Worship of the relics of the Buddha, by both his lay followers and
monks, has been a widespread feature of Buddhist devotional practice since
very early times if not right from the day on which the Buddha died and was
cremated (possibly in 483 B.C.). When the great Emperor Aśoka (ca. 269-232
B.C.) embraced the Dharma, he built many stūpas all over his realm (the
legend speaks of 84,000 of them) and enshrined in them splinters of relics
from the original eight stūpas in which portions of the Buddha’s relics were
supposedly placed after his cremation. Later, when relics were no longer
available, manuscripts of sūtras were substituted indicating the presence of the
Dharma and eventually stūpas came to be venerated as symbols of the
presence of the Buddha or of the eternal Dharma even if they did not contain
anything.