Overview

• The Ministry of Culture will display the sacred relics at the 3rd International Buddhist Forum in Elista, Kalmykia, beginning September 24, with most official guidance indicating the forum runs through September 28 as some reports cite October 1 as the exhibition end date.
• Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya will lead the delegation transporting the relics on an Indian Air Force aircraft departing September 23.
• The relics will be escorted under full religious protocol by senior monks and enshrined at Elista’s Geden Sheddup Choikorling Monastery, also known as the Golden Abode of Shakyamuni Buddha.
• The Culture Ministry, International Buddhist Confederation, National Museum and IGNCA will present related exhibitions and lectures, and two MoUs are slated to be signed by IBC with Russia’s Central Spiritual Administration of Buddhists and with Nalanda University.
• The Piprahwa artifacts, discovered in 1898 in Uttar Pradesh and linked to early Buddhist history, were repatriated to India on July 30 after a Hong Kong auction was halted through government intervention with support from the Godrej Industries Group.