The Buddhist Mahaparinibbana Suttanta or Book of the Great Decease describes how after the Buddha's death, which probably occurred in about 405 BC, he was cremated and his remains distributed among eight worthy recipients (such as the king of Magadha, an important kingdom in the region, the brahmin of Vethadipa and ruling groups or clans of nearby city states) for veneration. Over these portions and two other items claimed by others after the main distribution (embers of the fire and the vessel in which the bones were collected) each recipient was to erect a sacred cairn or stupa over its portion. The practice of worshipping relics became an important element of Buddhist religious ritual. As well as the bodily remains of the Buddha himself the relics of famous Buddhist teachers and disciples of the Buddha came to be worshipped, and the practice also came to include other objects such as sacred books. Precious items such as coins and beads have also been found, perhaps because of an association with an important person. The relics were often kept in small containers made of steatite, rock crystal or gold and could then be placed inside stone reliquaries. Stupas, initially hemispherical mounds but becoming more elaborate over time, were erected to cover a central relic chamber in which such items were housed. Pilgrims came to worship these stupas, circumambulating them in a clockwise direction.
This small gold relic box contained bone fragments and two small beads. It comes from the Buddhist monastery of Takht-i Bahi, which was one of the great monasteries in the Gandhara region sited on a major trade route linking the north to the Swat Valley and Western India. From around the late first or mid second century AD the region of Gandhara in northern Pakistan and part of Afghanistan became a Buddhist stronghold.