Office Of Siridantamahapalaka
The Hswagata Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation Private Museum
Devni Mori Stupa: Archaeological, Relic, Historical, and Custodial Research
HIRR-2026-0024
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 (HIRR)
Integrated Relic Custodianship Model (IRCM)
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-2026-0024
Project Reference: HIRR-2026-0024
Case ID: CASE-2026-0024
Registry Number: REG-2026-0024
Publication Number: PUB-2026-0024
Site or Object Name: Devni Mori (Devnimori) Mahāstūpa
Historical Region: Northern Gujarat (Shamlaji–Meshwo River System), Western India
Modern Country: India (Bhiloda Taluka, Aravalli District, Gujarat)
Archaeological Period: c. Late 4th to Early 5th Century CE (Inscribed: Kathika Year 127)
Excavator or Documenting Authority: Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (R. N. Mehta and S. N. Chowdhary)
Excavation or Documentation Date: 1960–1963 (Field Excavations); 1966 (Primary Monograph Publication)
Documented Relic Quantity in the Historical Record: Bodily Relic Deposit (Two caskets: Casket I containing ashes in a schist cylinder; Casket II enclosing an inner copper box, textile bundles, small gold vessel, and organic/ashy material; specific anatomical tooth count not documented in the primary excavation report)
Evidence Classification: CLASS A (Documented Excavation Record), CLASS B (Epigraphically Anchored Relic Record), CLASS C (Archival Correlation)
Confidence Classification: High for Archaeological Deposit & Inscriptional Attribution; Unverified for Anatomical Dental Identity & Biological Authentication
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21994762
Publication Version: v0.4
Date of Issue: August 18, 2026
Declaration of Findings
This certificate records that the archaeological and archival documentation associated with the Devni Mori (Devnimori) Mahāstūpa has undergone systematic historical, archaeological, epigraphic, numismatic, museum-documentary, and custodial review under the Integrated Relic Custodianship Model.
The examined records document the recovery of a two-casket bodily relic deposit (Casket I containing ashes; Casket II containing an inner copper box, textile bundles, small gold vessel, and organic/ashy material) from the undisturbed core of the Mahāstūpa, as recorded by the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (R. N. Mehta and S. N. Chowdhary) during the 1960–1963 excavation seasons and published in 1966. Specific anatomical tooth-relic identification was not located in the primary excavation text reviewed.
The available evidence supports CLASS A (Documented Excavation Record), CLASS B (Epigraphically Anchored Relic Record), and CLASS C (Archival Correlation) with High Confidence regarding the archaeological reality of the stupa deposit and its inscriptional attribution to Daśabala / Buddha, alongside Unverified status regarding biological identity and dental anatomy.
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
[Official Institutional Seal]
Office of Siridantamahāpalaka
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Approval Status Area:
APPROVED
Certificate Serial: CERT-HIRR-2026-0024
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."
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DOI Record: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21994762
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Office of Siridantamahāpalaka | Hswagata Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation Private Museum (Yangon / Bangkok Operations)
Official Registry Portal: www.hswagata.com | DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21994762
Certificate Serial Number: CERT-HIRR-2026-0024 | Edition Version: v0.4
Notice: See reverse side for Certificate Governance Charter, Terms, Conditions, and Research Ethics.
CERTIFICATE GOVERNANCE CHARTER
Terms, Conditions, Research Ethics, and Use Restrictions
Institutional Research Certification under the HIRR–IRCM Framework
Project Identification & Metadata Anchor
Certificate Number: CERT-HIRR-2026-0024
Project Reference: HIRR-2026-002
Case ID: CASE-2026-0024
Registry Number: REG-2026-0024
Publication Number: PUB-2026-0024
Site / Monument: Devni Mori (Devnimori) Mahāstūpa, Gujarat, India
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21994762
Document Version: v0.4
ARTICLE 1 — ACADEMIC INTERPRETATION
This certificate records documentary, archaeological, historical, epigraphic, numismatic, archival, and custodial findings reviewed within the institutional research program. It reflects historical evidence, excavation data, and inscriptional attributions, but does not establish anatomical tooth identity or biological authentication as the historical Buddha.
ARTICLE 2 — CERTIFICATION SCOPE
Certification under project HIRR-2026-0024 is strictly limited to:
The documented recovery of a two-casket bodily relic deposit from the Mahāstūpa of Devni Mori during the 1960–1963 excavations by The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, published in 1966;
The inscriptional attribution of the deposit on Casket II to Daśabala / Buddha and its associated dating formula (Kathika Year 127 / Rudrasena association);
The numismatic context provided by Western Kshatrapa silver coinage establishing a terminus post quem;
The official Government of India statements of February 2026 regarding normal enshrinement at The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and temporary exposition in Colombo;
The explicit research-gap disclosures confirming that specific dental anatomy and biological identity remain unverified in the examined corpus.
ARTICLE 3 — INSTITUTIONAL NEUTRALITY
This certificate functions as an evidence-led institutional record. It does not invalidate, diminish, rank, or compete with alternative Buddhist relic traditions, nor does it assert institutional supremacy or regional exclusivity. The assessment remains strictly non-sectarian and non-nationalistic.
ARTICLE 4 — NO OWNERSHIP OR EXCLUSIVE CUSTODIANSHIP
This document certifies research findings and registry documentation only. It does not confer, alter, transfer, or validate legal title, property ownership, export rights, or exclusive physical custodianship. Physical custody remains with the competent statutory or repository authorities.
ARTICLE 5 — PROTECTION AGAINST MISUSE
This certificate and its associated registry identifiers must not be utilized for commercial appraisal, monetary valuation, antiquities trading, illicit transit, sectarian disputes, political propaganda, or misleading public representations of biological certainty.
ARTICLE 6 — RESEARCH ETHICS
All analyses follow non-destructive scholarship and the principles of heritage dignity. Devotional traditions and sacred materials are treated with institutional respect, while maintaining strict adherence to source transparency and citation integrity.
ARTICLE 7 — EVIDENCE–INTERPRETATION–HYPOTHESIS SEPARATION
All statements within this certification package preserve the structural boundaries among:
Evidence: Observed archaeological deposits, caskets, coins, texts, and official administrative releases;
Interpretation: Scholarly historical synthesis, epigraphic readings, and numismatic constraints;
Hypothesis: Linguistic proposals (such as possible Saṁmitīya textual affiliations) and debated absolute calendar conversions;
Doctrine & Devotion: Traditional religious veneration and official devotional titles.
ARTICLE 8 — DOCTRINAL HUMILITY
Religious traditions and devotional accounts are recorded respectfully as living cultural heritage. They are not converted into empirical anatomical, genetic, or forensic observations.
ARTICLE 9 — ARCHIVAL INTEGRITY AND GAP DISCLOSURE
Historical, custodial, and physical deficits are recorded openly as research gaps. Specifically, the documentary interval between the 1966 excavation publication and the 2026 official repository statement is logged as an open research gap rather than an asserted unbroken chain.
ARTICLE 10 — RIGHT TO AMEND
The issuing authority reserves the right to amend, update, supplement, or revise this record upon the verification of new primary evidence, direct epigraphic autopsy, or authorized material examinations. Any amendment shall be issued under formal version and revision controls.
ARTICLE 11 — CERTIFICATE VERIFICATION
The validity of this certificate depends upon the correspondence of its serial number (CERT-HIRR-2026-0024), Project Reference (HIRR-2026-0024), Case ID (CASE-2026-0024), active registry records, and verified DOI destination.
ARTICLE 12 — COPYRIGHT AND REPRODUCTION
This certificate may not be altered, modified, or reproduced for commercial exploitation. Scholarly citation, non-commercial research distribution, and open-science referencing are authorized provided full institutional credit is maintained.
ARTICLE 13 — DATA PROTECTION AND RESTRICTED DETAILS
Specific physical storage security arrangements, internal vault access controls, and non-public personal data are excluded from public documentation to safeguard institutional and material security.
ARTICLE 14 — PUBLICATION RESPONSIBILITY
Scholarly responsibility for historical reconstruction rests with the principal researcher. Institutional review confirms governance adherence, documentary consistency, and methodological compliance under the Integrated Relic Custodianship Model.
ARTICLE 15 — RELIGIOUS HUMILITY STATEMENT
The spiritual significance of sacred relics transcends material boundaries. This certification is offered with humility, seeking to serve public learning, historical clarity, and the responsible safeguarding of Buddhist cultural heritage.
Office of Siridantamahāpalaka | Hswagata Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation Private Museum (Yangon / Bangkok Operations)
Official Registry Portal: www.hswagata.com |
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21994762
Certificate Serial Number: CERT-HIRR-2026-0024 | PA
Devni Mori Stupa: Archaeological, Relic, Historical, and Custodial Research
HIRR-2026-0024
Institutional Research Publication
Title Page
Devni Mori Stupa: Archaeological, Relic, Historical, and Custodial Research
Produced by:
The Office of Siridantamahapalaka
The Hswagata Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation Private Museum
Project Reference: HIRR-2026-0024
Case ID: CASE-2026-0024
Registry Number: REG-2026-0024
Publication Number: PUB-2026-0024
Certificate Number: CERT-HIRR-2026-0024
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21994762
Institutional Metadata
Project Owner: Sao Dhammasami (Siridantamahāpālaka)
Researcher: Sao Dhammasami @ Bhikkhu Indasoma Siridantamahāpalaka
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-0697-4760
Publishing Authority: Office of Siridantamahapalaka
Institutional Affiliation: Hswagata Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation Private Museum (Yangon / Bangkok Operations)
Institutional ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-8799-7014
Publication Classification: Institutional Research Publication
Research Governance Model: Integrated Relic Custodianship Model (IRCM)
Co-Founder: Venerable Indaka (Wikidata: Q140470852)
Publication Scope and Neutrality
This monograph is an evidence-led study of the Buddhist archaeological complex at Devni Mori and, in particular, the relic deposits reported from its principal stupa. It distinguishes archaeological recovery, inscriptional attribution, religious interpretation, material description, present institutional statements, and scientific identification. These forms of evidence are related, but they do not have the same evidential function.
The publication does not determine legal title, ownership, governmental recognition, sacred authority, or the biological identity of the recovered material. The certificate identifier shown in the publication metadata identifies the project family; it does not by itself mean that a certificate has been signed, issued, or made legally effective. DOI — 10.5281/zenodo.21994762.
Religious language is treated respectfully as evidence of attribution, devotion, and historical meaning. It is not silently converted into an anatomical or scientific observation. Where the excavation record itself states a limit, that limit is preserved even when later official or devotional accounts use stronger language.
Abstract
Devni Mori, near Shamlaji in northern Gujarat, is one of the most important excavated Buddhist complexes in western India for the study of relic enshrinement around the later fourth and early fifth centuries CE. Excavations conducted by The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda from 1960 to 1963 documented a major stupa, monastic and ritual buildings, terracotta sculpture, inscriptions, coins, and two caskets associated with the stupa relic deposit. The inscribed casket connected the deposit with Dashabala, a Buddhist epithet associated in this context with the Buddha, while the excavators explicitly cautioned that the actual identity of the bodily material could not be ascertained. Modern scholarship has continued to debate the chronology, language, sectarian setting, and artistic connections of Devni Mori. This study reconstructs the evidence at claim level and separates what was excavated from what was interpreted. It also examines current public records that state that the relics were normally enshrined at The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in 2026 and were temporarily taken to Colombo for exposition. The principal conclusion is deliberately bounded: Devni Mori provides strong archaeological evidence for a Buddhist relic deposit whose inscription and historical interpretation associate it with Dashabala/Buddha, but the present inspected corpus does not identify the material anatomically as a tooth and does not establish its biological identity as that of the historical Buddha.
Keywords: Devni Mori; Devnimori; Gujarat Buddhism; Buddhist stupa; relic casket; Dashabala; Śarīra; archaeology; epigraphy; numismatics; provenance; custody; tooth-relic research.
