The historic Buddha never claimed to be a god and did not encourage worship of the gods. He has, in fact, been called an atheist. His transformation to an object of worship took a little while to develope but by 200 or so years after his death it was well underway.
I do not understand the comment above about "Jesus relics". There are no confirmed relics as Jesus did not leave any mortal remains. There is the shroud of Turin and another cloth reputed to be the one used by Veronica to wipe blood from His face when he was carrying the cross but I know of no others and these two are definitely controversial. The ashes of the Buddha, on the other hand, were gathered immediately after his cremation and distributed as noted in the article so there is good reason to believe these are the real deal.