it with another Bhojpur monument where more than one chamber had been found.
The off-centre chamber is one of the most important facts in the Stupa 7 record because it shapes every reconstruction of the original depositional arrangement.
He proposed that a second chamber might once have existed and been destroyed when villagers opened the monument. That is an interpretation, not a directly observed second chamber.
This example demonstrates why old excavation narratives must be read at the level of observation, inference and analogy.
A modern diagram must therefore show both the recorded chamber and the hypothetical status of any lost second chamber. Converting Cunningham’s suspicion into a confirmed two-chamber plan would exceed the evidence.
Figure 4. Analytical reconstruction of the recorded central shaft and off-centre relic chamber. The hypothetical second chamber is not drawn as fact.
4.4 Evidence of Disturbance
The disturbance affects what can be inferred about original placement. Even if the two vases belong to the monument, their positions in 1851 cannot automatically be treated as their original ritual arrangement.
Cunningham recorded a displaced side stone thrust several inches into the chamber, separation of the lid from the bottom of the red earthenware box, two vases without lids, one vase with a broken neck, and a chamber filled with leaves, earth and small stones.
The lids of the two vases were recovered among that rubbish. These details are positive evidence that the chamber had not remained in an untouched, sealed state by the time of the 1851 investigation.
The condition also weakens any claim of an “intact” deposit. Integrity is a contextual property, not a description that can be inferred merely from the survival of containers.
The strongest reading is therefore that Stupa 7 preserved a disturbed relic-chamber assemblage with recoverable but incomplete depositional relationships.
4.5 Chamber Capacity and the Two-Vase Problem
His reasoning followed from the chamber dimensions and the disturbed condition, not from discovery of a second chamber itself.
This is a rare moment where the published report openly displays uncertainty. It should be preserved because later summaries often convert such reasoning into a single neat deposit story.
Cunningham observed that the chamber was small and doubted that it had been intended to hold both vases in the arrangement he encountered. He considered it possible that one had stood in a corner but preferred the idea that one belonged to another chamber.
The monograph therefore reconstructs the minimum documented assemblage while leaving original spatial allocation unresolved.
The problem also affects quantity. Two surviving vases do not necessarily prove that one original chamber held exactly two independent deposits.
PART III - RELIC ASSEMBLAGE, INSCRIPTIONS AND MATERIAL EVIDENCE
Chapter 5 - Containers, Inscriptions and Reported Relic Associations
5.1 The Red Earthenware Box
The Stupa 7 chamber contained a red earthenware box whose lid and lower part were separated when found. Cunningham illustrated the box and used it in reasoning about the original placement of the associated vases.
The publication directs the reader to Plate XXVII, figure 3 for the box, not to Plate XXVI as supplied in the candidate record. This plate correction is important because Plate XXVI belongs to another part of the Bhojpur discussion.
Materially, the object is described as earthenware rather than rock crystal, silver or gold. The candidate’s nested-crystal formulation therefore cannot be retained for Stupa 7.
The surviving publication does not supply a modern ceramic fabric analysis, firing study or conservation report. “Red earthenware” remains source terminology rather than a laboratory classification.
The box is best understood as one component in a disturbed container system whose original arrangement is only partly recoverable.
Figure 5. Container relationships documented for Stupa No. 7. Author reconstruction based on Cunningham, pp. 334-336.
5.2 The Larger Vase and the Patito Reading
He translated the word as “the degraded” and developed a disciplinary explanation around it. The physical reading and the narrative about the monk’s punishment must be kept separate.
Cunningham describes the larger vase as approximately four and a half inches high and six and a half inches broad, with a broken neck. Its surface carried decoration and an inscription that he read as Patito.
Maisey later wrote that in his transcript the word looked like “Patibho,” demonstrating that the reading itself entered a history of disagreement.
The vessel is direct evidence for an inscribed commemorative context, while the social biography Cunningham proposed is interpretive and dependent on his philological assumptions.
A modern edition should therefore reproduce the reading history and seek the best surviving visual witness before adopting a definitive personal interpretation.
5.3 Cunningham’s Interpretation of “Patito”
Cunningham connected Patito with Buddhist disciplinary “degradation” and discussed the inversion of the alms bowl as part of a penitential procedure. He then imagined a monk dying during such a period and requesting an inscription as an act of humility.
The argument should not be mistaken for an excavated fact. No independent biographical record for the person is supplied in the Stupa 7 context, and the proposed sequence of offence, punishment, death and request is not physically observable.
That passage is historically revealing because it shows how nineteenth-century textual comparison shaped archaeological interpretation.
The present monograph therefore records Cunningham’s proposal, Maisey’s reading doubt, and the absence of evidence sufficient to turn that proposal into a secure biography.
The interpretation nevertheless deserves attention as part of the historiography of Buddhist archaeology. It demonstrates an early effort to read artefact, inscription and Vinaya-related literature together.
5.4 The Upahitakasa Vase
The inscription is stronger evidence for a named association than the candidate’s generalized phrase “Buddha-relics.” It points toward an individual named Upahitaka, not directly toward Gautama Buddha.
The smaller vase is described as red earthenware, roughly four and a half inches high and nearly five inches wide. Cunningham read the inscription on its upper surface as Upahitakasa and rendered it “Relics of Upahitaka.”
He inferred that Upahitaka was probably one of the leading monks of the Bhojpur fraternity. This inference is plausible within a commemorative stupa field but should remain an inference.
The source does not provide anatomical identification of the contents in the passage used here. The word “relics” arises from the epigraphic interpretation, not from a laboratory report.
The Upahitakasa vessel is therefore central to the historical meaning of Stupa 7 while simultaneously narrowing the range of claims that can responsibly be made.
5.5 What the Core Account Does Not Report
Cunningham’s chapter makes the contrast visible: Stupa 2 receives its own section titled for a crystal relic-casket, whereas Stupa 7 receives separate sections for the two earthenware relic jars.
The absence of a bone description in these pages is not proof that no biological material was ever present. Disturbance, loss, incomplete reporting and later object history all remain possible.
The core Stupa 7 pages do not describe an intact rock-crystal vessel, a series of nested precious-metal containers, or a set of calcined bone fragments. Those features must not be imported from other Bhojpur stupas or other Sanchi-region deposits.
This negative finding is one of the project’s principal contributions because it prevents evidence from a genuine neighbouring monument from being misassigned.
What can be said firmly is narrower: the candidate’s stated Stupa 7 crystal-and-bone assemblage is not supported by the inspected core publication.
PART III - RELIC ASSEMBLAGE, INSCRIPTIONS AND MATERIAL EVIDENCE
Chapter 6 - Comparative Reliquaries and the Risk of Cross-Monument Conflation
6.1 Bhojpur Stupa No. 2 as a Control Case
Bhojpur Stupa No. 2 is the monument that Cunningham associates with the celebrated crystal reliquary shaped as a miniature stupa. That object has become one of the best-known material survivals from the Bhojpur group.
Cunningham discusses the crystal relic-casket on p. 331, several pages before he introduces Stupa 7. Later collection literature associates the object with V&A museum number IM.223-1921.
The control case is methodologically valuable because it shows exactly how the candidate record likely acquired its crystal language while changing the monument number.
The Stupa 2 object must not be used to decorate or substantiate the Stupa 7 narrative except in a clearly labelled comparison.
Maintaining that boundary protects both objects: the famous crystal reliquary keeps its correct archaeological history, and Stupa 7 retains the very different story preserved in its own record.
6.2 Bhojpur Stupa No. 9 as a Museum Control
The museum describes the object as a three-part steatite reliquary and notes that its two chambers contain fragments of human bone and teeth. The separate human-remains list likewise identifies 1887,0717.15b as contents from Bhojpur Stupa 9.
A second useful control comes from the British Museum, whose catalogue identifies reliquary 1887,0717.15.a specifically as coming from Bhojpur Stupa 9.
The distinction also corrects the candidate’s broad repository statement. The British Museum certainly holds related Bhojpur material, but no inspected BM record in this project has been matched securely to the Patito or Upahitaka jars.
These records are strong evidence for that object and that stupa. They do not support moving the bone-and-teeth description to Stupa 7.
Museum catalogues therefore function here as concordance tools rather than as a licence to generalize site-wide holdings.
6.3 Why Conflation Happens
Relic assemblages from the Sanchi region share recurring forms: stone or earthenware outer containers, smaller inner vessels, inscriptions, and bodily or symbolic contents. Nineteenth-century collecting later distributed related objects across institutions.
The problem is intensified by changing numbering systems, alternative spellings and the fact that older publications often used letters as well as numbers for monuments.
When modern summaries use only the site name “Bhojpur,” the distinct stupa numbers can disappear. Search results then cluster crystal, bone, teeth, inscriptions and museum accessions under one broad label.
The Bhojpur case shows that this seemingly administrative discipline is actually part of historical method.
A robust research workflow therefore keeps a parent-child hierarchy: site, stupa, chamber, container, contents, museum object. Each transition requires evidence.
6.4 Container Count Is Not Relic Quantity
A registry that converts the two vases into “two relics,” or the two names into two biological individuals, would silently add information.
The candidate describes an “intact rock-crystal reliquary housing organic bone remains,” but container count and relic quantity are separate categories. Even where a vessel securely contains bone, the number of containers does not reveal the number of persons or fragments without direct documentation.
For Stupa 7, the core publication gives two inscribed earthenware vases in a disturbed chamber and does not quantify biological fragments.
This distinction is especially important when old publications use the plural “relics” as a ritual or epigraphic term rather than as a counted osteological inventory.
The monograph therefore reports quantities only at the level that the source actually records.
6.5 Biological Identification and Sacred Attribution
The inspected Stupa 7 pages do not document an anatomical report, microscopy, radiocarbon analysis, DNA analysis or other modern scientific identification of contents.
The two named inscriptions instead orient the historical interpretation toward persons identified as Patito/Patibho and Upahitaka. That evidence makes a direct Buddha-attribution even less appropriate unless an independent source establishes it.
Archaeological relic interpretation, biological identification and attribution to the historical Buddha are three different evidential tasks. A stupa context can be strongly relic-related even when no modern biological examination exists.
This layered approach protects both scholarly precision and the integrity of devotional interpretation.
Religious traditions can honour relic deposits for reasons that are not reducible to laboratory identification. The monograph records that dimension respectfully without converting it into scientific proof.
PART IV - CHRONOLOGY, EPIGRAPHY AND HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION
Chapter 7 - Dating Stupa No. 7 and Reading the Inscriptions
7.1 Cunningham’s Proposed Date
Cunningham wrote that the age of Stupa 7 could be determined only conjecturally. He used the forms of the alphabetical characters and the low plinth to argue for the latter half of the third century BCE.
His own wording is important: the date is an approximation supported by palaeographic and architectural analogy, not by an absolute dating method.