Executive Summary
The archaeological strength of the Devni Mori case begins with context. The 1966 excavation report describes two caskets from the Mahāstūpa, each associated with an earthen pot. One was a relatively simple schist container holding ashes. The other was a more elaborate three-part inscribed stone casket that enclosed a copper box and associated contents. This is materially stronger than a relic tradition known only from a later story, because the claim begins with a documented excavation and a defined monument relationship.
The same primary report also imposes a decisive limit. Its authors recorded that the inscription identified the relics with Dashabala, yet they stated that the actual identity of the relics could not be ascertained; what could be shown was the belief of those responsible for the stupa. That distinction is central to the present assessment. It permits a strong conclusion about ancient attribution and enshrinement without claiming biological authentication.
A dedicated search of the inspected searchable text of the excavation report did not locate a tooth-relic identification. The relevant English hits for “tooth,” “teeth,” and “dental” concern architectural ornament or depicted teeth rather than the relic material. This negative result is source-limited: it does not prove that no tooth tradition has ever been connected with Devni Mori, but it means that a tooth identification cannot be derived from the primary report used here.
Chronology is also a matter of layered evidence. The excavators linked the inscription to a Rudrasena and year 127 of a Kathika reckoning. They compared this with the silver coins found below the casket and provisionally proposed an equation near 375 CE, while expressly leaving the identification open to further proof. Later scholarship continues to place Devni Mori around the fourth/fifth-century transition but has not removed every problem of ruler, era, language, and textual history.
Current custodial statements are more recent but narrower in scope. A Government of India release dated 2 February 2026 stated that the Devnimori relics were normally enshrined at The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, and described their temporary travel to Sri Lanka for exposition. These official statements are important evidence for the institutional position in 2026. They do not, however, fill every event in the custody and legal-title history between excavation and the present.
The study therefore treats Devni Mori neither as a case to be dismissed because biological proof is absent nor as a case in which religious and official attribution can substitute for biological identification. Its value lies in the unusual convergence of a documented stupa context, reliquary architecture, inscriptional language, numismatic constraints, conservation records, later scholarship, and living institutional treatment. Each contributes to the historical picture while retaining its own limits.
Figure 1. Evidence-bound claim matrix.
Contents
Publication Scope and Neutrality 5
Part I. Foundations of the Inquiry 19
Chapter 1. Devni Mori and the Problem of Relic Identification 19
1.1 A site where several kinds of evidence meet 19
1.2 Relic context is not the same as relic identity 20
1.3 Why the tooth question requires a separate test 21
1.4 Ancient belief, modern devotion, and scholarly description 21
1.5 Questions that guide the monograph 22
1.6 Historical significance beyond authentication 22
Chapter 2. Sources, Historiography, and Documentary Method 24
2.1 The excavation monograph as the primary archaeological record 24
2.2 Modern scholarship changes the questions rather than the excavation 24
2.3 Source families and independence 25
2.5 Negative evidence and the danger of silence 26
2.6 Visual evidence and rights 27
2.7 Limits of the present corpus 27
Chapter 3. Site, Landscape, and Historical Setting 28
3.1 Devnimori in the Shamlaji region 28
3.2 A Buddhist complex rather than a single monument 28
3.3 Architecture as historical evidence 29
3.4 The chronology of a living monument 29
3.5 Rescue archaeology and loss 30
3.6 Devni Mori as a western Indian Buddhist centre 31
Part II. Archaeological Context and Material Evidence 32
Chapter 4. Excavation, Architecture, Stratigraphy, and Context 32
4.1 Four seasons of excavation 32
4.2 Monument phases and the danger of a single-date stupa 32
4.3 Architecture, movement, and ritual 33
4.4 Fired brick, terracotta, and regional adaptation 33
4.5 Context integrity and later inaccessible ground 34
4.6 Archaeological conclusion 34
4.7 What can still be tested from the excavation archive 35
Chapter 5. Relic Deposits, Caskets, Contents, and Conservation 36
5.1 Two caskets, two records 36
5.3 Textiles, gold, and the material language of care 38
5.4 Bodily-relic terminology and material description 38
5.5 Conservation as evidence 39
5.6 Sacred material and non-destructive priorities 39
Part III. Text, Inscription, Coins, and Chronology 41
Chapter 6. Epigraphy, Numismatics, Textual Traditions, and Chronology 41
6.1 The casket inscription as a separate evidence object 41
6.2 Coins and the logic of terminus post quem 41
6.3 Later chronology without false precision 42
6.4 Dashabala, bodily relics, and semantic caution 42
6.5 The “Continental Pāli” problem and a possible Saṁmitīya context 43
6.6 Art-historical chronology and its limits 43
6.7 Chronological synthesis 43
6.8 Why the inscription should be re-examined visually 44
Part IV. Custody, Museum Records, and Attribution 45
Chapter 7. Museum Records, Provenance, Custody, and Heritage Governance 45
7.1 From excavation context to repository history 45
7.2 The 2026 repository statement 46
7.3 Colombo exposition as a custody event 46
7.4 Museum objects from Devni Mori 47
7.5 Ownership, title, and institutional authority 47
7.6 Sacred custody and care 47
7.8 Custody research and public verification 48
Chapter 8. The Tooth-Relic Question and the Limits of Attribution 49
8.1 Why a tooth claim must be built independently 49
8.2 Dedicated lexical search in the primary report 49
8.3 Material appearance is not anatomy 50
8.4 Dashabala attribution and biological identity 50
8.5 Official and devotional language in 2026 51
8.6 Comparative implications for relic research 51
8.7 Conditions for a future positive tooth assessment 51
Part V. Synthesis and Research Governance 53
Chapter 9. Evidence Synthesis, Contradictions, Confidence, and Research Gaps 53
9.1 Convergence without collapse 53
9.2 The central contradiction is only apparent 53
9.3 Chronological uncertainty as a bounded problem 53
9.4 Custody gap versus custody failure 54
9.5 Confidence by claim family 54
9.6 Research gaps that can be reduced 55
9.7 What the evidence does not permit 56
9.8 Research value of unresolved questions 56
Chapter 10. Conclusions, Recommendations, and Certification Scope 57
10.1 The archaeological conclusion 57
10.2 The identity conclusion 57
10.3 The chronological conclusion 57
10.4 The custodial conclusion 58
10.5 Recommended research priorities 58
10.6 Bounded certification statement 58
10.7 Recommendations for custodians and public institutions 59
10.8 Recommended certificate wording boundary 59
10.9 Public record and future correction 60
Institutional Research Governance and Publication Context 61
Institutional Profile and Leadership 61
Approved Institutional Vision 62
Approved Institutional Mission 62
Institutional Objectives and Programmes 62
Approved Fifteen Principles 62
Approved Founder/Custodian Message 65
Appendix A. Project and Identifier Crosswalk 66
Appendix B. Site and Monument Authority Record 67
Appendix C. Source Corpus and Inspection Register 68
Appendix D. Claim–Evidence Matrix 71
Appendix E. Contradiction and Negative-Evidence Register 81
Appendix F. Excavation and Chronology Table 82
Appendix G. Architectural and Deposit Catalogue 83
Appendix H. Reliquary and Contents Catalogue 84
Appendix I. Inscription and Textual-Evidence Register 85
Appendix J. Numismatic Context Register 86
Appendix K. Museum and Object Crosswalk 87
Appendix L. Provenance and Custody Event Register 88
Appendix M. Visual Programme and Rights Register 89
Appendix N. Spatial and Geographic Metadata 91
Appendix O. Source-Wording and Attribution Register 92
Appendix P. Research Gaps and Verification Priorities 93
Appendix Q. Certification Scope Matrix 95
Appendix R. Institutional Profile and Documentary Status 96
Appendix S. Rights, Sacred-Material, and Accessibility Record 98
Appendix T. Version, Correction, and Publication Record 99
List of Figures
Figure 1. Evidence-bound claim matrix.
Figure 2. Modern research and public-record chronology.
Figure 3. Analytical schematic of the Devnimori Buddhist complex.
Figure 4. Evidence relationship used in the inquiry.
Figure 5. Chronological constraints and interpretive caution.
Figure 6. Relationship among the principal Devnimori relic containers and contents.
Figure 7. Documented custody points and the unresolved interval.
List of Tables
Table 1. Abbreviations used in the monograph
Table 2. Selected technical terms
Table 3. Selected research and public-record chronology
Table 4. Main source classes and permitted functions
Table 5. Claim-family confidence summary
Table 6. Fifteen institutional principles
Table 7. Institutional policy index
Table A1. Project-family identifiers
Table B1. Controlled site-name and scope record
Table C1. Admitted sources
Table D1. Core claim–evidence matrix
Table E1. Contradictions, tensions, and negative findings
Table F1. Selected chronological anchors
Table G1. Principal architectural units
Table H1. Caskets and nested contents
Table I1. Inscription/text evidence
Table J1. Coin evidence used in the chronology
Table K1. Selected repository/object records
Table L1. Documented custody/provenance points
Table M1. Visual assets used
Table N1. Geographic record
Table O1. Important attribution layers
Table P1. Open research targets
Table Q1. Permitted and prohibited certificate-level claims
Table R1. Verified institutional metadata in this edition
Table R2. Current institutional dossier sources and status
Table S1. Rights and dignity controls
Table T1. Edition record
Preface
Devni Mori invites confidence and caution at the same time. The excavation is unusually rich for the history of Buddhism in western India: a stupa with relic deposits, inscribed containers, coins, architecture, sculpture, and conservation records can be studied together rather than as isolated objects. Yet the very richness of the site can encourage a simple story in which every line of evidence seems to point to the same conclusion. The purpose of this monograph is to resist that simplification. It asks not only what the sources say, but what kind of source is speaking, how close it stands to the material event, and what its words can reasonably establish.
The inquiry began with a specific relic-research concern. A source may call material a relic of the Buddha, an inscription may employ a revered epithet, a modern institution may expose an object for veneration, and an archaeological report may document ashes or other bodily material. These statements are historically important, but they do not automatically answer an anatomical question. The difference is especially important for research concerned with reported tooth relics. At Devni Mori, the primary excavation record supplies a clear relic context but, in the inspected text, no dental identification. This produces a meaningful result rather than an evidential failure: the site can be studied strongly as a relic-deposit case while the tooth question remains unverified.
The principal documentary anchor is the 1966 excavation monograph by R. N. Mehta and S. N. Chowdhary. It records the field programme, architecture, chronology, caskets, inscriptions, conservation work, and the excavators’ own interpretations. Later scholarship is used for a different purpose. Ishikawa places the art and architecture within wider arguments about Gandhāran, Mathurā, and western Indian interaction, while Tournier revisits the language and possible textual affiliation of the inscriptions. A recent landscape study situates the site within the Shamlaji–Meshwo region, and official records from 2026 provide a present institutional frame for custody and public exposition.
The work also accepts that some forms of knowledge are presently incomplete. The exact absolute equation of Kathika year 127 remains debated. The full primary 1968 epigraphic article by P. R. Srinivasan was identified bibliographically but was not independently inspected in the sources examined in this study, so this study does not use it as direct evidence. The current corpus also does not provide a complete event-by-event legal-title and custody chain from excavation to 2026, and no reproductive rights have been assumed for excavation or museum photographs. These limits determine what is left out as much as what is included.
For that reason, the visual programme is analytical rather than illustrative. Diagrams reconstruct relationships among site components, caskets, chronological constraints, evidence classes, and custody points from the admitted sources. They are not reconstructions of sacred material and do not imitate excavation photographs. This keeps the visual evidence transparent: every diagram explains an argument that already exists in the documentary record, and none is offered as a new archaeological observation.
