A buried stupa was discovered by William Claxton Peppe, a British colonial engineer and landowner of an estate at Piprahwa in January 1898.
Noting the challenges that isolated finds present to paleographical study, epigraphist and archaeologist Ahmad Hasan Dani observed in 1997 that "The Piprahwa vase, found in the Basti District, U.P., has an inscription scratched on the steatite stone in a careless manner.