Destruction of the Bamiyan Statues - Taliban vs Buddha Destruction of the Bamiyan Statues Destruction of the Bamiyan Statues Taliban vs the Buddha A worker adjusts his radio in front of an alcove which used to contain a giant Buddah overlooking the area September 5, 2005 in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. John Moore / Getty Images By K. Kris Hirst In March 2001, six months before the September 11th bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City, the Taliban destroyed two ancient statues of the Buddha called Bamiyan in an attempt to cleanse the country of Afghanistan of what they perceived as Hindu heresy. An Old Story To be perfectly blunt, this is an old story. New landowners of a country move in and do their best to obliterate all traces of the conquered and now minority population. Former cultural monuments, particularly if they are of a religious nature, are pulled down, and monuments for the new group built, frequently right on the top of the foundations of the old.

The old languages are forbidden or limited, along with other cultural phenomena such as marriage customs, rites of initiation, even food taboos. The reasons the conquerors give for this trashing of the old ways and structures are varied, and include everything from modernization to saving the souls of the recently conquered. continue reading below our video 4 Tips for Improving Test Performance But the purpose is the same: to destroy the remnants of a culture which represents a threat to the new dominance. It happened in 16th century AD in the New World civilizations; it happened in Caesar's Rome; it happened in the dynasties of Egypt and China. It's what we as humans do when we are afraid. Destroy things. An Ominous Warning So, it shouldn't have been as shocking as it was, to see the Taliban in Afghanistan blast two enormous 3rd and 5th century AD statues of Buddha to powder with anti-aircraft guns. "We are not against culture but we don't believe in these things. They are against Islam," the Taliban's Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil is reported to have said.

The Taliban has never been known for a generosity of spirit or interest in cultural diversity, and as I say, the erasure of the past to protect the present is an old story. As archaeologists, we’ve seen evidence of it hundreds, maybe a thousand times. But the Taliban's destruction of the two Bamiyan Buddha statues was still painful to watch; and today it is recognized as an ominous forewarning of the Taliban's distaste of anything other than their own set of extremist Islamic values. USATODAY.com - Why the Taliban are destroying Buddhas 03/22/2001 - Updated 03:54 PM ET Why the Taliban are destroying Buddhas By W.L. Rathje, Discover Archaeology Magazine In the Diamond Sutra, the historical Buddha, Sakyamuni (whose lifetime crossed the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.), says to a disciple: "Thousands of lifetimes ago when my body was cut into pieces by King Kalinga, I was not caught in the idea of a separate self or life span. If, at that time, I had been caught up in any such idea, I would have felt anger and ill-will against the king." Now, that's Buddhist tolerance!

In Afghanistan recently, supreme Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar issued an edict against un-Islamic graven images, which means all idolatrous images of humans and animals. As a result, the Taliban are destroying all ancient sculptures. Explosives, tanks, and anti-aircraft weapons blew apart two colossal images of the Buddha in Bamiyan Province, 230 kilometers (150 miles) from the capital of Kabul. Since, unlike the Buddha, most of us are caught up in endless "selfness" today, news media worldwide now trumpet a rising animus toward the Taliban from foes and their few allies alike. AFP One of the Buddhas that have been destroyed. The two black figures in the center near the bottom are men who are sitting down. Ancient archaeological remains have been thrust into the cruel world of today's seemingly endless conflicts  the ever-changing aims and alliances of international politics, religions dueling on the world stage, and the ironic trade-off of providing aid to conserve the material heritage of the past but not to preserve the lives of modern inheritors of that past. Arrayed against the tolerant and measured messages of Buddhism, the quagmire of the "Bamiyan Massacre" seems perplexing at best.

First, it is important to recognize that the massacre has little to do with religion. The Buddha is not God or even one among many gods. During his lifetime of 80 years, Buddha Sakyamuni only allowed his image to be recorded as a reflection in rippling water. Images of the Buddha himself did not appear for at least 400 years after his death and even then were created only to remind followers of their own innate "Buddha Nature." This kind of early aversion to "idolatry" is typical of Christianity and other religions  many devotees of Christ railed against material images of Jesus for centuries, especially during two waves of "iconoclasts" (idol smashers) in the Byzantine Empire. The colossal Buddhas were cut at immeasurable cost (probably in the third and fifth centuries A.D.) into the tall, sandstone cliffs surrounding Bamiyan, an oasis town in the center of a long valley that separates the mountain chains of Hindu Kush and Koh-i-Baba.