The book moves from context toward assessment. The first part defines the research problem and documentary method. The second returns to place, excavation, architecture, and stratigraphy. The third considers the relic deposit, caskets, inscriptional and numismatic evidence, and chronology. The fourth follows the material into museum and custodial questions and then isolates the tooth-relic problem. The final part tests contradictions, confidence, and the appropriate boundary of any public or certificate statement. The appendices preserve the source, claim, evidence, custody, visual, and version records in structured form so that later research can amend the case without rewriting its history.
The intended reader may approach Devni Mori as an archaeologist, historian of Buddhism, epigraphist, museum professional, custodian, monastic reader, or interested member of the public. These readers do not need identical conclusions from the same evidence. They do need clarity about what was observed, what was inferred, what was believed, what is presently stated by an institution, and what remains unknown. That clarity is the standard used throughout this publication.
Abbreviations
Table 1. Abbreviations used in the monograph
Glossary
Table 2. Selected technical terms
Research Timeline
Table 3. Selected research and public-record chronology
Figure 2. Modern research and public-record chronology.
Part I. Foundations of the Inquiry
Chapter 1. Devni Mori and the Problem of Relic Identification
1.1 A site where several kinds of evidence meet
Devni Mori lies close to Shamlaji in present-day Aravalli District, Gujarat. When the principal excavations were conducted in the early 1960s, the locality was recorded within Bhiloda Taluka of Sabarkantha District. The change in modern administrative geography matters because archaeological records must be read in the jurisdictional language of their own date. The monument did not move when a district boundary changed, and a current place label should not be projected backwards as an ancient political identity.
The site is important because the excavated complex combines monumental, monastic, artistic, epigraphic, numismatic, and relic evidence. The major stupa stood within a wider Buddhist establishment that included monastic and ritual buildings and smaller stupa forms. The archaeological record therefore allows the relic deposit to be studied as part of a working religious landscape rather than as an isolated casket without context.
Later construction of the Meshwo dam transformed the evidential conditions of the site. Modern scholarship describes Devni Mori as submerged and no longer normally accessible for renewed field observation. This gives the excavation archive unusual importance. Plans, descriptions, photographs, object records, conservation notes, and published interpretations are not secondary conveniences in such a case; they are part of the surviving archaeological record through which the destroyed or inaccessible relationships must be reconstructed.
Figure 3. Analytical schematic of the Devnimori Buddhist complex.
1.2 Relic context is not the same as relic identity
The strongest starting point for the relic question is archaeological: the excavation report documents caskets associated with the Mahāstūpa deposit. This allows a defensible statement that excavators encountered a deliberate Buddhist relic arrangement. It does not, by itself, identify the biological individual represented by the material. The difference between context and identity is not a technical objection added after the fact; it is already present in the excavation report’s own reasoning.
Casket I and Casket II should not be treated as one undifferentiated “relic.” Their construction, contents, and documentary descriptions differ. Casket I is described as a relatively unfinished schist cylinder containing ashes. Casket II is more elaborate: a three-part inscribed stone casket associated with an inner copper box and further contents. Keeping these entities separate prevents an attribute documented for one container from being transferred silently to another.
The inscriptional attribution is historically powerful because it links the monument and relic concept to a Buddhist vocabulary of Dashabala and bodily remains. But inscriptional words are evidence of what a text asserts and what a community intended to communicate. They are not a laboratory result. This study therefore treats the inscription as a high-confidence witness to religious attribution while assigning a different evidential status to the question of biological identity.
1.3 Why the tooth question requires a separate test
A project concerned with reported Buddha tooth relics cannot assume that every bodily relic is a tooth. Tooth, bone, ash, bodily remains, relic particles, and symbolic substances are different material claims. A later devotional title may use the broad category “Buddha relic” without specifying anatomy. For Devni Mori, the inspected primary report must therefore be searched and read for dental language rather than being made to answer a question it never asked.
The searchable 1966 text produced no evidential hit identifying the stupa relic material as a tooth. English occurrences of “tooth” and “teeth” in the inspected OCR refer to architectural saw-tooth decoration or depicted teeth, while an OCR hit resembling “dental” belongs to decorative architectural terminology. This is a negative documentary finding, not proof of universal absence. It means only that the primary source used here does not provide the dental identification required for a positive tooth-relic claim.
This distinction produces a narrower but more reliable research outcome. Devni Mori remains highly relevant to tooth-relic research because it demonstrates how a strong relic context can exist without a verified tooth identification. It is therefore a useful case for the governance of sacred claims: the archaeological reality of a relic deposit can be affirmed while a more specific anatomical attribution remains open.
1.4 Ancient belief, modern devotion, and scholarly description
The excavators’ own note offers the most useful discipline for reading the case. They accepted that the inscription identified the relics with Dashabala, but they did not claim that this settled the actual identity of the remains. Their position recognizes ancient belief as a historical fact in its own right. The beliefs of those who built, repaired, worshipped at, or remembered a stupa can be studied without turning belief into biological proof.
The same principle applies to current official language. In February 2026 the Government of India publicly described the Devnimori remains as holy relics of Lord Buddha and organized their exposition in Sri Lanka. That record is important for present religious and institutional treatment. It establishes what responsible institutions publicly asserted and how the material was venerated at that date; it is not independent scientific authentication of the remains.
Scholarly language has another task. It must preserve the ancient and modern attributions while stating what the physical, epigraphic, chronological, and custodial records actually demonstrate. The result may sound less absolute than a devotional proclamation, but it gives both forms of meaning room to remain visible without requiring them to perform the same evidential work.
1.5 Questions that guide the monograph
Five questions organize the investigation. First, what did the excavators document about the Buddhist complex and the stupa context? Second, how were the caskets, their contents, and the associated inscription recorded? Third, what chronological constraints arise from the inscription, stratigraphy, and coins, and where do uncertainties remain? Fourth, what can be established about the later repository and custody of the material? Fifth, how far can the evidence support a bodily-relic, Buddha-relic, or tooth-relic statement without moving beyond the inspected sources?
These questions are deliberately cumulative. A certificate-level conclusion is not reached by selecting the strongest-sounding source. It is reached by testing whether the archaeological, epigraphic, chronological, material, and custodial claims can be joined without erasing the limits of any one line. Where they cannot be joined, the disagreement or gap remains part of the final result.
Figure 4. Evidence relationship used in the inquiry.
1.6 Historical significance beyond authentication
The Devni Mori case also shows why relic research should not be reduced to an authenticity verdict. The excavated deposit can illuminate the organization of Buddhist worship, the social authority of monastic communities, the use of inscriptional language, and the material care given to sacred remains. These questions remain historically valid even when the personal biological identity of the material cannot be established. A monograph that asked only “is it authentic?” would lose much of the information that the archaeology can actually provide.
This wider perspective makes the site especially valuable for comparative Buddhist studies. The western Indian setting, the regional artistic production, the inscriptional vocabulary, and the monumental architecture show how relic devotion was embedded in a specific local institution while participating in larger Buddhist networks. The value of the case therefore lies partly in its ability to connect material practice with textual and devotional history without forcing them into one evidential category.
Chapter 2. Sources, Historiography, and Documentary Method
2.1 The excavation monograph as the primary archaeological record
The 1966 excavation report is the central source because it was produced by the archaeological programme responsible for the principal controlled work at Devnimori. Its value comes from proximity to the excavation, not from an assumption that every interpretation in it is final. It preserves architectural descriptions, observations about the stupa core, casket records, coin evidence, inscription discussions, and a conservation appendix. In a submerged site, these records also carry a preservation function that later summaries cannot replace.
The present source copy was inspected as searchable full text derived from a digitized archival copy. That access is sufficient for locating and comparing many passages, but it is not identical to page-image autopsy. OCR can confuse letters, break lineation, or misread technical vocabulary. For claims that depend on the visible form of an inscription, a plate, a drawing, or an unusual printed character, the searchable text is therefore treated as a route to the source rather than a substitute for the visual witness.
This limitation is especially relevant to the negative tooth search. Search results help establish that no positive tooth identification was located in the inspected text, and the located occurrences can be checked in context. Yet an OCR environment cannot prove that every printed form has been captured correctly. The conclusion is therefore phrased as “not located in the inspected searchable text,” not “no source anywhere mentions a tooth.”
2.2 Modern scholarship changes the questions rather than the excavation
Ishikawa’s 2020 study revisits Devnimori from the perspective of artistic and cultural connection. Earlier debates often tried to classify the terracotta sculpture as mainly Gandhāran or mainly Mathurā-derived. Ishikawa argues for a more complex process in which forms could be adapted, provincialized, and recombined in western India. This approach matters to the relic study because it places the stupa and monastery within networks of artistic and religious exchange without using style as a simple date stamp.
Tournier’s work addresses a different problem: language, textual identity, and possible sectarian context. The study treats the so-called Continental Pāli material from Devnimori as evidence that deserves philological analysis rather than inherited labeling. Its proposal of a possible Saṁmitīya canonical relationship is presented as a hypothesis built from linguistic and textual comparison, not as a recovered monastery label. The distinction is important because sectarian identity should not be projected onto the whole site from an uncertain textual affiliation.
A modern landscape study by Roy and Sen Pramanik widens the spatial frame. Devnimori belonged to a region with multiple archaeological localities around Shamlaji and the Meshwo system. This helps prevent the excavated Buddhist complex from being treated as an isolated island. At the same time, a regional landscape does not authorize the transfer of dates, functions, or finds from one site to another. Comparative geography is useful only when site identity remains firm.
2.3 Source families and independence
Not every additional publication counts as independent evidence. The February 2026 Press Information Bureau release and the High Commission of India in Colombo describe the same exposition through closely related government channels. They corroborate the public administrative event, but their agreement is not treated as two independent scientific evaluations of the relics. The same discipline applies to later sources that simply repeat the 1966 excavation narrative.
The source set is therefore organized by evidential function. The excavation monograph carries the primary archaeology. Specialist modern studies carry new linguistic, art-historical, or chronological analysis. Government sources carry current official statements. A museum catalogue record carries object-specific institutional data. This functional allocation reduces the risk that one source family will appear to provide independent support merely because its wording has travelled through many publications.
Table 4. Main source classes and permitted functions
2.4 Claim-first reading
The documentary method used here begins with a proposition rather than a citation. “Two caskets were found in the Mahāstūpa” is one claim. “The casket inscription refers to Dashabala” is another. “The material is a tooth” would be a third, much more specific claim. Because each requires different evidence, they are not merged into a single sentence and then supported by one broad citation.
This method also makes contradictions productive. If a public source speaks of Buddha relics while the excavation report says that actual identity cannot be ascertained, the two statements are not forced into agreement. One records a present institutional and devotional attribution; the other records the archaeological limit. Both can be true statements about different levels of the case.
Confidence therefore follows the proposition. The existence of the excavation and the two-casket deposit is high-confidence. The inscriptional association with Dashabala is also strong as a textual attribution. The exact absolute equation of Kathika year 127 is less secure. A complete continuous title chain is not established in the present corpus. Dental identity and biological identity as the historical Buddha remain unverified. These are not grades of respect; they are grades of evidential support.
2.5 Negative evidence and the danger of silence
Negative evidence must be stated with the same precision as positive evidence. A search that finds no tooth reference does not prove that no tooth tradition existed in oral, monastic, archival, or uninspected material. It establishes that the inspected search routes did not locate one. The difference protects the research from converting incomplete access into an absolute historical claim.
Silence can nevertheless matter. When a detailed excavation report describes caskets, ashes, textiles, vessels, inscriptional terms, and conservation procedures without identifying a tooth, the absence limits any attempt to cite that report as a dental source. The correct conclusion is not that a tooth is impossible, but that the report cannot carry that claim.
2.6 Visual evidence and rights
Devni Mori is visually rich, and photographs of its terracotta heads, stupa remains, and caskets circulate widely. This publication does not assume that availability online equals permission to reproduce. The current LACMA record, for example, provides a useful catalogue description of a Devni Mori Buddha head but does not supply blanket reproduction permission for the image in this project. The object record may be cited; the protected photograph is not reproduced.