Modern publication should therefore avoid converting “approximately the latter half of the third century BCE” into a precise year or an unquestioned “Śuṅga-period” label.
The historical proposal remains useful because it documents how one of the principal excavators understood the monument’s place in the local sequence.
A later chronological synthesis should compare that argument with updated epigraphy and regional archaeology rather than simply accepting or discarding it.
7.2 Architectural Dating
Because the monument was already reduced in height and had been disturbed, architectural inference must consider preservation as well as design.
Cunningham’s chronological reasoning partly rests on the low cylindrical plinth beneath the hemispherical dome. He viewed stupa proportions as indicators of developmental sequence.
The study treats the architectural argument as one strand that converges with the inscriptional forms rather than as an independent absolute clock.
Typological dating can identify broad relationships when supported by a comparative corpus, but it cannot by itself fix an exact construction year or prove that a deposit is contemporary with every visible architectural element.
This approach also allows later scholarship to revise the sequence without invalidating the underlying measurements recorded in 1854.
7.3 Palaeography and Reading Uncertainty
The Stupa 7 vases are valuable because they carry short inscriptions, but short texts can be unusually sensitive to letter reading. A single sign can alter whether a form is treated as a name, title or grammatical expression.
A competent new reading would ideally compare the surviving object, a high-resolution image, Maisey’s original drawing and Cunningham’s plate, while also recording damage, stylization and editorial restoration.
Cunningham read Patito, while Maisey later remarked that his own transcript looked like Patibho. That disagreement should remain visible in any modern epigraphic dossier.
Preserving the reading history is more informative than forcing early sources into false agreement.
Until that work is completed, the safest public wording is “read by Cunningham as Patito; Maisey later reported that his transcript appeared to read Patibho.”
7.4 Upahitakasa and Commemorative Formula
Even here, the relationship between inscription and biological contents must not be overstated. An inscription can identify the intended commemorative referent without modern anatomy confirming the surviving material.
Upahitakasa is more directly connected in Cunningham’s publication with a relic formula, which he translates as “Relics of Upahitaka.” The genitival form was interpreted as identifying the person whose relics were commemorated.
The reading gives Stupa 7 a specific monastic-historical character that differs from anonymous bodily-remain claims.
The text also invites comparison with named monastic relics from other Sanchi-region stupas, but those comparisons must remain separate evidence units.
The most secure conclusion is that Stupa 7 was associated in the excavator’s reading with named Buddhist commemoration, not with an undifferentiated “Buddha relic” claim.
7.5 Historical Meaning Without Overdating
These features support placement within early historic Buddhist commemorative culture even when the exact decade and political dynasty remain debated.
Terms such as “Mauryan,” “Śuṅga,” or “post-Mauryan” can be useful scholarly shorthand, but each carries chronological assumptions. The candidate’s “Śuṅga-period” wording is therefore not adopted as an unqualified fact.
The broader historical significance of Stupa 7 lies in the combination of monument form, relic-chamber practice, inscribed containers and participation in the greater Sanchi Buddhist landscape.
This restraint makes the chronology more durable and easier to update when improved epigraphic or archaeological studies become available.
Historical interpretation should privilege date ranges and explicit criteria over dynastic labels when the evidence does not require a single political attribution.
PART V - MUSEUM, PROVENANCE AND CUSTODY
Chapter 8 - From Excavation Record to Museum Record
8.1 The Collecting History Problem
The 1851 investigations produced objects that later entered collections in Britain, but the movement of each item must be reconstructed individually. A general statement that Cunningham or Maisey took reliquaries to England is not enough to identify the present location of the Stupa 7 vases.
The British Library catalogue notes that some caskets shown in Maisey’s relic series are now in the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. This is important collection-history evidence but not a complete concordance.
The project therefore separates excavation history from acquisition history. A vessel’s presence in a field report does not automatically prove which later accession number represents it.
Object-level custody requires matching form, inscription, dimensions, excavation label, donor history and museum registration.
Until that match is established, the Stupa 7 present-repository field remains unresolved rather than being filled with the nearest plausible museum.
8.2 British Museum Evidence
That record states that the object was donated by Major-General Sir Alexander Cunningham in 1887 and specifies Bhojpur Stupa 9 as findspot.
The British Museum provides high-quality online records for several related central-Indian reliquaries, including the Bhojpur Stupa 9 object 1887,0717.15.a.
The museum’s human-remains list similarly links bone and teeth to Stupa 9. This materially contradicts the candidate’s attempt to use a broad British Museum repository statement for Stupa 7’s alleged bone contents.
The precision of this record is exactly why it cannot be used for Stupa 7. A correct museum registration is not a generic “Bhojpur accession” that can be reassigned.
The British Museum evidence is therefore both positive for comparative objects and negative against unsupported cross-monument transfer.
8.3 Victoria and Albert Museum Evidence
Published V&A collection guides associate the famous Bhojpur rock-crystal miniature stupa with museum number IM.223-1921 and with Stupa No. 2.
Because the current V&A catalogue page was not directly inspectable through the available web route during this project, the monograph records the inspection limitation and does not treat a secondary collection guide as equivalent to a live object record.
This object provides a second museum-side control on the primary-source correction. It shows that the candidate’s crystal description has a real archaeological referent, but the referent is the wrong monument.
The present study can nevertheless state with strong documentary support that the crystal-stupa object is not the Stupa 7 assemblage described on pp. 334-336 of Cunningham.
A future verification should obtain the official V&A object record, acquisition file and any historical correspondence that maps the object back to Maisey or Cunningham.
8.4 Custody, Possession and Title
Nineteenth-century removal occurred within colonial and princely political arrangements that deserve historical study rather than simplified retrospective labels. Recent scholarship emphasizes the plural sovereignties and preservation debates surrounding Sanchi-era archaeology.
The words “custody,” “possession,” and “ownership” answer different questions. A museum may hold an object physically, while the legal and ethical history of how it arrived there requires separate evidence.
The present project documents museum registration only where a specific object record has been located. It does not adjudicate title or infer legal ownership from an accession number.
The monograph therefore avoids both uncritical ownership language and unsupported legal accusation.
Its contribution is evidential: identify the object, record the documented movement, mark the missing link, and leave legal determination to competent authorities.
8.5 Outstanding Museum Verification
The Maisey drawing corpus provides a promising route because its relic series includes Bhojpur caskets and may preserve shapes, inscriptions or labels suitable for concordance.
A second route is to search Cunningham’s 1887 British Museum donation groups and V&A Maisey acquisitions for earthenware vessels matching the published dimensions and inscriptions.
The most important unresolved custody question is whether the Patito/Patibho and Upahitakasa vessels survive in a museum or archive and, if so, under what registration numbers.
The unresolved status is therefore a concrete research target, not an omission to be hidden.
Without that object-level match, an institutional name should not be inserted merely to make the candidate record look complete.
The unresolved repository question is therefore a research result in its own right. A useful future concordance would need to join the nineteenth-century vessel descriptions and inscriptions to a later inventory, acquisition list, photograph, drawing, or museum register that identifies the same objects. General evidence that Cunningham donated other central-Indian reliquaries cannot establish this link. Keeping the field open protects the distinction between a documented recovery event and a later custody history that has not yet been reconstructed at object level.
PART VI - EVIDENCE ASSESSMENT AND CONTRADICTION ANALYSIS
Chapter 9 - Claim-by-Claim Assessment
9.1 Candidate Claim Audit
The candidate record contained several accurate anchors—Bhojpur, the 1851 exploration era, Cunningham and Maisey, and the relevance of The Bhilsa Topes—but combined them with a Stupa 2 object, a Stupa 9-type biological description, and an unverified museum destination for Stupa 7.
The primary source correction is decisive because the chapter sequence explicitly assigns the crystal reliquary to Stupa 2 and the Patito and Upahitaka jars to Stupa 7.
This pattern is not treated as misconduct; it is treated as a candidate-stage conflation that illustrates why HIRR requires independent monument-level verification.
The audit keeps every supplied claim in the record so that accepted, corrected, unsupported and unresolved elements can be traced.
A transparent correction history is more valuable than silently replacing the candidate text with a polished new summary.
Figure 6. Claim-separation diagram distinguishing documented Stupa 7 evidence from conflated Stupa 2 and Stupa 9 claims.
9.2 Source Independence
Museum catalogues add a distinct institutional evidence stream for surviving objects, while the ASI protected-site list supplies a modern administrative stream.
Cunningham and Maisey are not fully independent witnesses to the 1851 fieldwork because both participated in the broader investigation and their records intersect. Their later differences are still informative, especially where Maisey questions a reading.
The evidence matrix records source family as well as citation count so that corroboration is not inflated by derivative summaries.
Modern scholarship adds historiographic analysis but often depends on the same nineteenth-century discoveries. Repetition across later books therefore cannot be counted as multiple independent recoveries.
This distinction is particularly important when a visually memorable object, such as the crystal stupa, appears in many modern publications.
9.3 Contradictions
The project registers three major contradictions: Stupa 7 versus Stupa 2 for the crystal reliquary, Stupa 7 versus Stupa 9 for the located British Museum human-remains record, and Patito versus Maisey’s observation of Patibho.
A further tension concerns chronology: Cunningham’s third-century BCE proposal is historically significant but should not be repeated as an exact or laboratory-secured date.
The first two are resolved by maintaining monument identity. The third is not resolved because it requires renewed epigraphic inspection rather than editorial preference.
The monograph therefore uses contradiction as a map of future evidence needs.
Contradictions are not editorial blemishes to be harmonized. They identify where the research question becomes sharper.
9.4 Evidence Tier
Evidence tier is therefore claim-specific, not project-wide. One strong archaeological fact cannot automatically raise an unrelated biological or historical attribution.
An archaeological-recovery tier can be justified for the Stupa 7 chamber and its two inscribed vases because they are documented within a near-primary excavation account. That classification must not be read as authenticating every candidate description attached to the project.
The evidence tier for “calcined bone fragments” in Stupa 7 is lower because the inspected core pages do not document such material. The tier for “Buddha relics” as personal attribution is lower still and remains unsupported.
The final HIRR assessment uses different language for documented recovery, interpretation, and unverified claims.
This graded approach is essential if a later certificate or registry entry is to remain narrower than the evidence.
9.5 Duplicate Check and Reason for Inclusion
Its reason for inclusion is strengthened by the correction itself: the monument preserves an important inscribed relic-chamber record that has been obscured by cross-monument conflation.
A duplicate check must therefore compare not only site names but monument numbers, inscriptions and object identities.
The project is treated as a distinct HIRR research case because it concerns a specific monument, Stupa No. 7, rather than the better-known Bhojpur crystal reliquary or a generic Sanchi-region relic case.
The case remains useful even though its corrected conclusion is less sensational than the candidate description.
