Relics of Gautama were recently discovered near Peshawar. A fresh
discovery of relics has now been made at Mirpur Khas, forty miles east of Haidarabad, in Sind, by Mr. Cousens, the Superintendent of Archaeology in Bombay. A series of mounds were there excavated, and revealed a Buddhist shrine in the centre of which was a well, and underneath it a chamber containing a stone coffer. This in turn contained a crystal bottle inside which was a silver casket embedded in brown dust which proved to be burnt human ash. The shrine or stapa is attributed to the fourth century A.D., and as it is on record that after the cremation of Gautama, his ashes were divided into nine portions and distributed amongst nine sects of disciples in different parts of India, it is plausibly conjectured that the relics at Mirpur Khas form one of these deposits. The Archaeological Department of India, reconstituted by Lord Curzon, has amply proved its value by these remarkable discoveries.
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