The reliquaries that are the subject of this book were collected at Sanchi and neighboring sites in central India by Sir Alexander Cunningham and F.C. Maisey in the mid-nineteenth century. They are now in the collections of the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Buddhist Reliquaries from Ancient India is the first detailed catalogue of this material.Relics played a key role in early Buddhism. As the Buddhist faith spread across Asia, so did the cult of relics and the practice of building shrines to contain them. The reliquaries discussed here are among the earliest examples known, and because many of them carry inscriptions, they are of central importance to the history of Buddhism in the first two centuries BC. This historical background is surveyed in the book's extensive introduction which includes an account of relic worship, and examination of how sacred space was controlled by the monastic community, and ground-breaking reassessments of Indian history and early Indian sculpture. These issues are crucial for dating the reliquaries and for putting the reliquary sites in the wider context of Buddhist art and architecture.