The research value lies in the Patito/Patibho and Upahitaka evidence, the disturbed chamber, and the opportunity to reconstruct a nineteenth-century archaeological record responsibly.
PART VII - DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Chapter 10 - Synthesis, Answers and Final HIRR Assessment
10.1 What Is Established
It is established from the inspected 1854 source that Cunningham described a Bhojpur Stupa No. 7 on the second stage of the hill, recorded its dimensions, opened it through a central shaft, and encountered an off-centre relic chamber showing signs of disturbance.
The chamber record includes a red earthenware box and two inscribed earthenware vases. One inscription was read by Cunningham as Patito; the other as Upahitakasa, translated by him as “Relics of Upahitaka.”
It is also established that Cunningham treated the famous rock-crystal stupa reliquary under Stupa No. 2, not Stupa No. 7.
These findings are sufficient to recognize Stupa 7 as a significant archaeological relic-related context.
They are not sufficient to support the candidate’s intact crystal-and-bone formulation.
10.2 What Is Probable
Cunningham’s architectural and palaeographic reasoning places the monument broadly in the latter half of the third century BCE, though that date should remain a historical proposal rather than an absolute measurement.
It is probable that Stupa No. 7 formed part of an early historic Buddhist commemorative landscape in which named monastic figures were enshrined or memorialized through inscribed containers.
It is also probable that the chamber had been disturbed before the 1851 investigation, given the displaced stone, separated lids, broken vessel and intrusive debris.
The Upahitakasa formula makes a relic association probable at the level of ritual intention and named commemoration.
Probability here means that the combined evidence favours the interpretation while leaving room for revision from better object or archival evidence.
10.3 What Is Possible
It is possible that the two vases originally occupied more than one chamber, as Cunningham suggested, but no second Stupa 7 chamber was directly documented in the surviving account used here.
It is possible that one or both vases survive in a museum collection under a registration not yet matched to the publication.
It is possible that material once held in the vessels was lost, dispersed or separately curated, but that possibility cannot be converted into a claim about bone, teeth or ash without a record.
These possibilities define research routes rather than public findings.
It is also possible that renewed study of Maisey’s drawings or the original objects could refine the Patito/Patibho reading.
10.4 What Remains Unverified
The candidate’s Plate XXVI reference is not retained for the Stupa 7 assemblage; Cunningham directs the reader to Plate XXVII for the Stupa 7 box and larger vase.
The present project does not verify calcined bone fragments from Stupa No. 7, an intact rock-crystal reliquary from Stupa No. 7, attribution of Stupa 7 contents to Gautama Buddha, or a current British Museum accession for the two Stupa 7 vases.
It does not verify a complete chain of custody from 1851 to the present, nor does it determine legal title.
The project also does not treat Cunningham’s proposed date as an exact or scientific date.
These unresolved points are carried into the outstanding-verification appendix so that they remain actionable.
10.5 Final HIRR Assessment and Research Priorities
The candidate’s crystal-reliquary statement is reassigned to Bhojpur Stupa No. 2 as a comparative correction, while the British Museum bone-and-teeth record located in this research remains attached to Bhojpur Stupa No. 9.
Priority research should inspect the best surviving images or objects of the Stupa 7 vessels, search the Maisey and Cunningham archival groups for explicit concordances, establish present repository status, and obtain a specialist epigraphic rereading.
HIRR-2026-0029 supports recognition of Bhojpur Stupa No. 7 as an archaeologically documented, relic-related Buddhist monument with a disturbed chamber and two inscribed earthenware vessels. The strongest personal association is with the names recorded as Patito/possibly Patibho and Upahitaka, not with a direct Buddha-bone attribution.
The project is therefore suitable for institutional scholarly review as a corrected archaeological monograph, while any certificate statement must remain strictly within these bounded findings.
No destructive examination is recommended merely to satisfy the candidate’s proposed “microscopic validation of the copper shell,” because the inspected Stupa 7 source does not establish a copper shell in this assemblage.
The next useful work is documentary and visual rather than destructive. High-resolution comparison of the two inscriptions, inspection of Maisey’s surviving drawings and manuscripts, and object-level museum searches could materially improve the record without altering a sacred or fragile object. If a surviving Stupa No. 7 vessel is eventually identified, conservation imaging may then be justified by a defined preservation question. Scientific intervention should follow verified object identity and competent authority, not be used to compensate for uncertainty created by an incorrect candidate description.
Research Tables and Evidence Synthesis
Table 1. Candidate Identification and Correction Table
Table 2. Source Inventory
Table 3. Excavation Evidence for Stupa No. 7
Table 4. Terminology Comparison
Table 5. Chronology Evidence Matrix
Table 6. Museum and Custody Evidence
Table 7. Claim-Evidence Matrix
Table 8. Contradictions and Gaps
Figure 7. Evidence chain used in the project, showing the distinction between recovery record, later reassessment, museum evidence, and HIRR conclusion.
Figure 8. Excavation-to-museum timeline. Only object-specific museum links are treated as established; Stupa 7 jar custody remains unresolved.
Read together, the two final analytical figures summarize the project’s main correction. The evidence chain separates what Cunningham recorded in 1851 from Maisey’s later epigraphic observation and from modern museum records for other Bhojpur stupas. The custody timeline then shows where documentation becomes discontinuous for the two Stupa No. 7 vessels. These graphics are interpretive aids, not substitutes for the cited sources: their purpose is to make monument identity, source chronology, and the unresolved object-level museum link visible before the appendices present the underlying registers in detail.
APPENDICES
The appendices preserve the structured evidence behind the narrative: candidate corrections, source and claim registers, chronology, museum and custody questions, terminology, disturbance indicators, comparative controls, visual records, and future verification priorities. They are designed to let a reader trace how individual conclusions were reached without treating every surviving uncertainty as a defect. The registers also keep Stupa No. 7 separate from neighbouring Bhojpur monuments whose better-known crystal or biological finds could otherwise be transferred into this case by mistake.
Appendix A - HIRR Candidate Record
This appendix preserves structured project data for reproducibility and later revision. Entries state only the level of information supported by the current evidence set; unresolved fields remain explicit rather than being filled by inference.
Appendix B - Source Register
Interpretive note. The register is deliberately source-specific. Cunningham's 1854 publication carries the principal recovery narrative, while Maisey's later work contributes a participant's alternative reading and the British Library catalogue identifies an archival route for checking drawings. British Museum and ASI records answer different modern questions: museum registration for related objects and protected-site identity respectively. None of these records is allowed to substitute for another. A later catalogue can clarify current registration, but it cannot rewrite an excavation context; an early excavation account can describe recovery, but it cannot establish a present repository without a documented concordance.
Appendix C - Claim Register
Appendix D - Chronology Register
Interpretive note. The chronology is intentionally layered rather than compressed into one date. The year 1851 belongs to the modern investigation, 1854 and 1892 are publication events, and Cunningham's late-third-century BCE proposal is an archaeological and palaeographic interpretation of the ancient monument. The 1887 and 2010 entries concern later collection and museum documentation for comparative Bhojpur material. Keeping these event types separate prevents a publication date, donation date, or modern catalogue date from being mistaken for the date of construction or enshrinement. A revised ancient chronology would require new archaeological or epigraphic argument rather than arithmetic adjustment of these modern dates.
Appendix E - Museum and Custody Register
Interpretive note. This register shows why a museum name cannot be assigned at site level. The located British Museum records concern Stupa No. 9, and the collection literature used for the famous crystal reliquary concerns Stupa No. 2. Neither record identifies the two Stupa No. 7 earthenware vessels. The correct status for the Patito/Patibho and Upahitakasa vessels is therefore unresolved present repository. Future progress requires object-level concordance using dimensions, inscriptions, vessel form, acquisition history, labels, drawings, or correspondence. Until those links are demonstrated, custody, possession, accession, and legal title remain distinct and should not be inferred from the survival of related Bhojpur objects in British collections.
Appendix F - Outstanding Verification Log
Appendix G - Entity Hierarchy
Interpretive note. The hierarchy protects the analysis from the central error identified in the candidate record. Bhojpur or Murelkhurd is a site-level identity; Stupa No. 7 is a monument; the 1851 shaft is an intervention; the off-centre chamber is a feature; the red box and two vases form a container group; and any former biological or ritual contents would constitute another evidential level. A fact established for one level cannot automatically be promoted to another. In particular, the existence of bone in a neighbouring stupa does not populate the contents field for Stupa No. 7, and a museum accession for Stupa No. 9 does not become the custody record of a Stupa No. 7 vessel.
Appendix H - Source Independence Register
Interpretive note. Cunningham and Maisey are not fully independent witnesses to the 1851 fieldwork because both participated in the broader investigation, yet their later publications do not function identically. Their disagreement over the Patito/Patibho reading is therefore informative without becoming independent archaeological recovery. The British Library, British Museum, and ASI records arise from different modern institutional functions and can independently support archival existence, museum registration, and present protected-site naming. Modern scholarship adds historiographic interpretation but may still depend on nineteenth-century evidence. Source independence is thus assessed claim by claim; the number of citations is never treated as the number of independent observations.
Appendix I - Terminology Concordance
Interpretive note. Terminology is retained with its historical source and evidential function. 'Tope' is nineteenth-century English usage; 'stupa' is the modern scholarly form used for navigation. Patito and Patibho represent a reading history that remains open to specialist review, whereas Upahitakasa is the reading Cunningham connected with his translation 'Relics of Upahitaka.' The translation itself is an interpretation, not a biological description of surviving contents. This distinction is essential because words such as relic, bone, tooth, and Buddha-relic answer different questions. The concordance therefore prevents a ritual or epigraphic term from silently becoming a modern anatomical identification or personal attribution.
Appendix J - Measurement Register
Appendix K - Disturbance Indicators
Interpretive note. The disturbance indicators converge on a limited but important conclusion: the chamber encountered in 1851 was not an untouched sealed deposit. The displaced side stone, separated lid, lidless vases, broken neck, intrusive leaves, earth, and small stones all weaken any reconstruction that depends on pristine original arrangement. Cunningham's proposed second chamber is recorded separately because it was an inference developed from the off-centre chamber and comparative examples, not a second Stupa No. 7 chamber directly excavated and described. The surviving evidence can therefore support a disturbed relic-chamber context while leaving original vessel placement, missing contents, and the number of original depositional units unresolved.
Appendix L - Comparative Controls
Interpretive note. Comparative controls are included to prevent, rather than encourage, cross-monument transfer. Stupa No. 2 explains the origin of the candidate's crystal-reliquary language; Stupa No. 9 demonstrates that a precise British Museum registration and retained bone-and-teeth record can exist for a different Bhojpur monument. Sonari, Satdhara, and Andher provide regional context but retain their own object and inscription histories. Comparison may show recurring reliquary practices or explain Cunningham's reasoning, yet it cannot supply a missing Stupa No. 7 fact. Every comparative statement must therefore retain the parent monument, source, and purpose for which the comparison is made.