The diagrams in this monograph therefore show analytical relations created from the admitted evidence. A schematic of nested containers explains the structure of the casket record. A chronology diagram shows why the absolute date remains an argument rather than a fixed point. A custody timeline makes the documentary gap visible. None of these graphics pretends to be an excavation plate or a picture of the sacred material.
2.7 Limits of the present corpus
Three limits should remain in view when later chapters become more detailed. First, the direct 1968 specialist edition of the casket inscription by P. R. Srinivasan has been identified bibliographically but was not independently inspected in the present source corpus; it is therefore a verification target rather than direct evidence. Second, current official custody information is strong for February 2026 but does not by itself document every transfer or legal-title event since excavation. Third, no inspected source in the current corpus supplies a competent anatomical identification of the relic material as dental tissue.
These limits do not prevent a substantial monograph. They define its intellectual shape. The book can reconstruct the archaeological deposit, examine its inscriptions and chronology, follow the public and institutional life of the relics, and state a careful conclusion. It cannot turn an evidential gap into a completed chain simply because a publication format expects a decisive answer.
Chapter 3. Site, Landscape, and Historical Setting
3.1 Devnimori in the Shamlaji region
Devnimori belongs to the archaeological landscape around Shamlaji and the Meshwo River system in northern Gujarat. Current administrative sources place the locality in Aravalli District, while the excavation report used the earlier Sabarkantha District designation. The site is best understood through these layered geographical records: modern jurisdiction provides present orientation, while the excavation record preserves the historical administrative context of research.
The regional setting also matters for movement. Northern Gujarat linked western Indian inland routes with Rajasthan and regions farther north and east. Devnimori’s Buddhist material culture has therefore been studied within broader patterns of exchange rather than as a closed local tradition. This does not mean that every stylistic resemblance proves direct migration or a single artistic source. The evidence is better read as participation in connected networks whose forms were locally reworked.
The site’s later submergence changes how landscape arguments must be made. Present researchers cannot simply walk from monument to monument and verify every published spatial relationship. Modern landscape work relies on surviving records, nearby localities, historical mapping, and field observation outside the submerged core. This increases the value of transparent uncertainty: a reconstruction should say which relationship is directly recorded and which has been inferred from old plans or later regional study.
3.2 A Buddhist complex rather than a single monument
The Mahāstūpa dominates relic discussions because it contained the principal deposits, but Devnimori was more than one stupa. The excavated complex included a large monastic structure, a caitya or related ritual building, another vihara, and smaller stupas or commemorative forms. The combination indicates sustained institutional activity in which residence, worship, teaching, memorial practice, and artistic patronage were spatially related.
This wider setting helps interpret the relic deposit. A bodily-relic casket installed in a major stupa had a different social life from an isolated object in a collection. It belonged to architecture designed for repeated approach, visibility, circumambulation, repair, and memory. The stupa’s material history therefore forms part of the relic’s history even when the relic container itself was sealed from view.
The excavation report also records smaller stupas that did not all contain relic deposits. Their presence cautions against a simple equation of “stupa” with “relic container.” Buddhist stupa forms can serve several commemorative and ritual functions. Each structure requires its own evidence before a relic function is assigned.
3.3 Architecture as historical evidence
Architectural form at Devnimori has often been discussed alongside artistic style and chronology. The major stupa, monastic court, and fired-brick construction belong to a material environment that can be compared with other Buddhist regions, but comparison is not identity. A similar plan may arise through shared religious practice, adaptation, mobility of craftspeople, or long-distance visual knowledge. It cannot, by itself, establish the date of the relic deposit.
Ishikawa’s analysis is valuable here because it questions older either-or models of Gandhāra versus Mathurā. The Devnimori terracottas and architectural culture show northern connections, yet they also belong to local processes in Gujarat. The site can therefore be historically connected without being described as a provincial copy of one external centre.
For relic research, this means that artistic resemblance should remain contextual evidence. It can illuminate the cultural world in which the stupa was maintained and images were produced. It should not be made to authenticate the bodily material, identify the person represented by it, or override the more direct evidence of deposit, inscription, and documented contents.
3.4 The chronology of a living monument
A stupa is rarely a single event frozen in masonry. The excavation report describes construction and later repair, and the material record indicates attention to structural survival. This matters because an enshrinement may relate to one phase while visible architectural forms include later interventions. A date proposed for a casket should not automatically become the date of every wall, sculpture, or repair associated with the complex.
The 1966 authors attempted to integrate inscription, coins, and stratigraphic observation. Their argument shows both the value and the danger of chronological synthesis. The casket date formula could not be interpreted in isolation, so it was compared with Western Kshatrapa silver coins beneath the deposit and with ruler names. The resulting placement near 375 CE was stated as provisional. The evidence thus supports a historical range and sequence more securely than it supports one exact calendar year.
Later scholarship commonly discusses Devnimori around the fourth-to-fifth-century transition. That broad placement is compatible with the archaeological and art-historical discussion, but it does not erase the original uncertainty about the Kathika era. The best chronology therefore keeps two scales visible: a useful historical period for the complex and a narrower but debated equation for the inscribed casket.
Figure 5. Chronological constraints and interpretive caution.
3.5 Rescue archaeology and loss
Devnimori’s excavation was shaped by development. The Meshwo dam project created a need to recover information and material before inundation. Rescue archaeology can preserve knowledge under urgent conditions, but it also leaves a particular archive: decisions are made under time pressure, recording standards belong to their historical period, and the original landscape may later become inaccessible. These conditions must be remembered when a modern researcher asks for information that the 1960s programme never recorded in current terms.
The site’s submergence gives the surviving collections and records a second life. Terracotta sculpture may be encountered through museum catalogues, casket history through university and government statements, and architecture through old drawings and publications. Research consequently becomes distributed across repositories and media. The archaeological site is no longer only a place on the ground; it is also an archival and museum network that must be reconstructed carefully.
That condition makes provenance discipline particularly important. An object now in a museum collection may carry “Devni Mori” as its archaeological origin, but its present institution is not its ancient findspot. Conversely, a map point at Devnimori says nothing about where an excavated object is stored today. The two locations are linked by history, not by identity.
3.6 Devni Mori as a western Indian Buddhist centre
The combined architecture, inscriptions, caskets, and sculpture show an active Buddhist establishment with resources sufficient for substantial construction and artistic production. The evidence supports a community that invested in both monastic life and monumental commemoration. It also suggests participation in wider religious networks, visible in the forms of the stupa, textual culture, and image-making.
The historical significance of the site is therefore larger than the question of whether the relic material can be biologically identified. Even if that question remains unresolved, the relic deposit demonstrates how sacred bodily remains were understood, materially protected, inscribed, and incorporated into a western Indian Buddhist monument. It offers direct evidence for the social work of relics: they anchored architecture, memory, patronage, and worship.
This broader significance also protects the study from an all-or-nothing conclusion. Archaeology does not become useless when it cannot name the biological individual represented by an ancient deposit. On the contrary, the uncertainty encourages more precise questions about the people who created the shrine, the texts they used, the chronology they inhabited, and the later institutions that continued to care for the material.
Part II. Archaeological Context and Material Evidence
Chapter 4. Excavation, Architecture, Stratigraphy, and Context
4.1 Four seasons of excavation
The principal excavation programme at Devnimori extended across four field seasons between 1960 and 1963. The published monograph presents the work as an organized investigation of a threatened archaeological area rather than a single discovery event. This distinction matters when later summaries compress “discovery” and “excavation” into one date. Exploration before 1960 may form part of the site’s modern research history, but the controlled excavation record used for archaeological claims belongs to the four-season programme.
The field team worked within the methods and documentation conventions of its period. Modern terminology such as single-context recording, digital survey, or formal chain-of-custody protocols should not be retroactively assigned to the excavation unless the contemporary record demonstrates them. The proper question is what the team actually recorded well enough for later researchers to reconstruct relationships among architecture, deposits, containers, and finds.
That reconstruction is strongest where several records agree. The casket account is linked to the Mahāstūpa, the stratigraphic discussion places the deposit within the stupa core, the coin discussion considers material below the casket, and the conservation appendix follows the sealed copper box after recovery. These records form an evidence chain across field observation and post-excavation treatment even though they were written in different parts of the monograph.
4.2 Monument phases and the danger of a single-date stupa
The Mahāstūpa should be read as a structure with a history. The excavation report describes construction, repair, and measures related to water and structural protection. A relic enshrinement can belong to one phase while the monument visible at abandonment may contain later additions. Treating the entire stupa as the material expression of one date would flatten that history and could incorrectly assign the casket chronology to every brick or decorative element.
Stratigraphic thinking therefore begins with sequence rather than appearance. A casket located in a central or protected position may be highly significant, but its chronological meaning depends on the relationship between the deposit and the surrounding construction. The report’s assertion that the relevant core had not been disturbed was important to the excavators’ reasoning because it strengthened the link between the coins below and the casket above. The present study records that reasoning as the excavators’ observation and interpretation, not as a new field verification.
Later readers should also resist the opposite error: assuming that any repair weakens the relic context. Buddhist monuments were maintained. Repairs may indicate continued value rather than disturbance of a sealed central deposit. The question is whether a particular intervention crossed, reopened, or displaced the deposit under study. The available published discussion does not justify treating the casket assemblage as a casual intrusive group.
4.3 Architecture, movement, and ritual
A stupa organizes movement as well as matter. Its raised form, circumambulatory possibilities, and relation to monastic spaces created a ritual focus even when the relic itself remained hidden. Devnimori’s architecture therefore helps explain why a small amount of bodily material could carry great social importance: the physical monument multiplied the relic’s presence through visibility, repeated approach, image-making, and communal memory.
The associated monastery and caitya building broaden that ritual landscape. Residence, teaching, worship, and commemoration were not separate archaeological worlds. Monks who lived near a relic stupa could participate in its maintenance, while donors and visitors encountered the monument as part of a larger institution. This is a more historically useful picture than treating the casket as an isolated treasure.
The smaller stupas reinforce this point by showing that monumental form had several functions. The excavation report notes four votive stupas without relics. Their absence of documented relic deposits is analytically important because it prevents the category “stupa” from becoming an automatic proxy for bodily remains.
4.4 Fired brick, terracotta, and regional adaptation
Devnimori’s extensive use of fired brick and terracotta gives the complex a distinctive material character. Terracotta architectural and figural production supported a visual environment that later became central to discussions of regional Buddhist art. Material choice was not merely decorative: brick dimensions, bonding, plaster, drainage, and surface treatment all formed part of the monument’s durability and the practical conditions of worship.
Ishikawa’s later analysis treats the terracotta corpus as evidence of sustained contact and adaptation rather than a simple copy of Gandhāran or Mathurā prototypes. This shifts attention from the question “where did the style come from?” to “how were forms selected and transformed in Gujarat?” Such a question is especially appropriate for a site whose architecture and images belonged to a living regional institution.
Art history nevertheless remains contextual for the relic claim. A Buddha image can illuminate devotion, iconography, and cultural connection; it cannot identify the ashes in a sealed container. The analytical boundary is deliberate. Visual and architectural evidence explains the religious world of the deposit, while the identity of the material must be assessed through its own records.
4.5 Context integrity and later inaccessible ground
Because the site is now described as submerged, independent re-excavation of the same deposits is not a normal verification route. The evidential burden shifts toward archival consistency. A strong reconstruction should be able to trace a claim from the published plan or description to the relevant object record, inscription, conservation event, and later repository statement where those survive.
This situation also gives negative evidence a different weight. The absence of a modern re-examination at the original context does not discredit the old excavation, but it prevents certain questions from being reopened through fieldwork. Researchers must identify what remains testable in collections and archives: original caskets, conservation records, photographs, coins, inscriptions, residues, or samples may offer routes that the submerged ground no longer can.
