Remains of a skull thought to belong to the Buddha have been found at a temple in the Chinese city of Nanjing. It was a parietal bone that was discovered in a model stupa, a label that was given to Buddhist structures that are believed hold sacred relics linked to the Buddha or some of his trusted devotees.
"Engraved on the outside of the model are several images of the Buddha, along with scenes depicting stories from the Buddha's life, from his birth to the point when he reached 'parinirvana', a death from which the Buddha wasn't reborn - something that freed him from a cycle of death and rebirth, according to the Buddhist religion," explains livescience.
While the mystery of the Buddha's remains is not fully solved, the question is---who put the remains here, and when?
The Chinese temple is called the Grand Bao'en temple. Excavations here happened between 2007 and 2010, yet the details of the finding were made public just recently in an English-language archaeology journal, Chinese Cultural Relics.
The bone was discovered in a gold casket within a 1,000-year-old model stupa fashioned with sandalwood, silver and gold, covered with gemstones crystal, glass, agate, and lapis lazuli.
Being 117 centimetres tall and 45 cm wide, the stupa was stored inside a stone chest. There were more remains of Buddhist saints inside the casket.
Archaeologists point out that the stone chest contains inscriptions indicating that the parietal bone was Buddha's, explaining how the parietal bone was transmitted to the Grand Bao'en temple after Buddha's death and cremation in India. The temple got damaged when a number of wars took place 1,400 years ago. It was rebuilt by Emperor Zhenzong. He had the bone re-buried in the rebuilt temple.
While the story has not been confirmed, the remains are considered to be extremely sacred and valuable. They have been buried by the Buddhist monks in the modern Qixia Temple, another sacred monument at Nanjing.