Appendix M - Public Wording Guide
Appendix N - Research Ethics and Sacred-Material Boundaries
Interpretive note. The ethical boundary is designed around the evidence actually available. No new opening, sampling, or destructive analysis is necessary to establish the documentary correction at the centre of this project. If a surviving vessel or possible biological content is later identified, any scientific proposal would require object identity, competent authority, conservation assessment, sacred-material consideration, sampling justification, and a documented chain of handling. The absence of such testing today does not negate the archaeological or devotional importance of the deposit, but neither can archaeological context or sacred attribution be converted into biological proof. Security-sensitive storage and handling information also remains outside the public research need.
Appendix O - Visual Register
Interpretive note. Every visual in this publication is analytical rather than evidentiary photography. The network diagrams clarify comparison without claiming survey precision; the monument and chamber schematics translate Cunningham's dimensions and observations while marking hypothetical elements; the container diagram separates the documented Stupa No. 7 vessels from the crystal object of Stupa No. 2; and the evidence-chain and timeline graphics show reasoning and custody limits. These images must therefore be read with their captions. They do not reproduce an excavation photograph, surviving inscription, museum object, or laboratory result, and their evidential value lies in making the documented relationships and uncertainties easier to inspect.
Appendix P - Bibliographic Verification Targets
Interpretive note. Verification priorities are arranged by the amount of uncertainty they can remove. Cunningham's page images and Maisey's table are the first controls because they anchor monument assignment and inscription-reading history. The Maisey archival series may preserve visual witnesses that improve vessel identification. Museum acquisition groups could establish whether the Stupa No. 7 vessels survive and under what numbers, while the V&A route should secure an official record for the Stupa No. 2 comparison. ASI documentation can refine present site identity and condition. None of these targets is listed merely to enlarge the bibliography; each is tied to a defined claim, contradiction, or custody gap.
Appendix Q - Research Question Answer Matrix
Appendix R - Evidence Tier Justification
Interpretive note. Evidence strength is assessed claim by claim rather than once for the project as a whole. Archaeological recovery and monument-chamber association are strong within the limitations of nineteenth-century recording; container identity is strong for the two earthenware vessels; the Upahitakasa reading is comparatively stronger than the disputed Patito/Patibho reading. By contrast, biological contents, historical-Buddha attribution, and present custody of the Stupa No. 7 vessels remain unverified or unresolved. This claim-specific approach prevents a strong recovery context from upgrading unrelated claims. A future museum concordance or specialist reading could improve selected fields without automatically changing every other evidence tier.
Appendix S - Version and Correction Record
Interpretive note. Version control preserves the difference between correction and erasure. The initial HIRR edition records that the candidate supplied a crystal-reliquary and biological-content description for Stupa No. 7, then documents why the inspected primary-source structure reallocates those features to other monuments. Future revisions should identify the new evidence that triggered change, the claims affected, and whether citations, chronology, custody, figures, or public wording require adjustment. A corrected edition should never make the earlier candidate error disappear from the audit trail, because the history of correction is itself important evidence of how cross-monument conflation can arise and be prevented.
Appendix T - Colophon and Verification Notice
Interpretive note. The colophon records publication identity and scope rather than certifying the relic claim. HIRR-2026-0029 is the research-project identifier, DOI remains Pending, and the review state is READY FOR INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW. No certificate is issued by this monograph. A checksum or identifier can verify that a particular file or registry record is the one cited; it cannot prove that the vessels survive, that biological material belonged to a named person, or that legal title rests with a particular institution. Those questions remain governed by their own evidence and competent authorities.
Appendix U - Page-by-Page Commentary on Cunningham’s Bhojpur Chapter
Purpose and method
This dossier follows the printed pages 327-341 of Alexander Cunningham’s 1854 Bhojpur chapter. It is not a substitute for the page images. Its purpose is to show, page by page, which observations belong to which monument and why the Stupa No. 7 interpretation must be held apart from neighbouring finds. The page sequence is itself evidential because modern summaries often collapse a field of more than thirty stupas into a single “Bhojpur relic” story. Each entry therefore records the main subject of the page, the observation or interpretation that matters most, and the consequence for HIRR-2026-0029.
U.1 - Cunningham, printed page 327
Cunningham opens the Bhojpur chapter by explaining the naming problem. His brother had earlier referred to the remains as the Pipaliya-Bijoli topes, while Cunningham preferred Bhojpur because the deserted village remained on the hill among the monuments. The passage is valuable for modern authority control: “Bhojpur,” “Pipaliya-Bijoli,” and modern “Murelkhurd” can point to the same archaeological landscape in different documentary systems.
The page also begins the geographic description, placing the group south-southeast of Bhilsa and east-southeast of Sanchi. The point is not to convert nineteenth-century bearings into modern survey coordinates, but to establish that Cunningham understood Bhojpur as part of a visible network of Buddhist monuments around Sanchi. That regional relationship later shaped his architectural comparisons and his interpretation of the relic finds.
For Stupa No. 7, p. 327 contributes context rather than a direct object claim. It supports the site identity and explains why a later researcher must search variant names. It does not mention a crystal reliquary, bone fragments, or the two inscribed vases. Those details occur later and must not be projected backward into the site introduction.
U.2 - Cunningham, printed page 328
Page 328 continues the landscape description. Cunningham notes the visibility of Raisen, Sanchi and the Andher stupas, then describes the Bhojpur monuments as occupying four successive stages or platforms separated by rocky ledges. The principal stupas stand on the uppermost stage, while ruined houses and large structural remains occupy the same broad hill complex.
This four-stage organization is crucial for reading monument numbers correctly. Stupa No. 7 belongs to the second stage, whereas Stupa No. 2 belongs to the uppermost stage. A summary that gives only the site name discards precisely the spatial distinction that prevents the Stupa No. 2 crystal reliquary from being transferred to Stupa No. 7.
The page also records substantial non-stupa ruins. Their presence is a reminder that Bhojpur was not merely a collection of isolated mounds; it formed a broader religious and settlement landscape. HIRR uses that wider setting to explain archaeological context, while keeping the relic analysis at monument level.
U.3 - Cunningham, printed page 329
On p. 329 Cunningham describes a ruined temple and an image of the Buddha, including a later inscription that he transcribes and translates. This material belongs to the longer life of the site rather than to the initial construction of Stupa No. 7. The coexistence of later Buddhist structures warns against treating every visible element on the hill as contemporary.
The page then begins the uppermost-stage stupa catalogue with Stupa No. 1. Its damaged but large mound and enclosure establish the scale range of the Bhojpur group. Cunningham’s procedure of measuring mound, plinth, terrace and enclosure becomes the comparative framework he later applies to Stupa No. 7.
For chronology, p. 329 demonstrates the difference between a dated or palaeographically late inscription in a temple context and the much earlier date Cunningham later proposed for Stupa No. 7. The site contains multiple periods, so “Bhojpur date” is not a single chronological field.
U.4 - Cunningham, printed page 330
Page 330 records the dimensions of Stupa No. 1 and Cunningham’s unfinished shaft, then introduces Stupa No. 2. The description of Stupa No. 2 is unusually detailed: its double flight of steps, terrace, enclosure, and dry-stone construction are all recorded before the relic chamber is reached.
The importance for the present project is negative and corrective. The crystal reliquary does not appear under Stupa No. 7; the narrative is already firmly inside the Stupa No. 2 subsection. This page fixes the monument context before the spectacular find is described on the following page.
It also shows why an architectural label such as “Bhojpur crystal stupa” is insufficient for registry work. The find must retain its parent monument, Stupa No. 2, just as the Patito/Patibho and Upahitaka vessels must retain their parent, Stupa No. 7.
U.5 - Cunningham, printed page 331
Page 331 is the central control page for correcting EXT-CAND-0007. Cunningham states that the shaft in Stupa No. 2 reached a relic chamber containing a red earthenware cover and box. He then describes the inner object as a small crystal stupa with terrace, plinth, hemispherical dome, square pedestal and double umbrella pinnacle.
He reports minute pieces of bone in the small shaft of the crystal object and additional small pieces of bone with a group of precious materials in the red earthenware box. These observations are important archaeological evidence, but they belong to Stupa No. 2. Their existence at Bhojpur cannot be used to fill an evidential gap in Stupa No. 7.
The page therefore serves as a contamination-control benchmark. Any sentence that combines “Stupa No. 7” with the miniature crystal stupa or its minute bone pieces must be rejected unless a separate source independently documents a second crystal object in Stupa No. 7. No such source was established in the present inspection.
U.6 - Cunningham, printed page 332
Page 332 continues the Stupa No. 2 precious-material list and then turns to Stupa No. 3. Cunningham reports that the latter was already badly ruined and that the shaft yielded no discovery. He reasoned that its relics might have disappeared with the upper half of the mound.
The comparison is methodologically useful because it displays how nineteenth-century investigators interpreted absence. A failed shaft did not prove that a stupa had never contained a deposit; Cunningham considered structural loss as an alternative explanation. The same caution applies to Stupa No. 7: missing or unreported biological material should not be converted into categorical non-existence.
The page also records the quadrant construction of Stupa No. 3. Architectural observations of this kind demonstrate the level of detail sometimes preserved even when no relics survived, and they help distinguish direct observation from later conjecture.
U.7 - Cunningham, printed page 333
Page 333 introduces Stupa No. 4 and describes another relic chamber. The assemblage includes a black earthenware box, an earthenware bowl, a small crystal casket and brownish-red powder. Cunningham interprets the powder as intrusive dust rather than meaningful relic material and suspects that villagers had already opened the stupa.
This page provides a second warning against site-wide conflation. Bhojpur contains more than one crystal container, but they are attached to specific monument numbers and different depositional histories. The existence of crystal in Stupa No. 4 still does not support a crystal vessel in Stupa No. 7.
Immediately after Stupa No. 4, Cunningham transitions to the second stage of the hill. The printed sequence makes Stupa No. 7 a new and distinct case. That boundary is important enough to retain in any modern database or monograph.
U.8 - Cunningham, printed page 334
Page 334 begins the Stupa No. 7 subsection. Cunningham places the monument on the eastern edge of the second stage and gives its principal measurements: the hemisphere is 32 feet 4 inches in diameter; the surviving mound rises about 11 feet above a low cylindrical plinth; and the terrace is unusually small relative to the mound.
The excavation account is equally specific. A shaft was sunk at the centre, but the edge of the relic chamber appeared south of the shaft. Measurement placed the chamber centre about three feet south of the stupa centre. Cunningham then proposed that a second chamber might once have existed, comparing the situation with another Bhojpur monument.