A future research programme should therefore prioritize repository-level reconciliation. The ideal outcome would link the excavation numbers, casket descriptions, conservation documentation, present object identifiers, high-resolution photographs, and any remaining biological or organic material. Such work would strengthen identity and custody without requiring disturbance of the submerged site.
4.6 Archaeological conclusion
At the archaeological level, Devnimori provides a coherent relic context. The evidence is stronger than a loose findspot or an object with only a market provenance because the deposit is embedded in a documented Buddhist monument and associated with a detailed excavation publication. This supports high confidence in the existence of a deliberate relic deposit and in the basic identity of its principal containers.
Archaeology alone, however, stops before personal biological identity. The excavated setting can show that a community placed and protected material as relics. It can show how caskets were arranged and how associated coins and inscriptions informed dating. It cannot identify the historical Buddha through context alone. The next chapter therefore follows the containers inward, from their archaeological position to their recorded contents and conservation history.
4.7 What can still be tested from the excavation archive
The most productive future archaeological work is likely to begin with archival reconciliation rather than with renewed claims about the relics. The published report should be checked against surviving plans, photographs, object cards, conservation files, and any field registers that preserve original numbering. Such comparison could test the published nesting of containers, confirm the spatial relationship of the coin group to the casket, and identify whether later object labels have remained consistent with the excavation terminology.
A second task is to separate what is visible in the surviving archive from what was inferred by the excavators. For example, a plan can show location, a photograph can show condition, and a field description can record the sequence of recovery; interpretation then joins those observations into a history of enshrinement. Keeping these layers distinct would make Devnimori a stronger teaching case for the archaeology of legacy excavations and submerged sites.
Chapter 5. Relic Deposits, Caskets, Contents, and Conservation
5.1 Two caskets, two records
The excavation report’s statement that two caskets were recovered from the Mahāstūpa is the foundation of the material analysis. Both were associated with earthen pots, but they were not identical objects or equivalent deposits. Casket I is described as a comparatively unfinished schist cylinder with ash. Casket II was a more elaborate three-part stone casket with inscriptional and decorative significance and an inner copper container. A responsible catalogue must retain that difference.
The distinction matters because later narratives often favor the more elaborate casket and allow its attributes to dominate the whole relic story. Yet Casket I is evidence in its own right. Its simpler treatment may reflect a different enshrinement history, role, or moment. The current corpus does not provide enough evidence to assign it a precise social category, so its difference is recorded without inventing a hierarchy of authenticity.
Casket II, by contrast, invites layered analysis. Its stone components, inscription, inner copper box, textiles, gold vessel, and organic or ashy material belong to a nested system. Each level has a separate evidential function. The stone casket carries text and monumental association; the copper box protects inner contents; textiles show packing or wrapping practices; the gold vessel and ash-like contents contribute to the ritual assemblage. None should be renamed as the relic itself without qualification.
Figure 6. Relationship among the principal Devnimori relic containers and contents.
5.2 The inner copper box
The sealed copper box is one of the most informative objects in the documentary chain because the report follows it beyond field recovery. Its closed condition raised conservation and examination questions. The conservation appendix describes radiographic examination and a restricted electrochemical procedure used in opening and treating the box. These actions form part of the object’s modern history and should be recorded as interventions, not hidden behind a simple statement that the contents were “found.”
After opening, the report records a small gold vessel and textile bundles among the contents. The description of sacred ash reflects the excavators’ interpretation of the material within a relic context. The present study preserves that description while separating it from any later claim about anatomy. Ash or organic material may be ritually meaningful without being visually identifiable as a particular body part.
The historical conservation procedure also has implications for future science. Any proposed analysis would need to consider earlier treatment, corrosion products, handling, packing, and possible contamination. A twentieth-century intervention does not make scientific study impossible, but it becomes part of the sample history. Modern testing should never be represented as straightforward if the object has undergone earlier chemical treatment or prolonged storage.
5.3 Textiles, gold, and the material language of care
Textile bundles within a sealed container are evidence of deliberate handling. Wrapping can separate substances, protect small fragments, or express ritual care. In a relic context, textiles also show that enshrinement was a material practice involving selection, containment, and ordered deposition. The surviving report does not justify reconstructing every bundle’s original contents, but it does show that the deposit was more carefully organized than a simple container of loose ash.
The small gold vessel adds another layer of material value. Precious material in a reliquary system can communicate honor and protection without proving the identity of the substance it contains. The distinction between value and authentication is important: a costly container shows what the enshrining community invested in the deposit, not whose biological remains were inside it.
This is one of the reasons Devnimori is especially useful for relic governance. Material elaboration, textual attribution, and monumental setting converge strongly around sacred meaning. Yet none of them individually or together replace a competent anatomical or genetic identification. The evidence is powerful precisely because its limits can be stated without diminishing its historical importance.
5.4 Bodily-relic terminology and material description
Relic studies often move too quickly from terms such as śarīra or “bodily relic” to a precise anatomical claim. The Devnimori sources do not support that move. Bodily-relic language identifies a religious category of corporeal remains. It may include ash, bone, or other treated remains depending on context. To identify a tooth, the evidence would need either clear source wording for a tooth or competent physical examination of dental material.
The primary excavation report provides detailed material descriptions but does not, in the inspected searchable text, supply such a dental identification. This is especially significant because the report does discuss the caskets and their contents at length. A modern publication should not insert “tooth” into that record simply because the wider HIRR programme is interested in tooth relics.
The correct classification is therefore layered: archaeologically documented relic deposit; inscriptionally and traditionally associated with Dashabala/Buddha; bodily material described in terms of ashes and sacred relics; dental identity unverified; biological identity as the historical Buddha unverified. This layered statement is more informative than a binary label of “authentic” or “inauthentic.”
5.5 Conservation as evidence
Conservation records often appear at the edge of archaeological publications, but at Devnimori they help establish object continuity. The treatment of the copper box shows that the object moved from excavation into a documented examination environment. Radiography, opening, corrosion treatment, and later preservation arrangements become identifiable events in the modern biography of the relic container.
A Government of India release in 2026 described the relics as kept in an airtight glass or desiccator arrangement with a cotton base. That statement provides a current official preservation description at a particular date. It should not be read backwards as proof that the same storage system existed continuously since the 1960s, nor should it be treated as a full conservation condition report.
The connection between the 1960s conservation appendix and the 2026 official statement is therefore a documented sequence with a large interval, not an unbroken technical record. A future collection study could add intermediate condition reports, transfer records, storage changes, and object identifiers. Until then, the interval remains visible rather than being filled with assumed continuity.
5.6 Sacred material and non-destructive priorities
Any new examination of the relic material would require more than scientific interest. Sacred bodily material raises questions of consent, institutional authority, religious consultation, conservation risk, sample consumption, and chain of custody. The historical importance of Devnimori does not create automatic permission to open, sample, or alter the material again.
The strongest near-term research route is likely non-destructive and documentary: high-resolution imaging of the caskets and inscriptions, reconciliation of archive photographs, review of conservation files, and inventory confirmation of surviving contents. If scientific examination were later authorized, it should begin with methods that minimize alteration and clearly distinguish material identification from attribution to a named historical individual.
Such restraint is not anti-scientific. It ensures that a scientific result answers a defined question. Identifying a sample as human bone, for example, would be valuable but would not prove that it belonged to the Buddha. Identifying dental tissue would answer the tooth question at the anatomical level, but attribution to the historical Buddha would still require a different evidential argument that the current case cannot supply.
5.7 Material conclusion
The relic-deposit evidence is therefore substantial and specific. Two caskets are documented, one simple and one elaborate; the elaborate casket contains a nested copper box and associated ritual materials; and the excavation and conservation records preserve important steps in recovery and treatment. This supports a strong archaeological claim about deliberate relic enshrinement.
The material record does not support a stronger dental claim. No inspected record identifies a tooth, and no scientific report in the sources examined in this study establishes dental anatomy, radiocarbon attribution, DNA identification, or another biological route to the historical Buddha. The responsible conclusion is not uncertainty about whether Devnimori had relics; it is precision about what kind of relic evidence survives.
Part III. Text, Inscription, Coins, and Chronology
Chapter 6. Epigraphy, Numismatics, Textual Traditions, and Chronology
6.1 The casket inscription as a separate evidence object
An inscription should not be treated as an invisible label attached to a relic. It is a text on a physical carrier with its own reading history, language, grammar, and date problems. At Devnimori, the casket inscription is especially important because it joins the relic deposit to named or titled figures, a year formula, and Buddhist relic terminology. Its historical value depends on preserving those textual layers rather than reducing them to one English sentence.
The 1966 excavators associated the date with a Rudrasena and a year 127 of a Kathika reckoning. This establishes a high-confidence claim about the form of the chronological problem as presented in the primary report. It does not establish one unchallenged Gregorian equivalent. The name Rudrasena can refer to more than one ruler, and the era itself required interpretation.
A specialist 1968 article by P. R. Srinivasan is an important bibliographic target for the casket inscription, but the full article has not been independently inspected in the present inspected corpus. The study therefore does not borrow detailed readings from later quotations and present them as if the primary specialist edition had been directly checked. That verification remains a clear research task.
6.2 Coins and the logic of terminus post quem
The eight silver coins found below the casket were central to the excavators’ dating argument. Their reasoning was not that a coin supplies the exact date of the deposit. Rather, the latest securely associated coin can provide a lower chronological constraint: the deposit above cannot normally predate the production and deposition of the coin below if the stratigraphic relationship is secure.
The excavation report identified the latest relevant coin with Vishvasena and placed the end of his rule after about 305 CE. This supported the argument that the casket deposit belonged later than the early fourth century. The authors then compared the inscriptional ruler and era and provisionally placed Kathika year 127 around 375 CE. Importantly, they stated that the equation should remain open pending further proof.
This is a good example of responsible provisional chronology. The coins constrain the problem; they do not force one ruler identification. The inscription contributes a date formula; it does not explain its own era. Historical synthesis is needed, but the synthesis should preserve the uncertainty from which it was built.
6.3 Later chronology without false precision
Modern studies commonly discuss Devnimori near the later fourth or early fifth century. That broad range is useful for comparing the site’s artistic and textual culture with other Buddhist regions. Yet a broad historical placement and an exact casket date are different propositions. Agreement on the former does not necessarily settle the latter.
Tournier’s title itself reflects this caution by framing the relevant textual material as fourth/fifth-century and by putting the proposed Saṁmitīya relationship in interrogative form. Such language signals a reasoned hypothesis rather than a closed identification. The present study follows the same discipline: a useful historical range is accepted, while the precise equation of Kathika 127 remains a specialized chronological problem.
A certificate or public summary should therefore avoid presenting a single year as if the monument carried a modern calendar date. Where a concise date is needed, “around the later fourth to early fifth century CE” is safer as a broad contextual expression, while the inscriptional year formula and the excavators’ provisional equation should be explained in the detailed text.
6.4 Dashabala, bodily relics, and semantic caution
The relic inscription is significant because the excavators understood it as associating the remains with Dashabala. In Buddhist usage Dashabala, “the one possessing the ten powers,” can function as an epithet of the Buddha. Within a relic casket context, this naturally supports a Buddhist attribution. It remains a linguistic and religious attribution, however, not an anatomical observation.
The primary report’s own caution is therefore not an external sceptical correction; it is part of the source. The authors could recognize what the inscription claimed and what the builders believed while declining to state that the actual bodily identity had been proven. This is precisely the separation required in modern relic research.
The term śarīra and related forms likewise require contextual reading. In Buddhist relic discourse they can refer to corporeal remains or sacred bodily relics, but the term does not specify a tooth unless the grammar or associated description does so. Translating a broad relic term as “tooth” would therefore add information absent from the source.
