India, Feb. 20 -- At first glance, they were caskets in the earth - ash, charred bone, fragments of rice, crystals and gems. Finds to be catalogued; specimens to be separated, labelled and studied. Yet somewhere between excavation trench and public imagination, the relics of Piprahwa - an important archaeological site and Buddhist pilgrimage spot in Uttar Pradesh -- slipped their taxonomic moorings and returned to the realm of the sacred.

That journey lies at the heart of art historian and JNU Prof Naman Ahuja's forthcoming lecture, When Scientific Specimens Turn Holy, at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research today. The title carries a quiet provocation: objects do not remain still in meaning.

"When academia had to begin attending ...