The distinction between observation and hypothesis is particularly clear on this page. The off-centre chamber is measured evidence; the lost second chamber is an inference. HIRR therefore maps the recorded chamber as fact and carries the second-chamber proposal only as a possibility.
U.9 - Cunningham, printed page 335
Page 335 supplies the strongest evidence for disturbance. Cunningham reports a displaced side stone, separation of the red earthenware box lid from its lower part, two vases without lids, one with a broken neck, and a chamber containing leaves, earth and small stones. He found the missing vase lids among that debris.
He questioned whether the small chamber could originally have held both vessels in the arrangement encountered in 1851. One vase, he thought, probably belonged inside the red earthenware box; the other may have been displaced from another chamber. Again, the second-chamber reconstruction is not an excavated certainty.
The page then describes the larger vase and gives the inscription reading Patito, translated by Cunningham as “the degraded.” It also directs the reader to Plate XXVII for the red earthenware box and vase. This locator corrects the candidate’s Plate XXVI reference for Stupa No. 7.
U.10 - Cunningham, printed page 336
Page 336 develops Cunningham’s interpretation of Patito through Buddhist disciplinary literature. He imagines the named monk as having died during a period of degradation and interprets the inscribed vessel in relation to penitence. This is an interpretive historical narrative, not an observation made in the chamber.
The same page then describes the smaller red earthenware vase and gives the reading Upahitakasa, which Cunningham translates as “Relics of Upahitaka.” He suggests that Upahitaka was a leading member of the local fraternity. The inscription therefore points toward a named monastic commemoration rather than a direct attribution to the historical Buddha.
Cunningham ends by discussing date. He explicitly says that the age can only be determined conjecturally, then uses letter forms and the low plinth to propose the latter half of the third century BCE. The qualifying language is essential and is retained in HIRR-2026-0029.
U.11 - Cunningham, printed page 337
Page 337 closes the Stupa No. 7 dating discussion and begins Stupa No. 8. The latter is larger but badly reduced; Cunningham’s shaft produced no relic discovery. The page then introduces Stupa No. 9, giving its dimensions and the depth at which the relic chamber was reached.
This sequence matters because Stupa No. 9 later becomes important in museum records. Modern British Museum documentation identifies a Bhojpur Stupa 9 reliquary and associated human bone and teeth. The page-level transition in Cunningham helps maintain the object’s correct monument identity.
For Stupa No. 7, p. 337 is therefore a boundary page. Once Cunningham moves to Stupa No. 8 and Stupa No. 9, later biological descriptions belong to those monuments unless the text explicitly returns to Stupa No. 7.
U.12 - Cunningham, printed page 338
Page 338 describes the Stupa No. 9 deposit in striking anatomical terms. Cunningham records a red earthenware outer box, a double steatite vessel and numerous human bones, including skull fragments, teeth and portions of long bones. This is the source context most similar to the candidate’s broad claim of bodily remains at Bhojpur.
Yet the monument number is unambiguous: this is Stupa No. 9. Modern British Museum record 1887,0717.15.a and the museum’s human-remains list align with that attribution. The convergence makes Stupa No. 9 a strong positive case and simultaneously a strong reason not to transfer its osteological detail to Stupa No. 7.
The page then begins Stupa No. 10, where small pieces of bone were reported in a disturbed earthenware box. The succession of several bodily-remain finds within one site explains how later summaries could merge them, but it does not justify doing so.
U.13 - Cunningham, printed page 339
Page 339 continues the record of disturbed smaller stupas. Stupa No. 10 is judged to have been opened previously, and Stupa No. 11 contains an earthen jar with bits of bone mixed with leaves and rubbish. Cunningham again interprets the condition as evidence of earlier opening.
The page then surveys additional second-stage monuments by number and measurement. The repeated pattern—some intact enough to describe, some opened, some empty—shows that the Bhojpur field preserved no single uniform depositional condition.
For Stupa No. 7 the comparison is useful but bounded. Bone is explicitly recorded for Stupas 10 and 11; the lack of equivalent wording on pp. 334-336 should not be filled from these neighbouring cases. The correct conclusion is that the core Stupa 7 passage does not document the same osteological inventory.
U.14 - Cunningham, printed page 340
Page 340 describes Stupa No. 17 with two relic chambers, an observation Cunningham had invoked when considering whether Stupa No. 7 might once have had a second chamber. The Stupa No. 17 example includes earthenware remains and bone fragments mixed with leaves and rubbish and was also judged to have been opened previously.
This is the empirical comparison behind Cunningham’s Stupa No. 7 hypothesis. It strengthens the plausibility of multiple chambers within the Bhojpur field, but it does not prove that Stupa No. 7 had the same arrangement. Analogy can support a possibility while remaining weaker than direct observation.
The page proceeds to the smaller monuments of the third stage. Their modest size and sparse finds show the diversity of commemorative scale within the site. The page therefore helps contextualize Stupa No. 7 as one element in a much larger memorial landscape.
U.15 - Cunningham, printed page 341
Page 341 completes the catalogue with the lowermost-stage stupas. Cunningham lists their diameters, notes one unsuccessful shaft, and concludes that many small heaps had probably been rifled by villagers long before his work. He also suggests that stones from the stupas had been reused in the deserted village.
The final observation explains why absence, disturbance and missing architecture recur throughout the chapter. Bhojpur had a complex post-depositional history before the 1851 investigation. Modern reconstructions must therefore resist the language of “intact” chambers unless a specific monument record supports it.
For HIRR-2026-0029, the end of the chapter reinforces the central assessment: Stupa No. 7 is archaeologically significant precisely because enough of its disturbed deposit survived to preserve two inscriptions, while the condition of the site prevents a simple or total reconstruction of its original contents.
Appendix V - Comparative Monument Register for the Bhojpur Stupa Field
This comparative register is included to prevent future cross-monument contamination. It summarizes only the features needed to distinguish the monuments discussed around Stupa No. 7. The entries are not substitutes for full independent projects on those stupas.
Stupa No. 1
Largest upper-stage monument in Cunningham’s immediate sequence. His shaft was left unfinished after reaching 13 feet without a discovery. It demonstrates that a negative excavation result may reflect incomplete investigation rather than an empty monument. No relic object from Stupa No. 1 is used in the Stupa No. 7 assessment.
Registry consequence: this monument must retain its own parent-child relationship among site, stupa, chamber, container and contents. Material or museum data may cross into HIRR-2026-0029 only when an explicit comparative citation identifies the other monument as the source.
Stupa No. 2
Upper-stage monument with the famous miniature rock-crystal stupa reliquary, earthenware outer containers, minute bone pieces and precious materials. This is the object complex most often conflated with Stupa No. 7. Its correct parent monument is Stupa No. 2.
Stupa No. 3
Ruinous mound in which Cunningham’s shaft produced no deposit. He considered the possibility that the relic horizon had disappeared with the lost upper mound. The case illustrates interpretive caution around archaeological absence.
Stupa No. 4
Contained an earthenware sequence and a small crystal casket with brownish-red powder. Cunningham believed the chamber had previously been opened. This second crystal-container case shows that “crystal at Bhojpur” is not a sufficient object identifier.
Stupa No. 7
Second-stage monument central to this project. Recorded with an off-centre, disturbed chamber, red earthenware box and two inscribed earthenware vases. Cunningham read Patito on the larger vessel and Upahitakasa on the smaller.
Stupa No. 8
Largest monument on the second stage according to Cunningham, but heavily reduced. The shaft yielded no relic discovery. It provides a nearby architectural comparison without contributing contents to Stupa No. 7.
Stupa No. 9
Contained a red earthenware box and a double steatite vessel with abundant human skeletal material in Cunningham’s description. Modern British Museum records identify a Stupa 9 reliquary and retained bone-and-teeth contents. These data must remain assigned to Stupa 9.
Stupa No. 10
A disturbed small monument containing an earthenware box with a few pieces of bone mixed with leaves and gravel. The explicit bone wording highlights the absence of equivalent wording in the core Stupa No. 7 account.
Stupa No. 11
Another disturbed monument where an earthen jar contained bone fragments with leaves and rubbish. Its condition contributes to the broader picture of pre-1851 interference across the field.
Stupa No. 17
Important as the direct analogy Cunningham used for his lost-second-chamber hypothesis at Stupa No. 7. Two chambers were actually found here. The analogy supports possibility, not proof, for Stupa No. 7.
Stupa No. 23
Third-stage monument with three earthenware jars filled with earth and leaves. It expands the range of container patterns and shows that vessel presence need not mean preserved bodily material.
Stupas Nos. 30-37
Lowermost-stage group recorded mainly by dimensions; one shaft reached rock without discovery. Their condition and the evidence of stone reuse inform site-formation history rather than the Stupa No. 7 relic claim.
Appendix W - Museum Concordance and Future Verification Programme
W.1 Object concordance priorities
The first priority is to establish whether the two inscribed earthenware vessels from Stupa No. 7 survive as identifiable museum objects. A valid concordance should not begin from a preferred repository. It should begin from the published object characteristics: two earthenware vessels, one larger with a broken neck and the reading reported by Cunningham as Patito, the other smaller and bearing Upahitakasa; the associated red earthenware box; the published dimensions; and the plate references. These features can be searched against acquisition registers, collection catalogues, old storeroom lists, object photography, and correspondence. A match should require more than a shared site label. At minimum, inscription, vessel form, dimensions, donor history, and excavation attribution should converge before a modern accession number is attached to HIRR-2026-0029.
The British Museum’s Cunningham acquisition group is an obvious research route because related Sanchi-region reliquaries entered that collection in 1887. The present project nevertheless located a precise British Museum record only for Bhojpur Stupa No. 9, not for the two Stupa No. 7 jars. Future work should therefore search the complete 1887 acquisition sequence and older paper registers rather than infer that an unlocated Stupa No. 7 object must share the registration pattern of Stupa No. 9. The same principle applies to the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Maisey material. The crystal miniature stupa from Bhojpur Stupa No. 2 is a strong comparative object, but its survival at the V&A does not identify the destination of the Stupa No. 7 earthenware vessels.
W.2 Archival drawing programme
The Maisey Collection at the British Library deserves targeted inspection because the catalogue describes a relic series containing drawings of caskets from Sanchi, Sonari, Satdhara and Bhojpur. A useful archival visit or digital request would identify every sheet labelled Bhojpur, record its old caption and numbering, compare the drawn outlines with Cunningham’s Plates XXVI, XXVII and XXX, and look for inscriptions or annotations that can be tied to the two Stupa No. 7 vessels. The drawings should be treated as visual witnesses with their own dates and limitations. A tracing or watercolour may preserve details no longer visible on an object, yet it may also simplify lettering, restore damaged contours, or reflect the draughtsperson’s interpretation. Each visual witness therefore needs its own source record rather than being merged into a generic illustration field.
