Introduction

 Introduction

Across Buddhist Asia, the bodily relics of the Buddha – enshrined in stupas, temples, and museums – continue to draw millions of devotees. These sacred remains are not only objects of veneration; they are also powerful symbols of continuity, identity, and hope. Around them, communities build rituals, festivals, educational programmes, and institutions. The people and organisations who care for these relics – monks, nuns, lay committees, heritage professionals, and state authorities – are the custodians of a tradition that is at once religious and cultural. Their decisions about how relics are preserved, displayed, and interpreted can strengthen faith, support social harmony, and protect cultural heritage. They can also, if handled unwisely, become sources of tension and conflict.

Peace studies offers a useful lens for examining these dynamics. It distinguishes between negative peace – the absence of direct violence – and positive peace, the presence of justice, cooperation, and harmonious relationships. From this perspective, religious sites and symbols are not neutral. They can either contribute to positive peace by fostering ethical conduct, mutual respect, and shared identity, or they can be used to justify exclusion, rivalry, and prejudice. In many societies, struggles over religious heritage, sacred spaces, and relics have become flashpoints for wider political and social tensions. Understanding the role of relic custodians, therefore, is not only a matter of religious history; it is a question with real implications for peace and conflict in contemporary communities.

The early Buddhist texts preserved in the Sutta and Vinaya collections repeatedly emphasise the value of concord (saṃagga) and warn against schism (saṅghabheda) in the monastic community, describing harmony in the Saṅgha as a cause of welfare and happiness for many beings. They also explain disciplinary rules as being laid down for the excellence and stability of the Order, for the restraint of the harmful, and for the protection and increase of faith. Later texts such as The Questions of King Milinda defend the building of relic shrines, arguing that they provide a foundation for the performance of meritorious actions and support the path to liberation. Modern practice-oriented manuals linked to relic institutions continue this logic, presenting relic sites as centres where study (pariyatti), practice (paṭipatti), and realisation (paṭivedha) are encouraged, and where ethical training – for example, keeping the five precepts – is explicitly connected to the protection of individuals and society.

Taken together, these sources suggest that Buddha’s relics and their custodians occupy a key intersection between Buddhist faith, cultural heritage, and social harmony. Relics anchor the memory of the Buddha in material form; they transmit narratives, values, and practices across generations; and they gather diverse groups into shared spaces of devotion. Custodians are responsible not only for the physical care of relics, but also for the moral, educational, and relational environment that grows around them. They can design programmes that promote generosity, loving-kindness, and wisdom, or practices that reinforce hierarchy, competition, and fear. They can manage relics as inclusive heritage that belongs to the wider community, or as symbols of possession that mark boundaries between “us” and “them.”

This study explores these issues by asking: How do the custodians of Buddha’s sacred relics function as agents of peace, cultural heritage protection, and social harmony? More specifically:

1. How are relics and their custodians portrayed in early Buddhist texts and later commentarial or dialogical literature?

2. In what ways are relics treated as forms of cultural heritage – preserving memory, identity, and ethical teaching – in both canonical sources and modern handbooks?

3. How can the work of relic custodians contribute to positive peace, and what risks arise when relics become entangled in conflict, schism, or moral degeneration?

The research is based entirely on internal sources: Pali canonical and Vinaya material in translation, classical post-canonical texts, and contemporary Dhamma manuals associated with relic institutions (such as a Buddha tooth relic preservation museum). By reading these materials through a peace studies lens, the project aims to show how traditional Buddhist concerns – the maintenance of the True Dhamma, the prevention of schism, the cultivation of wholesome roots, and the ethical training of lay communities – can be understood as elements of a broader vision of social harmony and cultural resilience.

The Research paper is organised as follows. The first chapter introduces basic concepts from peace studies and shows how early Buddhist texts provide their own vocabulary for peace, concord, and security for beings. The second chapter examines how the canonical and classical texts present Buddha’s relics and the practice of relic veneration. The third chapter turns to the role of custodians, drawing on Vinaya regulations and modern institutional examples to understand custodianship as a form of guardianship of the sāsana and of heritage. The fourth chapter analyses relics as cultural heritage, looking at how they preserve memory, ritual, and teaching for faith communities. The fifth chapter explores the ethical and social dimensions of relic-centred practice, linking precepts, wholesome mental roots, and community behaviour to positive peace. The sixth chapter considers the risks: how conflicts over relics, moral confusion, and schismatic tendencies can undermine peace and harmony, and what responsibilities custodians have as peacebuilders.

By bringing together textual study, heritage concerns, and peace studies perspectives, this research seeks to highlight the constructive role that Buddhist relic custodians can play in nurturing communities that are both deeply rooted in their own faith and committed to social harmony.