Word: buddha
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Pilgrims, travelers and conquerors from the 3rd century A.D. onwards have marveled at the two towering Buddha statues of Bamiyan, in central Afghanistan. Hewn from sandstone cliffs, these two giants, 53 m and 35 m high, are a fusion of Classical Greek and Indian art that flourished along the ancient Silk Road. Despite their massive size, the standing Buddhas possess an ethereal lightness. It's as if they managed to levitate above a millennium of warfare and calamity that has plagued Afghanistan, at least until the fiercely Islamic Taliban rulers fixed the Buddhas in their gun-sights...
...Kabul Ignoring international protests by governments, religious leaders and archaeologists, Taliban forces fanned out across Afghanistan to begin destroying all statues, including ancient works of art that the hard-line government contends violate the tenets of Islam, which forbids the worship of images. Two huge 5th century depictions of Buddha, carved into a mountainside in Bamiyan, west of Kabul, are among the works being destroyed. Iran, ruled by Islamic clergy, and Pakistan, Afghanistan's closest ally, joined the protests...
...There is nothing like these statues anywhere in the world. Bamiyan is located in a beautiful valley around 230 km northwest of Kabul. It was an important stop on the fabled Silk Road, and the two majestic Buddha statues were scooped out of the Hindu Kush mountains in such a way that anyone - merchants, soldiers, pilgrims - moving along the highway could view them from afar and pay homage. The ceilings above the Buddhas had beautiful painted images of the bodhisattvas and the Sun God, representing the Buddha as the source of light. The iconography was a mixture of Greek...
...Here is the author Sally Wriggins' description, in her book "Xuanzang, a Buddhist Pilgrim on the Silk Road," of what's been lost: "The first sight of the valley of the Great Buddha must have made weary travelers gasp - immense cliffs of a soft pastel color, and behind them indigo peaks dusted with snow, rising to a height of 20,000 feet. They saw the reddish cliffs in the cold, clear air; as they came closer, they could make out two gigantic statues of the Buddha standing in niches carved in the mountains. Closer still, they saw that...
...destruction of these Buddha statues, the Taliban leaders claim they are merely honoring the injunctions of sharia (Islamic law) against idolatry. Other Islamic governments protested. They joined most of civilized opinion in regarding the destruction as wanton and, from an Islamic theological point of view, unnecessary. The Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, was immovable...