6.5 The “Continental Pāli” problem and a possible Saṁmitīya context
The Devnimori textual material has long attracted attention because its language does not fit comfortably into simple labels. Tournier re-examines the so-called “Continental Pāli” designation and asks whether the text may preserve a sūtra connected with a Saṁmitīya canonical tradition. The value of the proposal lies in detailed philological comparison rather than the attractiveness of a sectarian name.
A possible Saṁmitīya connection would be historically important for western Indian Buddhism, but the present evidence does not justify describing the monastery itself as definitively Saṁmitīya. Texts can circulate beyond institutional boundaries, and a linguistic relationship does not automatically identify the community that deposited or used a particular witness. The correct wording keeps hypothesis and institutional identity separate.
This distinction has a parallel in the relic question. A text may strongly indicate how a community conceptualized relics while remaining unable to answer who the biological material belonged to. Philology can clarify attribution, ritual language, and doctrinal environment. It does not substitute for material examination.
6.6 Art-historical chronology and its limits
Terracotta sculpture provides another historical clock, but it is a flexible one. Style can be compared across regions and periods, and the Devnimori heads have played a major role in debates over Gandhāran and Mathurā influence. Yet stylistic dating is rarely an exact-year instrument. It is most reliable when joined to stratigraphic, epigraphic, and numismatic evidence rather than used to overrule them.
Ishikawa’s argument against simple one-source derivation is useful chronologically as well as art-historically. If forms were repeatedly adapted and provincialized, a motif cannot be dated by assuming that it moved once from one centre to another. Cultural forms may persist, be revived, or be transformed. The site’s chronology should therefore remain anchored in the combined evidence rather than a linear style genealogy.
6.7 Chronological synthesis
The present synthesis recognizes three levels. First, the deposit is securely later than the earliest possible date implied by the associated coin sequence as interpreted by the excavators. Second, the inscription supplies Kathika year 127 and a Rudrasena name or association, creating a narrower historical problem. Third, modern linguistic and art-historical studies support a general late-fourth/early-fifth-century environment without turning the disputed era equation into a fixed date.
This layered chronology is sufficient for most historical interpretation in the monograph. It allows the site to be located within a period of active Buddhist institutional and artistic exchange while keeping the date question open enough for future epigraphic and numismatic review. Precision is useful only when the evidence can carry it.
6.8 Why the inscription should be re-examined visually
The next major improvement in the epigraphic record would come from direct comparison of the physical carrier or high-quality images with the published readings. An inscription is not only a sequence of words; letter forms, damage, spacing, lineation, and uncertain restorations all affect interpretation. Because the present research relied on a searchable excavation text and modern specialist discussion rather than a fresh autopsy of the casket, no new diplomatic transcription is offered here.
This restraint is important for the chronology as well. A disputed ruler name or era cannot be solved by reproducing a normalized reading without showing where the uncertainty enters. A future specialist edition should identify visible signs, restored signs, alternative segmentations, linguistic choices, and the historical consequences of each reading. That work could narrow the date problem without pretending that the present publication has already completed it.
Part IV. Custody, Museum Records, and Attribution
Chapter 7. Museum Records, Provenance, Custody, and Heritage Governance
7.1 From excavation context to repository history
Archaeological provenance and museum custody begin at different points. The caskets’ archaeological provenance concerns their recovery from the Devnimori Mahāstūpa and their relationship to the deposit. Custody concerns who physically cared for the material after excavation, where it was stored or displayed, under what authority, and how it moved. A publication that joins these histories must not treat one as proof of the other.
The 1966 report provides the earliest strong published link in the modern object biography: excavation, description, and conservation within the university archaeological programme. A Government of India statement in February 2026 supplies another clear point by stating that the Devnimori relics were normally enshrined at The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara. Between these points lies a long interval that the sources examined in this study does not document event by event.
It would therefore be misleading to describe the chain as “unbroken” without additional records. The absence of a complete published chain does not mean that custody was in fact broken. It means that the present research cannot prove every link. Provenance writing should distinguish an undocumented interval from evidence of loss, theft, or transfer.
Figure 7. Documented custody points and the unresolved interval.
7.2 The 2026 repository statement
The February 2026 Press Information Bureau release is current official evidence for a specific proposition: at that date, the relics were described as normally enshrined at The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. Present-tense custody statements require current evidence, so this source is more appropriate for 2026 location than the 1966 excavation book.
The same release describes preservation arrangements and the institutional cooperation that made the Sri Lankan exposition possible. Such information is valuable for contemporary custodial history, but it should not be expanded into claims about title. A university’s physical custody, scholarly care, or ceremonial role does not automatically prove ownership under every relevant legal framework.
Current location must also be date-bounded. The relics temporarily travelled to Colombo in February 2026, so a statement that they “are in Vadodara” would have been false during the exposition. The correct record distinguishes normal repository, temporary movement, and return status. This is why custody is best represented as a sequence of dated events rather than a timeless label.
7.3 Colombo exposition as a custody event
The Colombo exposition created a documented international movement of sacred material. Government and diplomatic releases identify the event, the public devotional purpose, and the institutional participation. The sources describe it as the first public veneration of the Devnimori relics outside India. Because the statements arise from the same governmental lineage, they are treated as one administrative evidence family rather than independent historical corroboration.
For provenance work, the event demonstrates why temporary movement should not be confused with change of ownership. A sacred object can leave its normal repository for exhibition or veneration while title, long-term custody, or accession status remains unchanged. Any future certificate or registry record should preserve the event as a loan-like or temporary movement only if the competent documentary basis for that legal form is actually available.
The public ceremony also illustrates the difference between devotional status and research status. The material may be venerated as relics of the Buddha under official auspices while the archaeological monograph continues to state that biological identity is unverified. Respect for the ceremony does not require scholarly language to become anatomically more certain.
7.4 Museum objects from Devni Mori
Devni Mori material is dispersed beyond the sacred casket group. LACMA, for example, records a terracotta Head of Buddha Shakyamuni from Devni Mori, accession M.79.8, dated by the museum to about 400–415 CE. The record demonstrates how an excavated site can acquire a museum afterlife in different institutions and countries.
That object must not be used as evidence for the relic casket’s custody. Shared site origin does not merge museum biographies. The terracotta head has its own accession and collection history, while the relic containers have a different institutional trajectory. A site-level bibliography may discuss both, but object-level provenance must remain separate.
The LACMA example also highlights rights discipline. A museum catalogue record can be inspected and cited without reproducing the accompanying photograph. This publication therefore uses the record for art-historical and museum context while leaving the image outside the visual programme because reproduction rights were not established for this build.
7.5 Ownership, title, and institutional authority
No evidence in the sources examined in this study authorizes a declaration of legal ownership. The excavation programme, university repository, government exposition, and religious veneration each involve authority, but they involve different kinds of authority. Research can document possession and custody at stated dates without converting those facts into a title deed.
This distinction is especially important for sacred material. A certificate should not function as a sale guarantee, export permit, repatriation decision, or governmental recognition. If legal title becomes a research question, it requires the relevant acquisition, transfer, statutory, and institutional records together with competent legal review. None of those requirements can be replaced by an archaeological conclusion that the casket came from Devnimori.
The current monograph therefore uses neutral custody language. It identifies excavation recovery, later official university enshrinement, and the 2026 temporary exposition. It also records the documentary gap. This is sufficient for an honest object biography at the present stage and leaves a clear route for future archival expansion.
7.6 Sacred custody and care
Sacred relics are not ordinary collection objects even when they enter museums or universities. Their care can involve conservation, religious access, ceremonial handling, public veneration, security, and restrictions on examination. These interests may sometimes point in different directions. A responsible custodial model should make those interests visible rather than assuming that scientific access always takes priority.
The 2026 exposition shows that living devotional use continues to shape the material’s public life. That history belongs in a research monograph because it affects movement, preservation, access, and meaning. It does not need to be either endorsed as authentication or dismissed as irrelevant to archaeology. The event is a modern part of the relics’ biography.
Future repository research would benefit from a consolidated object and custody file containing the original field numbers, casket descriptions, conservation records, present inventory identifiers, movement authorizations, exhibition records, condition reports, and approved public photographs. Such a file would strengthen both scholarship and stewardship without requiring stronger claims about authenticity.
7.7 Custodial conclusion
The present custody evidence is therefore sufficient to connect excavation recovery with a named university repository statement in 2026 and a documented temporary international exposition. It is insufficient to claim a complete continuous custody and legal-title chain across every intervening year. The distinction is retained in the project conclusion and any certificate-level wording.
This limited result is still useful. It identifies exactly where further research can improve the record: university archives, object registers, conservation files, exhibition documentation, and any formal transfer or accession instruments. A provenance gap is not repaired by confident prose. It is repaired by finding and inspecting the records that belong in the missing interval.
7.8 Custody research and public verification
A public verification record for Devnimori should distinguish the research publication from the object register. The publication can state what the sources establish, while a repository record can identify the objects, their current inventory numbers, movement status, and conservation history. Linking the two would let a reader verify that the research is discussing the same material without exposing restricted storage details.
Such a record would also improve correction control. If a casket component were renumbered, conserved, moved for exhibition, or reidentified, the public research conclusion would not need to be rewritten silently. The new event could be added to the object biography, and any affected claim could be revised with a dated reason. This is particularly important for sacred material whose public treatment may continue long after the archaeological excavation has ended.
Chapter 8. The Tooth-Relic Question and the Limits of Attribution
8.1 Why a tooth claim must be built independently
A tooth-relic claim is not a stronger form of a general relic claim; it is a different proposition. A source can establish that material was enshrined as bodily relics without identifying the body part. It can also establish that a community attributed those relics to the Buddha without establishing biological identity. The tooth question therefore requires its own evidence: explicit dental terminology, an object description that can be independently assessed, or competent anatomical examination.
This rule is particularly important at Devnimori because the archaeological case is already strong. The presence of two caskets, ashes, an inscribed container, textiles, a gold vessel, and a major stupa context can create a sense that the remaining questions are merely details. They are not. The difference between “bodily relic” and “tooth relic” changes the claim being made and the kind of evidence required to support it.
The research does not downgrade Devnimori by declining to use the word “tooth.” It protects the site from a category error. A strong bodily-relic case should be described strongly on its own terms, rather than being made to satisfy a different research programme through vocabulary not found in the evidence.
8.2 Dedicated lexical search in the primary report
The searchable text of the 1966 excavation report was examined specifically for English dental vocabulary. The located uses of “tooth” referred to saw-tooth architectural decoration; “teeth” appeared in descriptions of represented or grotesque faces; and an OCR form resembling “dental” was associated with decorative architectural language. None of these hits identified the relic material as a tooth.
The negative result is deliberately bounded by the access method. OCR can fail, and the search did not test every possible Indic-language synonym in every unpublished record. The conclusion is therefore documentary and source-specific: no tooth-relic or dental identification was located in the inspected searchable text of the excavation monograph. A later discovery in an archive could change that statement without invalidating the present method.
The value of recording search terms and false hits is that another researcher can understand why the conclusion was reached. “No tooth evidence” is too broad. “No dental identification was found in a full-text search of this named report, and the relevant hits referred to decoration” is reproducible and appropriately limited.
8.3 Material appearance is not anatomy
The sources examined in this study do not include a competent anatomical report identifying a Devnimori object as dental tissue. Nor do they include a description of a tooth-like object that can be independently tested from high-resolution visual evidence. This means that shape-based reasoning is unavailable as well as insufficient.
Even if a future photograph appeared to show a tooth-like form, visual resemblance would remain a preliminary classification. Mineral accretions, bone fragments, carved objects, or other materials can resemble teeth in photographs. A positive dental identification should come from competent anatomical examination supported, where appropriate, by non-destructive imaging or other authorized scientific methods.