If a drawing of the Patito/Patibho vessel is located, it should be compared with Maisey’s later statement that his transcript appeared to read Patibho. That comparison could help determine whether the difference reflects a genuine sign-form ambiguity, a transcription error, or a later typographical problem. The process should preserve the visible sequence first, then create a diplomatic transcription, transliteration and linguistic interpretation. It should not begin by deciding which nineteenth-century scholar must have been correct. The same procedure should be applied to Upahitakasa, even though the surviving published reading currently appears less disputed.
W.3 Epigraphic reassessment
A specialist rereading should document the carrier, writing surface, orientation, sign shapes, damaged or uncertain strokes, spacing, and any decorative elements that might be confused with letters. The resulting record should distinguish the original script from transliteration and translation. Cunningham’s translation “Relics of Upahitaka” should be treated as a historical interpretation to be tested, not as the wording of the inscription itself. Likewise, the social biography attached to Patito should be separated from the visible signs. The most useful new result would not necessarily be a more dramatic translation; it would be an edition that makes every inferential step inspectable and allows later researchers to see exactly where uncertainty enters.
Palaeographic dating should then be reconsidered within a wider corpus of early Brāhmī inscriptions from central India. Cunningham’s proposed third-century BCE range was based partly on letter forms and partly on stupa architecture. A modern study should ask what date range the inscriptional forms support independently, whether the two vessels are contemporary with one another, and whether either vessel could be residual or redeposited in the disturbed chamber. The analysis should avoid an exact year unless another form of evidence genuinely narrows the range. Dynastic labels such as Mauryan or Śuṅga should follow the dating argument rather than substitute for it.
W.4 Archaeological re-documentation without re-excavation
The monument itself can be studied further without reopening a relic deposit. A modern measured survey could document the surviving mound, terrace, plinth, old shaft scar, visible masonry and relationship to the second-stage topography. Photogrammetry or terrestrial scanning could create a surface model that tests Cunningham’s dimensions and records present condition. Such work would be valuable for conservation and architectural history, but it should not be represented as reconstructing the exact 1851 chamber unless the relevant internal relationships remain visible or are documented in archival plans. The purpose of a digital model would be to preserve what survives now and to compare it transparently with the historical record.
The candidate’s proposed three-dimensional scanning of exterior casing alignment stones can therefore be reframed as a conservation and architectural question rather than an outstanding test of relic authenticity. Before any survey is commissioned, the responsible archaeological authority should define the research question, permissions, data-management plan, publication limits, and whether the expected information is likely to improve conservation or chronology. No imaging programme should be treated as a substitute for locating the missing object-level museum records that currently constrain the custody history.
W.5 Biological and scientific evidence threshold
No new biological claim should be introduced unless a source can be linked to material securely identified as coming from Stupa No. 7. The nearby Stupa No. 9 record demonstrates that nineteenth-century publications could describe anatomical material in considerable detail. That makes it especially important not to infer a similar assemblage for Stupa No. 7 where the core pages do not provide one. If a museum object or sample is eventually matched to the Stupa No. 7 vessels, the first scientific task would be documentation of identity, condition, packaging, labels and chain of handling. Only then could non-invasive or minimally invasive examination be considered under appropriate authority.
A modern anatomical identification, if ever undertaken, would answer a different question from the epigraphic reading. Demonstrating that a fragment is human bone would not by itself identify the named individual, establish the date of deposition, or attribute the material to the historical Buddha. Conversely, an inscription naming a monk can document intended commemoration even when the biological contents have disappeared. The research programme should keep those evidence streams separate so that progress in one domain does not create unwarranted certainty in another.
W.6 Publication and registry update triggers
HIRR-2026-0029 should be revised only when new evidence changes a recorded claim, locator, object identity, chronology or custody event. A new museum accession match would require updating the custody register and every public passage that currently says repository unresolved. A new epigraphic reading would require preserving the earlier Patito and Patibho readings in the history of scholarship while changing the preferred reading only with a documented basis. A conservation or scientific report would enter as a new source with its own inspection status and could affect only the material claims it actually tests. None of these events would justify rewriting unrelated sections or erasing the correction that distinguishes Stupas 2, 7 and 9.
This revision model keeps the monograph dynamic without making it provisional in a careless sense. The present conclusions are firm where the evidence is firm and explicitly open where the records are incomplete. Future research should therefore aim at the few missing links that can materially change interpretation: the present identity of the two Stupa No. 7 vessels, the best visual witnesses for their inscriptions, and a modern reassessment of the monument’s chronology and condition. Those priorities offer a more productive path than attempting to recover certainty through increasingly elaborate restatements of the same nineteenth-century summary.
Notes
1. Alexander Cunningham, The Bhilsa Topes; or, Buddhist Monuments of Central India (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1854), contents for chap. XXV, pp. 327-341, especially entries for Bhojpur Stupas 2 and 7.
2. Cunningham, The Bhilsa Topes, 327-329.
3. Cunningham, The Bhilsa Topes, 330-332, especially p. 331 on the rock-crystal reliquary from Bhojpur Stupa No. 2.
4. Cunningham, The Bhilsa Topes, 334-335.
5. Cunningham, The Bhilsa Topes, 335-336.
6. Cunningham, The Bhilsa Topes, 336-337.
7. Cunningham, The Bhilsa Topes, 337-341.
8. F. C. Maisey, Sánchi and Its Remains (London, 1892), 113, table of funereal relic names, recording Maisey’s observation that Cunningham’s Patito reading looked to him like “Patibho.”
9. British Library, “Maisey Collection,” archives catalogue, WD546, describing 60 drawings including 13 relic-casket drawings from Sanchi, Sonari, Satdhara and Bhojpur, and noting related manuscripts and later publications.
10. British Museum, collection record 1887,0717.15.a, reliquary from Bhojpur Stupa 9, steatite, donated by Maj-Gen Sir Alexander Cunningham in 1887.
11. British Museum, List of Human Remains in the Collection of the British Museum, version 3.0 (August 2010), entry 1887,0717.15b, Bhojpur Stupa 9, tiny fragments of bone and teeth.
12. Archaeological Survey of India, “Centrally Protected Monuments/Sites: State-wise and Circle-wise,” Madhya Pradesh list, entry 145: Buddhist stupas, Murelkhurd, Raisen District.
13. Princely Archaeologies and Plural Sovereignties in Modern South Asia (Archaeopress, 2025), discussion of Maisey, Cunningham, Sanchi and the 1851 investigations, pp. 38-43 as indexed in the accessible text.
14. Victoria and Albert Museum collection tradition for the Bhojpur Stupa No. 2 rock-crystal reliquary, museum no. IM.223-1921, as reproduced in published collection guides; used here only as a comparative control, not as Stupa 7 evidence.
Bibliography
Primary and Near-Primary Archaeological Sources
Cunningham, Alexander. The Bhilsa Topes; or, Buddhist Monuments of Central India. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1854.
Maisey, F. C. Sánchi and Its Remains. London, 1892.
Official Archaeological, Archive, and Museum Sources
Archaeological Survey of India. “Centrally Protected Monuments/Sites: State-wise and Circle-wise.” Madhya Pradesh listings.
British Library. “Maisey Collection.” Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue, WD546 and related records.
British Museum. Collection record 1887,0717.15.a, reliquary from Bhojpur Stupa 9.
British Museum. List of Human Remains in the Collection of the British Museum. Version 3.0, August 2010.
Secondary and Collection-History Scholarship
Princely Archaeologies and Plural Sovereignties in Modern South Asia. Archaeopress, 2025.
Zwalf, W., ed. Buddhism: Art and Faith. London: British Museum, 1985.
Willis, Michael. Buddhist Reliquaries from Ancient India. London: British Museum Press, 2000.
GENERAL HSWAGATA-HIRR INSTITUTIONAL APPENDIX
The following institutional material is reusable general content. It is not evidence for the Bhojpur case and does not alter any project-specific finding, custody conclusion, scientific status, or certificate status stated above.
Reusable Master Text for HSWAGATA–HIRR Research Publications
The Hswagata Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation Private Museum
Office of Siridantamahāpālaka
Hswagata International Relic Registry (HIRR)
Integrated Relic Custodianship Model (IRCM)
General institutional material for placement at the end of HSWAGATA–HIRR monographs, case studies, research papers, reports, and related scholarly publications.
This appendix contains no project-specific archaeological finding, relic quantity, custody conclusion, certificate determination, or site-specific claim.
MOTTO
If you accept guardianship of a sacred object, you accept a duty of truthful record-keeping about its fate.
“Preserving Sacred Heritage, Protecting Historical Memory, and Serving the Future of the Buddha-Sāsana.”
The Hswagata Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation Private Museum is dedicated to the responsible preservation, documentation, study, and protection of tradition-associated Buddhist relics and related cultural heritage. Through transparency, ethical custodianship, and scholarly responsibility, the institution seeks to build a bridge between archaeology, history, museum practice, and Buddhist devotional traditions.
About Us
The Hswagata Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation Private Museum and the Office of Siridantamahāpālaka form an independent institutional framework committed to the research, curation, documentation, and safeguarding of Buddha Tooth Relics, tradition-associated Buddhist relics, and related cultural heritage. The institution integrates archival science, systematic registry practice, historical research, archaeology, museum documentation, and responsible preservation.
Its guiding philosophy is to approach Buddhist heritage with respect for living religious traditions while also applying careful historical inquiry, source criticism, documentation standards, and evidence-based research. Faith, tradition, archaeology, museum records, scientific evidence, and legal status are treated as related but distinct domains.
Funding and Institutional Independence
As an independent private museum and non-profit institutional initiative, conservation, research, documentation, publication, and daily operations are sustained through private self-funding and philanthropic support. The institution does not present this financial independence as governmental, university, intergovernmental, or external accreditation.
Leadership and Custodianship
Founder & Custodian
Bhikkhu S. Dhammasami Indasoma Siridantamahāpālaka (Sao Dhammasami) serves as Founder and Custodian of The Hswagata Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation Private Museum and directs the institution’s work in heritage stewardship, research, documentation, and publication. He is a Buddhist monk and author and holds an M.A. (Pali) and a Ph.D. (Thesis) in Peace Studies from the International Buddhist Studies College, Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University, as stated in the institution-supplied profile. His work includes Buddhist archaeology and the historical tracking of tooth-relic traditions through stūpa research, travel accounts, archival materials, and museum records.
Co-Founder
Venerable Indaka serves as Co-Founder and Institutional Governance Reviewer, supporting governance oversight, structural-consistency review, policy alignment, and publication-governance review.
Director of International Relations and Public Engagement
Dr. Sudassana supports international institutional relations, public engagement, external communications, partnership liaison, research dissemination, and international correspondence. Email: drsudassana.hirr@gmail.com
Research and Academic Publications Coordinator
Dr. Surocana supports academic documentation, research coordination, publication preparation, reference and citation management, editorial development, and the organization of supplementary research materials.
