The popular English daily TheHindu carried a news item in its Friday Review on September 10, 2011 under the title ‘Kapilavastu Relics to be displayed in Sri Lanka’. The article referred to the unearthing of the relics at Piprahwa in the present Indian state of Bihar by Major General (retired) Alexander Cunningham (1814–93), the first head of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which was established in 1861. The visual accompanying the news item showed a 16-ft high replica of the seated Buddha image found during excavations at Sarnath near Varanasi in the state of Uttar Pradesh. This copy was installed at the entrance to the International Buddhist Museum complex at the Temple of the Tooth Relic at Kandy, the erstwhile hill capital of Sri Lanka, amid chanting of Buddhist hymns and in the presence of senior vener-able monks.