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It may not be amiss to consider here briefly what is known of the history of the Buddha’s relics and especially of this tooth.  Of the minor distinctions between Buddhism and Hinduism one of the sharpest is this cultus.  Hindu temples are often erected over natural objects supposed to resemble the footprint or some member of a deity and sometimes tombs receive veneration.[53] But no case appears to be known in which either Hindus or Jains show reverence to the bones or other fragments of a human body.  It is hence remarkable that relic-worship should be so wide-spread in Buddhism and appear so early in its history.  The earliest Buddhist monuments depict figures worshipping at a stupa, which was probably a reliquary, and there is no reason to distrust the traditions which carry the practice back at least to the reign of Asoka.  The principal cause for its prevalence was no doubt that Buddhism, while creating a powerful religious current, provided hardly any objects of worship for the faithful.[54] It is also probable that the rudiments of relic worship existed in the districts frequented by the Buddha.  The account of his death states that after the cremation of his body the Mallas placed his bones in their council hall and honoured them with songs and dances.  Then eight communities or individuals demanded a portion of the relics and over each portion a cairn was built.  These proceedings are mentioned as if they were the usual ceremonial observed on the death of a great man and in the same Sutta[55] the Buddha himself mentions four classes of men worthy of a cairn or dagoba.[56] We may perhaps conclude that in the earliest ages of Buddhism it was usual in north-eastern India to honour the bones of a distinguished man after cremation and inter them under a monument.  This is not exactly relic worship but it has in it the root of the later tree.  The Pitakas contain little about the practice but the Milinda Panha discusses the question at length and in one passage[57] endeavours to reconcile two sayings of the Buddha, “Hinder not yourselves by honouring the remains of the Tathagatha” and “Honour that relic of him who is worthy of honour.”  It is the first utterance rather than the second that seems to have the genuine ring of Gotama.

The earliest known relics are those discovered in the stupa of Piprava on the borders of Nepal in 1898.  Their precise nature and the date of the inscription describing them have been the subject of much discussion.  Some authorities think that this stupa may be one of those erected over a portion of the Buddha’s ashes after his funeral.  Even Barth, a most cautious and sceptical scholar, admitted[58] first that the inscription is not later than Asoka, secondly that the vase is a reliquary containing what were believed to be bones of the Buddha.  Thus in the time of Asoka the worship of the Buddha’s relics was well known and I see no reason why the inscription should not be anterior to that time.