Institutional Status and Governance
The Hswagata Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation Private Museum operates as an independent private religious-heritage and research institution dedicated to preservation, documentation, academic study, archival management, and ethical stewardship. It is not represented by this appendix as a governmental body, court, university department, UNESCO body, intergovernmental organization, or independent external authentication laboratory.
The institution functions in association with the Office of Siridantamahāpālaka, the Hswagata International Relic Registry (HIRR), and the Integrated Relic Custodianship Model (IRCM). These entities and frameworks have different functions: a registry record is not a museum accession, a research publication is not a title deed, and a custodianship framework is not a legal adjudication.
The institutional structure may be understood through four connected operational areas:
Custodianship — preservation, protection, registry management, condition documentation, and conservation planning.
Research — archaeological assessment, historical investigation, textual and epigraphic review, evidence analysis, and publication.
Archives — digital preservation, source documentation, evidence management, metadata, and registry governance.
Public Education and Relations — dissemination, exhibitions, public communication, international correspondence, partnerships, and educational outreach.
Statement on the Purpose, Neutrality, and Use of Research Findings
Research papers, records, analyses, assessments, and findings issued within the HSWAGATA–HIRR framework are undertaken for academic, documentary, archival, museum, and cultural-heritage research purposes. They may examine historical, archaeological, literary, epigraphic, museum, custodial, and tradition-associated evidence relating to Buddhist relics and associated materials.
Such research does not determine or establish the ownership, sovereignty, legal title, inheritance rights, or other legally enforceable rights of any country, government, religious institution, museum, private institution, family, individual, or other entity. Present-day territorial location, historical sovereignty, ownership at the time of discovery, possession, institutional custody, subsequent transfer, and present physical location are treated as separate matters.
A research publication, registry entry, assessment, or institutional certificate must not be construed as a judicial finding, governmental determination, ownership document, title document, export permit, commercial authentication, or other legally binding instrument unless a competent authority has separately issued such a determination.
Downstream users who cite, reproduce, summarize, translate, interpret, or incorporate HSWAGATA–HIRR research into another work remain responsible for verifying the primary sources, official records, applicable laws, court records, governmental documents, and competent institutional decisions relevant to their own use. A later user’s legal or administrative argument does not automatically become the position of the original researcher or institution.
The role of the researcher is to collect and evaluate evidence, identify sources, examine historical and archaeological information, preserve uncertainty, and present reasoned scholarly assessments. Appropriate terms may include “historical evidence,” “archaeological evidence,” “documentary evidence,” “tradition-associated evidence,” “contextual correspondence,” and “probabilistic historical assessment.”
Research may investigate history. Research may evaluate evidence. Research may present scholarly conclusions. Legal ownership, title, sovereignty, and enforceable legal rights remain matters for the competent legal or governmental authorities under applicable law.
Our Mission
Our mission is to build a responsible bridge of understanding between archaeological and historical evidence, museum documentation, archival research, and Theravāda textual and devotional traditions. The institution does not seek to erase religious belief or to make faith function as scientific proof. It seeks instead to document each evidence domain honestly and to explain where they converge, differ, or remain unresolved.
Preserve tradition-associated relics and related heritage materials.
Document historical custodianship traditions and archival records.
Support responsible archaeological, historical, textual, and museum research.
Promote ethical heritage stewardship and precautionary conservation.
Preserve endangered documentary records through responsible digitization.
Encourage cooperation among museums, universities, monasteries, researchers, and cultural institutions.
Protect the continuity of Buddhist devotional heritage while keeping devotional claims distinct from empirical findings.
Create accessible scholarly publications and durable institutional records for future generations.
What We Do
Relic Documentation
Systematic registration and documentation of tradition-associated relics, reliquaries, deposits, and related records through controlled institutional registry systems.
Archaeological Assessment
Review and analysis of excavation reports, field records, stratigraphy, monument descriptions, reliquaries, inscriptions, associated finds, plans, plates, and other archaeological evidence.
Historical and Textual Research
Investigation of historical records, Pāli and other relevant textual traditions, travel accounts, chronicles, archival sources, and the history of relic transmission and veneration.
Museum and Custody Research
Review of repository records, accession and inventory evidence, conservation records, documented custody events, provenance gaps, and present-status evidence where available.
Digital Preservation
Creation and maintenance of durable digital records intended to reduce the risk of documentary loss and to support long-term research continuity.
Research and Publication
Production of case studies, monographs, reports, evidence registers, educational materials, and other institutional publications.
Public Education
Communication of Buddhist cultural heritage, preservation ethics, and research findings in forms accessible to scholarly and public audiences.
International Collaboration
Professional cooperation with researchers, museums, universities, monastic institutions, archives, and heritage professionals where appropriate.
Five-Year Strategic Collection Plan
The institutional strategic plan is organized around three broad phases. Specific targets, dates, and implementation status should be reported separately and updated through current institutional records rather than assumed from this general appendix.
Phase 1 — Digital Archiving and Standardization
Strengthen registry and accession-related documentation systems, expand digital preservation of archival records, and develop consistent non-invasive condition-reporting and metadata practices for core heritage materials.
Phase 2 — Advanced Interdisciplinary Research
Expand the comparative study of Theravāda textual traditions, archaeology, museum records, and historical documentation, and continue the preparation of institutional research publications and the “Chronicles” series where authorized.
Phase 3 — Global Open-Research Integration
Strengthen IRCM governance, improve long-term digital accessibility, pursue appropriate persistent identifiers and open-access routes where formally registered, and develop responsible collaboration with research and heritage institutions.
Research and Publication Framework
Research activities are organized through the Hswagata International Relic Registry (HIRR). Publication form depends on the evidence, purpose, and authorized project scope; a shorter document is not automatically weaker, and a longer document is not automatically stronger.
Tier 1 — Public Summary
A concise public-facing explanation of an approved research record or heritage subject.
Tier 2 — Case Study Report
Focused documentation and analysis of a defined site, object, relic assemblage, source problem, or historical question.
Tier 3 — Academic Monograph
A comprehensive evidence-led scholarly study with full source criticism, notes, bibliography, appendices, and research registers as appropriate.
Tier 4 — Museum / Institutional Archive Record
A durable registry and archival record designed for long-term institutional preservation and traceability.
Across publication types, the institution distinguishes documented evidence from interpretation, hypothesis, devotional tradition, scientific result, legal status, provenance, custody, ownership, and present verification.
Integrated Relic Custodianship Model (IRCM)
The Integrated Relic Custodianship Model (IRCM) is the institution’s framework for coordinating research, documentation, preservation, governance, and respectful care. It was developed in response to recurring problems in relic research, including fragmented documentation, uncertain provenance, interrupted custody histories, inconsistent archival practice, conflicting interpretations, and the need for clearer preservation standards.
Rather than treating ownership or authenticity as the only questions, the model gives priority to evidence, documentation, preservation, transparency, accountability, continuity, and respect for sacred heritage.
Historical Dimension
Evaluation of historical records, chronicles, manuscripts, archival sources, travel accounts, and custodial traditions.
Archaeological Dimension
Assessment of excavation reports, stratigraphy, monument history, reliquaries, inscriptions, numismatics, material culture, and documented scientific evidence.
Archival Dimension
Documentation of source history, provenance, registry management, digital preservation, metadata standards, and institutional memory.
Doctrinal and Devotional Dimension
Respectful documentation of Buddhist textual traditions, devotional practices, sacred-object beliefs, and custodianship traditions without presenting them as archaeological or scientific proof.
Our 15 Principles
1. Heritage Safeguarding: Secure safeguarding and responsible long-term care of sacred relics and historical heritage for future generations.
2. Precautionary Conservation: Preference for non-invasive and reversible approaches, with irreversible intervention requiring appropriate evidence, authority, and conservation justification.
3. Rigorous Documentation: Careful registry files, condition records, source documentation, identifiers, and audit trails appropriate to the object or project.
4. Interdisciplinary Research: Responsible integration of archaeology, history, textual studies, museum practice, archival research, and other relevant disciplines.
5. Technological Integration: Use of appropriate digital and computational research tools to improve documentation, analysis, preservation, and institutional efficiency without allowing tools to replace scholarly responsibility.
6. Open Research Commitment: Support for transparent methods, inspectable sources, reproducible documentation, and responsible access where rights, privacy, security, and sacred-material obligations permit.
7. Strategic Planning: Long-term planning for institutional development, collections care, documentation, and research continuity.
8. Scholarly Dissemination: Publication of research and heritage documentation in forms appropriate to the evidence and intended audience.
9. Academic Independence: Independent research judgment within the institution’s actual legal and organizational status, without implying governmental or external academic authority.
10. Transparency and Accountability: Clear documentation of methods, limitations, decisions, funding context, corrections, and institutional responsibility.
11. Ethical Integrity: Zero tolerance for bribery, corruption, and influence-seeking benefits that compromise professional judgment.
12. Impartiality: Evidence-led research that seeks to avoid political, racial, religious, commercial, or personal bias while respecting living traditions.
13. Peaceful Management: Culturally respectful and non-confrontational heritage stewardship that does not use research publication to manufacture ownership or political claims.
14. Global Collaboration: Professional cooperation with qualified researchers, reviewers, museums, archives, universities, monastic institutions, and heritage bodies where appropriate.
15. Educational Inspiration: Translation of complex historical and preservation questions into accessible knowledge without sacrificing evidence discipline.
Core Institutional Policies
Transparency and Accountability
Operations, research, and heritage decisions should be documented transparently to the extent permitted by privacy, rights, security, sacred-material, and legal obligations.
Impartiality and Conflict-of-Interest Control
Research and publication should avoid political, racial, religious, commercial, and personal conflicts of interest; material conflicts should be disclosed and managed.
Zero Tolerance for Bribery and Corruption
Direct or indirect bribery, corruption, and influence-seeking benefits are prohibited.
No Gift Policy
Officials, curators, researchers, and reviewers should not accept gifts, hospitality, favours, or privileges that could reasonably compromise professional judgment.
Peaceful Management and Safeguarding
Collections and sacred heritage should be managed with respect, security, documentation, and a preference for dispute-sensitive, peaceful processes.
Evidence–Interpretation–Hypothesis Separation
Publications must distinguish documented evidence from interpretation and hypothesis.
Custody and Provenance Documentation
Known custodial and provenance events should be recorded; missing links should be identified as gaps rather than silently reconstructed.
Confidence and Limitation Disclosure
Major conclusions should communicate the strength and limits of the evidence using the project’s approved evidence framework.
Research-Gap Disclosure
Missing evidence, inaccessible sources, contradictory records, and unresolved questions must remain visible.
Digital Preservation
Completed research and supporting records should be preserved through controlled digital backup and versioning.