An anatomical identification would still not settle historical-person attribution. Showing that a fragment is a human tooth would answer one question. Showing that it belonged to the historical Buddha would require an evidential bridge for which no direct biological comparator is available in the current case. These stages must therefore remain separate in both research and public communication.
8.4 Dashabala attribution and biological identity
The inscriptional connection to Dashabala is the strongest identity-related evidence in the case, but its strength lies in a different domain. It demonstrates how the enshrining community represented the relics and how the excavation authors understood that representation. It gives the deposit a clear Buddhist interpretive frame. It does not directly observe the biological origin of the ash or other material.
The excavation report’s note on this point is decisive because it prevents later readers from claiming that scepticism was introduced only by modern governance standards. The excavators themselves distinguished the inscriptional attribution from what could actually be ascertained about the remains. Their caution should remain attached to every later synthesis of the relic identity.
The project therefore assigns high confidence to the ancient attribution and low or unverified confidence to biological identity. These labels do not conflict. They describe different propositions. The site can preserve strong evidence of a historical community’s belief about the relics even if modern science cannot establish whose remains were present.
8.5 Official and devotional language in 2026
Government sources in 2026 used direct devotional language, presenting the material as holy relics of Lord Buddha and organizing public veneration in Sri Lanka. Such language is an important historical fact about the modern life of the relics. It also reflects the ceremonial purpose of the exposition. The research preserves that institutional wording as attribution while maintaining the narrower archaeological conclusion.
This separation avoids two unhelpful extremes. The first would treat official devotion as scientific proof. The second would dismiss devotion because it is not scientific proof. A relic can be historically and religiously significant because communities venerate it, and that social fact can be documented rigorously. Archaeological and biological questions can then be assessed alongside it without hostility or substitution.
8.6 Comparative implications for relic research
Devnimori offers a model for evaluating other reported tooth relics. The strongest cases should be decomposed into context, container, inscription, material, anatomy, chronology, provenance, custody, and present attribution. A case may be strong in some domains and weak in others. A certificate or registry should represent that pattern rather than compressing it into one confidence word.
For example, secure excavation can establish that an object came from a sealed relic chamber, while an inscription can show that contemporaries called the contents relics of the Buddha. Neither demonstrates that a fragment is a tooth. Conversely, an anatomically identified ancient tooth without secure provenance may answer the dental question while leaving the Buddhist attribution weak. These evidential combinations require different public wording.
Devnimori’s contribution is therefore methodological as well as historical. It demonstrates why honest narrowing can increase rather than reduce the value of a relic study. The case remains significant because the deposit, inscription, architecture, and living custodial history are substantial, while the unanswered dental question is stated plainly enough to guide future research.
8.7 Conditions for a future positive tooth assessment
A future positive dental assessment would require evidence that is materially different from the present corpus. The first route would be documentary: an original excavation note, object catalogue, conservation record, or later specialist examination that explicitly identifies a tooth and can be tied securely to the Devnimori relic deposit. Such a record would need object-level identity and a reliable locator; a general statement that “teeth were among the relics” without a traceable object would remain weak.
The second route would be physical examination under competent authority. A qualified dental or osteological specialist could determine whether a surviving fragment is dental material, ideally using non-destructive observation and imaging before any sampling is considered. The examination would have to record the exact object, condition, prior treatments, images, methods, findings, uncertainty, and chain of handling. Even a positive result would establish anatomy only. It would not by itself identify the historical individual.
The third route concerns historical attribution. If dental material were identified, the project would still need to evaluate whether the object is demonstrably the same material recovered from the inscribed deposit and whether the ancient attribution can be connected to it without a provenance break. Devnimori therefore shows that “tooth of the Buddha” is not one test but a sequence of linked claims, each of which can succeed or fail independently.
Part V. Synthesis and Research Governance
Chapter 9. Evidence Synthesis, Contradictions, Confidence, and Research Gaps
9.1 Convergence without collapse
Several independent forms of evidence converge at Devnimori. Archaeology establishes a Buddhist monumental context and a defined relic deposit. The casket inscription supplies a religious attribution and chronological formula. Coins constrain the deposit’s date. Conservation records describe the inner container and its contents. Modern scholarship reopens questions of language, art, and chronology. Current official records establish a modern institutional and devotional life. The case is strong because these lines can be related, not because they can be collapsed into one proof.
The main analytical risk is therefore over-integration. If the modern government description is read backwards as proof of the ancient biological identity, or if the ancient inscription is read forwards as proof of modern legal title, the evidence crosses boundaries it cannot support. Each line remains attached to its own date, source, and proposition.
The same principle applies to agreement among sources. Modern writers may repeat the excavation account, but repeated citation is not new observation. The primary archaeological record should remain visible as the origin of claims about the caskets, while later scholarship receives credit when it contributes a new analysis rather than merely restating the find.
9.2 The central contradiction is only apparent
At first glance, the case seems to contain a contradiction. Ancient and modern sources associate the relics with the Buddha, while the excavation report says the actual identity could not be ascertained. The contradiction dissolves when the claim levels are separated. The first statements concern attribution and belief; the second concerns evidential verification of biological identity.
Both can therefore be retained without compromise. It is historically meaningful that the stupa builders treated the material as relics of Dashabala. It is equally meaningful that the excavators did not claim to know whose bodily material it was. A mature relic history requires both sentences, because removing either one would distort the source record.
9.3 Chronological uncertainty as a bounded problem
The chronology contains a different kind of tension. The inscription gives a year and ruler association, while the absolute conversion remains debated. The excavators combined the date formula with numismatic constraints and offered a provisional equation. Later scholarship continues to work within a fourth/fifth-century setting. The uncertainty is therefore bounded: the case is not undated, but it is also not reducible to one uncontested year.
This distinction matters for cross-site comparison. A narrow but false date can make artistic or textual parallels look more precise than they are. A defensible range allows comparison while leaving room for new epigraphic or numismatic work to refine the sequence.
9.4 Custody gap versus custody failure
The modern object biography contains a long documentary interval between the excavation programme and the current 2026 repository statement. That gap should not be described as a custody failure unless evidence of loss, unauthorized transfer, or uncertainty about object identity emerges. At present it is a research gap: the chain is incomplete in the inspected corpus.
The appropriate response is targeted archival work. University accession and inventory registers, conservation files, exhibition records, correspondence, and movement documentation could transform the gap into a dated sequence. This is preferable to repeating an unverified phrase such as “continuously preserved” until it sounds established.
9.5 Confidence by claim family
Table 5. Claim-family confidence summary
9.6 Research gaps that can be reduced
Some uncertainties are structurally difficult, but several can be reduced through realistic research. The most immediate epigraphic target is direct inspection of the specialist 1968 casket-inscription publication and, ideally, comparison with high-resolution images of the carrier. This would clarify which readings belong to the original excavation publication, which to later editorial work, and how modern interpretations depend on them.
The most immediate custodial target is a repository concordance at The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. A verified crosswalk between excavation numbers, casket components, conservation records, present inventory identifiers, storage status, and 2026 exposition records would materially strengthen the object biography without making any new authenticity claim.
The tooth question has a different research threshold. Documentary discovery should continue in excavation archives, object registers, and any later examination reports for explicit dental terminology or object-level records. Physical examination should occur only if the responsible custodian and religious authorities authorize it and only under a research design that respects sacred material and conservation risk.
Chronology would benefit from renewed numismatic and epigraphic synthesis using the original coin records, reliable photographs, and current scholarship on Western Kshatrapa sequences and eras. The goal should be to narrow defensible ranges, not to force the inscription into an exact date for publication convenience.
Finally, the site archive deserves digital preservation. A submerged archaeological complex is unusually dependent on the survival and accessibility of its documentation. High-quality scans, stable object metadata, linked plans and photographs, and a transparent rights framework would serve archaeology, Buddhist studies, conservation, and public heritage at the same time.
9.7 What the evidence does not permit
The present research does not permit the statements “a tooth of the Buddha was excavated at Devnimori,” “scientific testing has authenticated the relics as those of the historical Buddha,” “the custody chain is unbroken,” or “the certificate proves ownership or governmental recognition.” None of these propositions is supported by the evidence examined in this study.
It also does not permit a dismissive inverse such as “the relics are not connected with the Buddha.” The inscriptional attribution, the ancient devotional context, the excavation interpretation, and modern religious treatment are real evidence of that connection at the level of historical belief and institutional tradition. The publication therefore avoids both over-authentication and over-denial.
9.8 Research value of unresolved questions
Unresolved questions are not empty spaces in the Devnimori record. They identify where the evidence changes character. The uncertainty around Kathika year 127 marks the boundary between an inscribed chronological formula and its modern calendar conversion. The missing event-by-event custody sequence marks the boundary between known repository points and an incomplete institutional history. The absence of a dental identification marks the boundary between a bodily-relic attribution and an anatomical proposition. These boundaries make the case more precise because they show exactly what future evidence would need to change.
For this reason, the strongest scholarly outcome is a versioned assessment rather than a timeless verdict. New epigraphic images, a repository concordance, or a competent material examination could legitimately revise individual claims. Such revisions should strengthen the record by making the new evidence visible, not by rewriting earlier uncertainty as though it never existed.
Chapter 10. Conclusions, Recommendations, and Certification Scope
10.1 The archaeological conclusion
Devnimori is a securely documented Buddhist archaeological complex whose principal stupa contained a deliberate relic deposit. The 1966 excavation report records two caskets, associated earthen pots, ashes and other contents, an elaborate inscribed container, an inner copper box, textiles, a small gold vessel, and a conservation history. These observations are sufficient to support a high-confidence conclusion that the stupa incorporated sacred bodily-relic material as understood by its ancient community.
The wider complex gives that deposit historical depth. Monastic buildings, ritual architecture, smaller stupas, inscriptions, coins, and a notable terracotta corpus place the caskets within a functioning Buddhist institution in western India. Devnimori’s importance therefore does not depend on a modern authentication claim; it rests on the richness of the archaeological and documentary record.
10.2 The identity conclusion
The inscription and its interpretation support a strong ancient association with Dashabala/Buddha. That statement should be retained because it reflects the textual and religious evidence. The excavation report must be retained with equal force when it states that the actual identity of the relic material could not be ascertained. Together, these sources support a conclusion about attribution, not biological proof.
No tooth-relic identification is established by the current evidence set. The primary report does not identify the material as dental, and no inspected modern source supplies an anatomical examination demonstrating a tooth. No inspected source reports DNA, radiocarbon, or another scientific procedure capable of identifying the remains as those of the historical Buddha. Any certificate wording must remain within those limits.
10.3 The chronological conclusion
The site and relic deposit belong securely within the broader late ancient Buddhist history of western India. The casket’s Kathika year 127 and Rudrasena association provide a valuable but debated chronological problem. The excavators’ provisional equation near 375 CE was based partly on coin evidence and was explicitly left open. Later scholarship supports a broad fourth/fifth-century setting without eliminating the need for specialist reassessment.
10.4 The custodial conclusion
The modern record connects the 1960s excavation programme with an official 2026 statement that the relics were normally enshrined at The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, followed by a documented temporary exposition in Colombo. This is sufficient for a bounded present-custody narrative. It is not sufficient for an event-by-event claim of continuous custody or a legal-title conclusion.
10.5 Recommended research priorities
First priority should be given to primary-record reconciliation rather than new public claims. The original casket-inscription publication, excavation plates, field registers, conservation files, coin records, and current university inventory should be inspected and cross-linked. This work can improve chronology, object identity, and custody at low risk to the sacred material.
Second, any proposal for physical examination should begin with a clear question. If the purpose is to determine whether surviving material includes dental tissue, authorized non-destructive imaging and competent anatomical review would be more directly relevant than broad authenticity testing. Destructive sampling should not be treated as a default route and would require separate scientific, custodial, ethical, and religious authority.
