Sarira, the Relics of Buddha

The golden splendid gourd bottle is an artifact that was used to hold Buddha’s sarira. Sarira is bead-shaped objects that were found after cremating bodies of Buddha or monks. In Asia, pagodas were constructed to enshrine Buddha’s sarira, which is why these artifacts are present today.

In 2009, when researchers were investigating the stone pagoda toward the west of the Mireuksa Temple Site, they discovered around 500 artifacts along with the sarira reliquary from the pagoda. This led to the recent increase in interest and studies on Mireuksa in Korea.

Now, let’s take a look at the structure of the reliquary.
Sarira were first put into a glass bottle, then the glass bottle was put in a gourd bottle made from gold, and finally the gold bottle in turn was put into a bigger gilt-bronze bottle.

It’s surprising that sarira were contained in a glass bottle because it was very difficult to produce glass back then. Detailed decoration on the gourd bottle is also very impressive. Sarira were kept as valuable because they symbolized Buddha himself.

It must have been an important ceremony to put sarira into the pagoda when Mireuksa was constructed. Many people probably gathered together for an extraordinary experience that felt like they were meeting Buddha himself.