Sarira Reliquary with an Inscription

[Tourist]
What is this stone artifact here? It looks like a mailbox.

[Narration]
Ha-ha! This is a reliquary for sarira, the sacred relics of Buddhism.

[Tourist]
Ah! I know what sarira are. They are the small crystalline fragments that remain in the ashes after the cremation of a Buddhist saint who has reached enlightenment.

[Narration]
Yes, that’s right. Do you see the hollow part in the middle? That was where the sarira was kept. This artifact relates to a story about an unfortunate King of Baekje who aspired to become a Buddhist monk.

Let's travel back in time, to the period when the three kingdoms on the Korean Peninsula were rivals for supremacy. It was around the mid 6th century, and the Crown Prince of Baekje was engaged in a battle with Silla, the kingdom occupying the southeast of the peninsula. Baekje began to struggle in the battle, and the King of Baekje was ambushed and killed by Silla troops while attempting to rescue his son, the Crown Prince Chang.

[Tourist]
Oh dear! The Crown Prince must have been devastated by the unfortunate death of the King.

[Narration]
He was indeed. The King of Baekje killed in the ambush was a respected leader who oversaw the relocation of the capital city of Baekje to Buyeo and developed Baekje into a powerful kingdom. His death was a tragedy and the sorrowful Crown Prince was completely devastated. The Prince wanted to expiate the guilt he felt by cutting all ties with the secular world and retiring to live as a monk. But he could not abandon the people of Baekje and so succeeded the throne.

Later, in 567, the Crown Prince and his sister, a Princess of Baekje, built a temple in memory of their father and placed sarira in the reliquary and made offerings to Buddha. The Chinese characters engraved on the reliquary narrate this story.

[Tourist]
Where are the sarira? I can't see them.

[Narration]
Unfortunately, the sarira and the plate where the sarira were kept no longer exist. However, the reliquary is still a very significant artifact in that it records the date it was sealed and the name of the person who made the offerings to Buddha. Although it looks like a simple stone, it represents the great familial piety of the Crown Prince.