Third, Devnimori should be preserved digitally as a distributed archaeological archive. Since the site itself is submerged, future scholarship depends unusually heavily on the integrity of documents and collections. Stable digitization, transparent metadata, object crosswalks, and rights-cleared images would materially increase the site’s research value.
Fourth, public interpretation should teach the difference between archaeological context and personal identity. Visitors and readers can understand that the relics were sincerely enshrined and venerated as associated with the Buddha while also understanding why archaeology does not claim biological proof. Such communication respects both evidence and devotion.
10.6 Bounded certification statement
The evidence supports an institutional research statement that Devnimori contained a documented Buddhist relic deposit within its principal stupa and that the deposit was inscriptionally and historically associated with Dashabala/Buddha. The evidence also requires the statement that the biological identity of the material is not established and that no tooth identification has been verified in the current inspected corpus.
A certificate derived from this research should therefore certify the scope of the documented assessment, not the personhood of the remains. It may identify the project, the archaeological context studied, the source base, the principal conclusion, and the limitations. It should not function as a title deed, appraisal, export permission, scientific authentication, or governmental recognition beyond the authority actually held by the issuer.
The strongest conclusion is consequently neither maximal nor evasive. Devnimori preserves strong archaeological and inscriptional evidence for a Buddhist relic deposit understood as connected with the Buddha. The ancient attribution is historically meaningful and the modern devotional life is continuing. The specific biological identity of the material, and especially any identification as a tooth, remains unverified. This boundary is the basis of a responsible research publication and of any later certificate statement.
10.7 Recommendations for custodians and public institutions
Institutions responsible for Devnimori material should preserve the relationship between sacred care and documentary accountability. Object identity, conservation history, movement, ritual access, photography, and scholarly examination should be recorded in ways that allow future researchers to distinguish a physical event from a later interpretation. Sensitive security details need not be public for the record itself to be rigorous.
A rights-cleared digital visual programme would have particular value. High-resolution photographs of the casket components, inscription surfaces, conservation stages, and relevant excavation plans could support epigraphic and archaeological research while reducing pressure for repeated handling of sacred material. Each image should carry a date, object identifier, creator or repository, rights status, and a statement of whether it documents the original object, a conservation state, or a later reconstruction.
Public interpretation should retain the excavators’ own evidential caution. The ancient attribution to Dashabala and the continuing devotional life of the relics can be presented positively, while a separate sentence explains that biological identity has not been demonstrated. This wording is not a reduction of sacred meaning. It is a clear account of the different ways in which archaeology, inscription, tradition, and scientific identification create knowledge.
10.8 Recommended certificate wording boundary
A certificate connected with this project may state that the Devnimori Mahāstūpa contained a documented Buddhist relic deposit and that the deposit was inscriptionally and historically associated with Dashabala/Buddha. It may identify the excavation publication, the principal casket evidence, and the dated current repository statement on which the assessment relies. It should also state that the biological identity of the material and any dental identification remain unverified in the sources examined for this study.
The certificate should avoid verbs such as “proves,” “authenticates,” or “confirms” when they would imply a biological or legal conclusion that the research has not reached. A bounded certificate is strongest when a reader can move from its statement to the monograph and see exactly which evidence supports each clause. The certificate then functions as a concise research record rather than as a substitute for the evidence.
10.9 Public record and future correction
The long-term value of the publication depends on the ability to correct it when stronger evidence becomes available. A revised inscription reading, a newly located university register, or a competent material examination should be able to change the relevant claim without changing unrelated parts of the case. The archaeological recovery of the caskets would remain documented even if the absolute date were refined; a future dental identification would add an anatomical claim without erasing the earlier fact that the excavation report itself did not provide one.
This approach also protects devotional history. If future science adds information, the ancient and modern histories of veneration do not become obsolete. They remain evidence of how the relics were understood and treated at particular times. A good research record therefore grows by adding well-sourced distinctions rather than by replacing one totalizing verdict with another.
Institutional Research Governance and Publication Context
This publication is issued within the institutional research framework identified on the title and metadata pages. The research function, publication function, registry function, custodial function, and any certificate-issuance function remain distinct. The presence of an institutional identifier does not transform a research conclusion into a government decision, museum accession, legal title, or scientific laboratory result.
The Integrated Relic Custodianship Model (IRCM) is identified here as the research-governance model for the publication. In this study its practical effect is visible in the separation of archaeology, sacred attribution, material description, custody, ownership, scientific questions, and publication authority. Each domain is recorded according to the evidence that can support it rather than being made to inherit certainty from another domain.
The following institution-wide material is drawn from the Museum's current official website and official institutional-library record as inspected on 18 August 2026. It is included because the publication architecture requires a stable institutional dossier. It is not archaeological evidence for Devni Mori, and it does not alter the evidential limits reached in Chapters 1–10.
Institutional Profile and Leadership
The HSWAGATA Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation Private Museum presents itself as an independent custodial, research, and educational institution in which sacred stewardship, scholarship, Vipassanā learning, and educational development are treated as connected fields of service. The Office of Siridantamahāpalaka provides the publishing and governance context identified in the fixed metadata. The current public leadership record identifies Venerable Sao Dhammasami as Founder, Director, and Custodian and Venerable Indaka as Co-Founder and Institutional Governance Reviewer.
The institution's public programme combines sacred preservation, interdisciplinary research, Vipassanā education, training of trainers, curriculum and lesson design, teaching methodology, educational administration and monitoring, and books and public knowledge. In this monograph, those broader programmes are recorded for institutional transparency; they are not used to support the Devni Mori relic claims.
Approved Institutional Vision
The current institutional vision is to develop a trusted international centre in which Buddhist sacred heritage is carefully preserved, Theravāda wisdom is studied responsibly, and Vipassanā learning is made accessible to present and future generations through sound education.
Approved Institutional Mission
The current mission joins sacred custody with research and education: to safeguard tradition-associated relics, advance interdisciplinary study, prepare teachers and trainers, develop curricula and learning resources, strengthen evaluation systems, and share Theravāda Vipassanā for the welfare and happiness of the many.
Institutional Objectives and Programmes
The current strategic objectives connect preservation, documentation, research, Vipassanā education, trainer preparation, curriculum design, monitoring and evaluation, publication, and ethical partnership. Within the relic-research programme, the objectives most relevant to this monograph are secure conservation-led care, reliable provenance and custody records, controlled identifiers, evidence-led archaeological and historical study, and responsible publication. The institution's educational programmes remain distinct from the evidentiary assessment of Devni Mori.
Approved Strategic Plan
The published strategic direction is organized around three linked phases: digital archiving and standardization; advanced interdisciplinary research; and wider open-science access supported by stable identifiers, preservation systems, and ethical institutional collaboration. The current public plan also identifies practical goals for registry development, stupa research, digital preservation, museum documentation, publication, research networks, emergency heritage protection, and continued implementation of IRCM standards.
Approved Fifteen Principles
The institution's fifteen-principle framework is represented here as a concise policy index rather than as repeated promotional prose. Project-specific interpretation remains governed by the evidence chapters.
Table 6. Fifteen institutional principles
Approved Policy Corpus
The policy corpus is recorded as an institutional index so that the monograph does not duplicate long policy text. The policies most directly relevant to this project concern evidence separation, custody documentation, confidence assessment, research-gap disclosure, publication tiers, digital preservation, visual evidence, religious heritage, scientific integrity, doctrinal integrity, institutional neutrality, and permanent registry preservation.
Table 7. Institutional policy index
Approved Founder/Custodian Message
The current founder message frames stewardship as a responsibility to both the past and the future. Sacred relics are treated not merely as collection objects but as heritage held within living communities of faith, memory, and learning. The institutional responsibility is therefore dual: devotional dignity should be protected, and research records should remain careful, traceable, and open to responsible inquiry. The message encourages respectful cooperation among monastic communities, museums, universities, conservators, laboratories, and heritage communities while keeping humility and integrity at the centre of custody and research.
Appendices
Appendix A. Project and Identifier Crosswalk
Table A1. Project-family identifiers
Appendix B. Site and Monument Authority Record
Table B1. Controlled site-name and scope record
Appendix C. Source Corpus and Inspection Register
Table C1. Admitted sources
Appendix D. Claim–Evidence Matrix
Table D1. Core claim–evidence matrix
Appendix E. Contradiction and Negative-Evidence Register
Table E1. Contradictions, tensions, and negative findings
Appendix F. Excavation and Chronology Table
Table F1. Selected chronological anchors
Appendix G. Architectural and Deposit Catalogue
Table G1. Principal architectural units
Appendix H. Reliquary and Contents Catalogue
Table H1. Caskets and nested contents
Appendix I. Inscription and Textual-Evidence Register
Table I1. Inscription/text evidence
Appendix J. Numismatic Context Register
Table J1. Coin evidence used in the chronology
Appendix K. Museum and Object Crosswalk
Table K1. Selected repository/object records
Appendix L. Provenance and Custody Event Register
Table L1. Documented custody/provenance points
Appendix M. Visual Programme and Rights Register
Table M1. Visual assets used
Appendix N. Spatial and Geographic Metadata
Table N1. Geographic record
Appendix O. Source-Wording and Attribution Register
Table O1. Important attribution layers
Appendix P. Research Gaps and Verification Priorities
Table P1. Open research targets
Appendix Q. Certification Scope Matrix
Table Q1. Permitted and prohibited certificate-level claims
Appendix R. Institutional Profile and Documentary Status
Table R1. Verified institutional metadata in this edition
Table R2. Current institutional dossier sources and status
Appendix S. Rights, Sacred-Material, and Accessibility Record
Table S1. Rights and dignity controls
Appendix T. Version, Correction, and Publication Record
Table T1. Edition record
Bibliography
Ishikawa, Ken. “More Gandhāra than Mathurā: Substantial and Persistent Gandhāran Influences Provincialized in the Buddhist Material Culture of Gujarat and Beyond, c. AD 400–550.” In The Global Connections of Gandhāran Art, edited by Wannaporn Rienjang and Peter Stewart, 156–204. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2020. https://doi.org/10.32028/9781789696950-8.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. “Head of Buddha Shakyamuni.” Accession M.79.8. Collection record inspected August 18, 2026.
Mehta, R. N., and S. N. Chowdhary. Excavation at Devnimori: A Report of the Excavation Conducted from 1960 to 1963. Baroda: Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, 1966.
Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Culture, Government of India. “Exposition of Holy Devnimori Relics of Lord Buddha in Sri Lanka.” February 2, 2026. Release ID 2222243.
High Commission of India, Colombo. “Exposition of the Holy Devnimori Relics.” February 4, 2026.
Roy, Abhishek, and Shushmita Sen Pramanik. “Exploring Archaeological Landscape of Shamlaji and Its Adjoining Areas in Aravalli District of North Gujarat.” Heritage: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in Archaeology 10 (2022–23): 281–293.
Tournier, Vincent. “A 4th/5th-Century sūtra of the Saṁmitīya Canon? On the So-Called ‘Continental Pāli’ Inscription from Devnimori (Gujarat).” In Proceedings of the Third International Pali Studies Week—Paris 2018, edited by Claudio Cicuzza, 403–470. Material for the Study of the Tripiṭaka 18. Bangkok and Lumbini: Fragile Palm Leaf Foundation and Lumbini International Research Institute, 2023.
District Administration, Aravalli, Government of Gujarat. “Devni Mori.” Official district page, last updated August 17, 2026.
HSWAGATA Private Museum. Official institutional website and institutional library. Accessed August 18, 2026. https://www.hswagata.com/.
Subject Index
Principal index entries include: archaeology; ashes; Buddha; caskets; caitya; chronology; coins; conservation; custody; Dashabala; Devni Mori; Devnimori; epigraphy; Gujarat; Kathika year 127; Mahāstūpa; Meshwo; provenance; relic deposit; Rudrasena; Saṁmitīya; Shamlaji; śarīra; stupa; tooth identification; Vihāra; and Western Kshatrapa evidence.
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