Buddhist Reliquaries from Ancient India.

• Author: Salomon, Richard
• Position: Book Review

Buddhist Reliquaries from Ancient India. By MICHAEL WILLIS, with contributions by Joe Cribb and Julia Shaw. London: BRITISH MUSEUM PRESS, 2000. Pp. 112, figs. $175.

The central focus of this book is the Buddhist reliquaries which were found at Sanchi and other nearby stupa sites (Satdhara, Sonari, Bhojpur, and Andher) by Alexander Cunningham and F. C. Maisey in 1851, and which are now in the collection of the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The rationale for the publication of this volume is given by the principal author as follows: "While the monuments of Sanchi have enjoyed much scholarly attention, the reliquaries and reliquary inscriptions have never been directly revisited. In addition, the reliquaries have never been published as a group in photographic form. Thus the need for the present volume" (p. 8).

The book is divided into two main parts, of approximately equal length: an "Introduction" and a "Catalogue." The introduction comprises four chapters, on "Relics and Reliquaries" by the principal author, Michael Willis, "The Sacred Landscape" by Julia Shaw, "Early Indian History" by Joe Cribb, and "Early Indian Sculpture" by Willis. The catalogue presents descriptions and illustrations of the reliquaries as well as of some sculptures and other related objects, along with accounts of the sites and structures in which they were found. The book is copiously illustrated, with 124 photographic figures as well as seven maps and six tables, plus a paleographic table (appendix 1, pp. 100-101).

When compared to the actual contents of the book, its title is somewhat misleading, being at once too narrow and too broad. On the one hand, the book as a whole is as much about the art, architecture, and history of Sanchi and the neighboring stupa sites as it is about the reliquaries discovered at them. On the other hand, it focuses on a detailed study of a small but important set of reliquaries from a closely circumscribed area of central India, rather than of "ancient India" generally. (1) The relevance to the rest of the book of the second through fourth chapters of the introductory section is somewhat indirect, but they do provide general historical and cultural background to the main subject.

In his introductory chapter on "Relics and Reliquaries," Willis provides an interesting and innovative discussion of the theory and practice of the relic cult in Indian Buddhism. For example, he makes the interesting observation that the three types of...