Visual Evidence
Reconstructions and analytical diagrams must be identified as such; evidentiary images must have a documented source and rights basis.
Religious Heritage
Devotional traditions are documented respectfully as religious heritage and are not automatically endorsed or rejected by archaeological methodology.
Scientific Integrity
Scientific claims must be tied to real methods, reports, samples, and competent interpretation. Pseudo-scientific explanations must not be used as evidence.
Doctrinal Integrity
Doctrinal claims should be represented as doctrinal or traditional statements and should not be recast as archaeological observations or laboratory results.
Institutional Neutrality
Research should not be used to promote sectarian superiority, political propaganda, commercial exploitation, or cultural hostility.
Permanent Registry and Version Control
Registry, case, publication, evidence, and version records should remain traceable throughout the archival lifecycle.
Institutional Research Framework
The following framework describes methods that may be used across HSWAGATA–HIRR research. It does not imply that every method was used in every publication. Each project must state its actual methods, sources, inspection limits, and evidence base in its own methodology section.
Source and Evidence Collection
Identification and retrieval of archaeological reports, archival records, museum documentation, inscriptions, photographs, maps, textual witnesses, and relevant scholarship.
Source Inspection and Verification
Inspection of the exact source, page, plate, record, object entry, or other locator needed for a claim, with access limitations stated accurately.
Historical and Archaeological Correlation
Comparison of different evidence domains without forcing them to agree or treating repetition as independent corroboration.
Provenance and Custody Review
Event-by-event reconstruction of documented find, transfer, repository, conservation, and custody history, while keeping possession, custody, provenance, and title distinct.
Evidence and Confidence Assessment
Claim-by-claim assessment based on source directness, independence, consistency, contradiction, and unresolved gaps.
Research-Gap Analysis
Explicit identification of missing evidence, inaccessible records, negative searches, and outstanding verification targets.
Registry and Archival Preservation
Controlled recording of identifiers, versions, source registers, evidence matrices, and preservation metadata appropriate to the project.
Research Ethics
The institution’s research ethics emphasize respect for sacred heritage, documentation integrity, transparency, cultural sensitivity, academic responsibility, lawful and ethical stewardship, and a preference for non-invasive examination where possible. Human remains, claimed relics, sacred materials, private custodians, sensitive locations, and restricted records require additional dignity, rights, privacy, and security controls.
The institution does not treat a museum label, religious tradition, certificate design, digital identifier, scientific-sounding phrase, or repeated citation as proof of a claim beyond the evidence actually inspected.
Scholarly Review Framework
Review status is project-specific. This general appendix does not state that any particular publication has completed external peer review, scientific review, archaeological review, or independent institutional review. Each publication should report only the review that actually occurred.
Internal research review may examine source use, argument, citations, consistency, and compliance with institutional research standards.
Specialist review may be sought for archaeology, epigraphy, numismatics, conservation, languages, scientific evidence, museum records, or other fields where competent expertise is required.
External scholarly review may be invited where appropriate, but invitation is not the same as completed peer review or endorsement.
Released research may be corrected, revised, superseded, or withdrawn when new verified evidence materially changes an earlier assessment.
Legal and Ethical Statements
Ownership and Title
HSWAGATA–HIRR research does not establish, transfer, confirm, or extinguish legal ownership, title, sovereignty, inheritance rights, or proprietary interests.
Provenance and Lawful Movement
A research record does not by itself prove lawful excavation, lawful export or import, complete provenance, or an unbroken chain of title.
Governmental and International Endorsement
Unless separately verified, HSWAGATA–HIRR publications are not governmental determinations and are not presented as endorsements or certifications by UNESCO, the United Nations, or another external authority.
Cultural Property
The institution supports compliance with applicable cultural-heritage, antiquities, customs, museum, and other relevant laws and ethical standards.
Religious Neutrality
Research may document doctrine, devotion, and sacred tradition but does not claim authority to issue binding doctrinal decrees on behalf of Buddhist communities or Sangha bodies.
Non-Commercial Use
Research publications are not commercial valuations, investment guarantees, auction authentications, or sales certificates.
Evidence Limitation
Every research conclusion remains bounded by the evidence, inspection status, chronology, source quality, and unresolved gaps documented for the relevant project.
Doctrinal and Devotional Traditions
Within Theravāda Buddhist traditions, sacred relics (Dhātu) carry profound devotional and religious significance. Texts, chronicles, commentaries, ritual practices, oral traditions, and living communities preserve accounts of relic veneration, sacred presence, meritorious worship, protective beings, and extraordinary events associated with relics.
The institution records such material as Buddhist religious and intangible heritage. Historical or archaeological research may study the origin, transmission, context, and reception of these traditions, but it does not automatically confirm or reject supernatural claims through empirical method.
This distinction allows devotional traditions to be represented respectfully while protecting scholarly clarity: a traditional account remains a traditional account unless an independent evidence class supports a different type of conclusion.
Religious Heritage and Devotional Tradition Statement
Theravāda Buddhist literature and later relic traditions include accounts of extraordinary qualities associated with sacred relics, including manifestation, multiplication, transformation, disappearance, relocation, and other events understood devotionally as Dhātu-pāṭihāriya. The institution preserves and documents these traditions as part of Buddhist religious heritage. They are not presented by this appendix as archaeological, scientific, legal, or governmental determinations.
Spiritual Custodianship
Within devotional traditions, custodianship may carry a spiritual meaning grounded in Saddhā (faith), Pūjā (veneration), Puñña (merit), discipline, and ethical responsibility. This spiritual understanding is distinct from physical custody, museum registration, legal possession, or legal title.
Traditional Accounts of Protective Beings
Theravāda and wider Buddhist traditions preserve accounts of devas, nāgas, and guardian beings associated with the protection of relics, stupas, monasteries, and places of worship. These accounts are documented as religious heritage and are neither verified nor rejected as empirical findings by this institutional appendix.
Interpretive Boundary for Devotional Statements
Devotional and doctrinal statements in this appendix are expressions of Buddhist religious heritage. They do not override applicable law, establish ownership or title, repair a provenance gap, identify biological material, prove archaeological context, or replace scientific evidence. Conversely, the absence of scientific verification does not erase the historical or religious significance of a documented devotional tradition.
Contact and Institutional Identification
Office of Siridantamahāpālaka
Founder and Custodian: Sao Dhammasami (Siridantamahāpālaka)
Researcher: Bhikkhu Indasoma Siridantamahāpālaka
Institution: The Hswagata Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation Private Museum
Research Registry: Hswagata International Relic Registry (HIRR)
Research Governance Framework: Integrated Relic Custodianship Model (IRCM)
Operations: Yangon – Bangkok
ORCID (Researcher): 0009-0000-0697-4760
Website: www.hswagata.com
Email: saodhammasami@hswagata.com
Alternative Email: saodhammasami@gmail.com
Address: No. 19, 1st Street, 1st Ward, Mayangone Township, Yangon, Myanmar.
Telephone: (+95) 9 79 888 4129; (+66) 08 27 17 0 249
Recommended Placement in HSWAGATA–HIRR Publications
This general appendix is designed for placement after the project-specific conclusion, research appendices, notes, bibliography, or other evidence-led back matter, depending on the publication architecture. It should remain visibly separate from the project’s archaeological findings so readers can distinguish reusable institutional information from case-specific evidence.
Project-specific identifiers, site names, relic quantities, excavation dates, museum object numbers, custody findings, scientific results, evidence tiers, certificate numbers, and conclusions should not be inserted into this master text. They belong in the controlled project record and the relevant publication sections.
Verification and Colophon
Project: HIRR-2026-0029. External Candidate: EXT-CAND-0007. Standardized subject: Bhojpur Stupa No. 7. DOI status: 10.5281/zenodo.22007664. This edition is prepared for institutional scholarly review. It does not issue a certificate, determine ownership, or authenticate bodily material as belonging to the historical Buddha. The main analytical discussion begins on page .
Core evidential correction: the rock-crystal miniature-stupa reliquary belongs to Bhojpur Stupa No. 2 in Cunningham’s 1854 publication. The located British Museum human-remains record belongs to Bhojpur Stupa No. 9. Stupa No. 7 is documented through its disturbed chamber and two inscribed earthenware vases.
DIGITAL VERIFICATION AND QR REGISTRY
DIGITAL CERTIFICATE VERIFICATION AND ARCHIVAL REGISTRY
QR 1 — Full Research Monograph
Destination:
DOI STATUS: 10.5281/zenodo.22007664
QR 2 — Certificate Verification Record
Destination:
https://www.hswagata.com/verify/CERT-HIRR-2026-0029
QR 3 — Evidence Summary
Destination:
https://www.hswagata.com/archive/ARCH-2026-0029
QR 4 — Version and Correction History
Destination:
https://www.hswagata.com/registry/REG-2026-0029/history
QR 5 — Institutional Profile
Destination:
https://orcid.org/0009-0004-8799-7014
MANDATORY VERIFICATION METADATA
Certificate Number: CERT-HIRR-2026-0029
Project Reference: HIRR-2026-0029
Case ID: CASE-2026-0029
Registry Number: REG-2026-0029
DOI: DOI STATUS:10.5281/zenodo.22007664
ORCID (Principal Researcher): https://orcid.org/0009-0000-0697-4760
Institutional Research Profile: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-8799-7014
Institutional Organization Identifier: ROR Registration Pending
Publication Version: v1.0
Issue Date: 19 August 2026
Revision Number: R00
Digital File Name: CERT-HIRR-2026-0029_v1.0.pdf
File Format: Standard PDF (PDF/A validation status: Pending
Verification URL: https://www.hswagata.com/verify/CERT-HIRR-2026-0029
QR Destination: As listed in QR 1-5 block
Digital Hash: DIGITAL HASH: PENDING FINAL EXPORT
Archive Status: Permanent Institutional Record
[INTERNAL RECORD — DO NOT PRINT ON PUBLIC CERTIFICATE]
FINAL CERTIFICATE AUTHORIZATION RECORD
Certificate Package Status: APPROVED FOR INSTITUTIONAL ISSUE
Project Reference: HIRR-2026-0029
Certificate Number: CERT-HIRR-2026-0029
Publication Version: v1.0
Certification Class: CLASS A — DOCUMENTED EXCAVATION RECORD / CLASS C — ARCHIVAL CORRELATION
Documented Relic Quantity: Not specified in the surviving documentation reviewed for this project (recorded as two inscribed earthenware vases).
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22007664
Issue Date: 19 August 2026
Archival Status: Permanent Institutional Record
Unresolved Data Gaps: Current physical location and repository of the Patito/Patibho and Upahitakasa vessels remain unconfirmed; epigraphic reading contested; biological contents unverified.
Unresolved Source Requirements: Object-level museum concordance for the two earthenware vases.
Version: v1.0
Revision: R00
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