Working paper Open NALA SOPARA STUPA's Archaeological, Relic, Historical, Epigraphic, Material, and Custodial Research ( HIRR-2026-0027)

This monograph examines the Buddhist stupa excavated at Sopara (modern Nala Sopara, Maharashtra) by Bhagvanlal Indraji in 1882 and the reliquary assemblage recovered from its central brick chamber. The study gives priority to Indraji’s 1882 publication, later archaeological reassessment, and the present collection statement of the Asiatic Society of Mumbai. The evidence securely supports the recovery of a central stone coffer containing an egg-shaped copper casket, eight bronze Buddhist images arranged around the casket, and a nested sequence of silver, stone, crystal, and gold containers. Indraji recorded thirteen small earthenware fragments in the innermost gold vessel and interpreted them as fragments of the Buddha’s begging bowl. That interpretation is historically significant but is not equivalent to material or scientific authentication of the fragments as an object used by the historical Buddha. The inspected core sources do not establish a competent biological identification of human bone from the deposit, and the candidate claim of “bone shards; organic remnants” is therefore not adopted as an established finding. The wider chronology is multi-phase: the site has Mauryan/Ashokan associations, the reliquary deposit includes Satavahana-period numismatic evidence, and the bronze images are later, commonly assigned to the seventh to ninth centuries CE. The current Asiatic Society statement confirms institutional custody of the Sopara relics and reports the stone coffer on display, but object-level accession and continuous movement records were not available in the inspected source set. The final HIRR assessment therefore recognizes the assemblage as an archaeologically documented Buddhist relic deposit while keeping the begging-bowl attribution, biological identity, exact construction horizon, and complete chain of custody within their evidential limits. Keywords Sopara; Nala Sopara; Śūrpāraka; Aparānta; Bhagvanlal Indraji; Buddhist stupa; reliquary; begging bowl; Maitreya; Seven Buddhas; Satavahana; Asiatic Society of Mumbai; Buddhist archaeology; relic deposit; HIRR.