The taller of the two statues (about 53 meters or 175 feet) is thought to represent Vairocana, the "Light Shining throughout the Universe Buddha" The shorter one (36 meters or 120 feet) probably represents Buddha Sakyamuni, although the local Hazara people believe it depicts a woman. The two colossi must once have been a truly awesome sight, visible for miles, with copper masks for faces and copper-covered hands. Vairocana's robes were painted red and Sakyamuni's blue. These towering, transcendental images were key symbols in the rise of Mahayana Buddhist teachings, which emphasized the ability of everyone, not just monks, to achieve enlightenment. While the dates of the statues are somewhat equivocal, the Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who traveled to India to bring back to China copies of the original sutras of the Buddha's teachings, bore witness to the statues in A.D. 630-31. For centuries, Bamiyan lay at the heart of the fabled Silk Road, offering respite to caravans carrying goods across the vast reaches between China and the Roman Empire.

And for 500 years, it was a center of Buddhist cultivation. The myriad caves that pockmark Bamiyan's cliffs were also home to thousands of Buddhist monks and served as a kind of Holiday Inn for traveling merchants, monks, and pilgrims. Today those open, cold caves are used primarily by refugees from Afghanistan's brutal, internal war. As shocking as it was to the world community, the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas is no real surprise. Attempts to eradicate them began immediately after Taliban forces retook Bamiyan for the third time. The world community  from Russia to Malaysia, Germany to Sri Lanka, and, of course, UNESCO  has expressed horror at the Buddhas' destruction. Many Mullahs in Islamic countries condemned Mullah Omar's interpretation as wrong-headed and damaging to the image of Islam. But from the Buddhist side, no blood has been shed. What would happen if any country decided to destroy all statues or religious symbols of Christianity or Judaism or Islam? The recent months of violence in and around Israel were largely sparked by Ariel Sharon simply visiting the Temple Mount, which is sacred to both Muslims and Jews.

Countries whose populations are primarily Buddhist have expressed dismay and consternation, but no one is going to war. It's not that Buddhists won't fight, but they don't go to war over images. The great statues remained community-identity symbols even though the Bamiyan community is now Muslim rather than Buddhist, and vandalism aimed at foci of community identity is easy to find in the past. Remember the Byzantine "iconoclasts" (who gave their name to that kind of vandalism and desecration), later Christians, the Communists, and then the non-Communists. Every one of them tore down key symbols of community identity. But why are the Bamiyan Buddhas targets now, after surviving more than a thousand years at a crucial node on the Silk Road? Simple. First, Buddhism is an easy target for fundamentalist Muslims. As Richard Foltz documents in his book, Religions on the Silk Road, "Although Islamic law offered protection to 'peoples of the Book,' namely Christians, Jews, and by some interpretations Zoroastrians, the early Muslims were generally hostile towards Buddhists.

They referred to Buddhists as 'idol-worshipers,' which had unfortunate associations with the portrayal of the Prophet's Meccan enemies in the Qur'an. This probably, at least in part, accounts for the unabatingly harsh treatment Muslims reserved for the Buddhists they encountered in the course of their conquest." So, even though the Buddha stood against idolatry, the Taliban have a tradition to uphold on the Silk Road. Second, Bamiyan was a base of the Taliban's opposition  Northern Alliance's "rebel" forces led by ousted Afghani President Borhanuddin Rabbani. How could the Taliban better humiliate the locals than to destroy their heritage? An earlier attempt to destroy the Buddhas came when the Taliban took control of Bamiyan in 1998. Then, the local Taliban governor talked the military commander out of the atrocity. Third, and probably most important, the Taliban government for more than a year has been requesting international humanitarian aid for a country ravaged by drought, earthquakes, and war.

No aid is forthcoming as long as the Taliban harbor international terrorists such as Osama bin Laden, an anathema to key voting members of the UN Security Council, including the United States, Russia (where the Taliban are working with the Chechnyan rebels), and China (where the Taliban are active among Muslim separatists). As the Taliban see it, the UN and others (such as New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, Taiwan's National Palace Museum, and even such Taliban friends as Iran, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) will give millions of dollars to save un-Islamic stone statues but not one cent to save the lives of Afghani men, women, and children. It doesn't help when a Japanese parliamentary delegation offers humanitarian aid in exchange for moving the statues out of the country. As journalist Hebah Abdalla wrote on March 2: "There was no 'worldwide horror' or 'international outrage' when UN officials announced Friday that more than 260 people have died in displacement camps in northern Afghanistan, where an additional 117,000 people are living in miserable conditions.

� Perhaps the only consolation in all of this is that these refugees may never know how much the world cared for two statues and how little it cared for them." Lest I seem partial to the Taliban, let me make my position clear: Any destruction of archaeological remains is an indefensible crime against humanity. I fear archaeological terrorism  this ultimatum of "give us what we want or we will destroy our enemies' (and the world's) heritage." Perhaps this is the beginning of an understanding of the Buddhist concept of "impermanence." Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, only the Great Pyramids of Egypt still survive. Would even they still survive if they weren't so hard to destroy? As an archaeologist, I am dismayed that a crucial component of the world's heritage can be held hostage to temper tantrums. There should have been a way out of this mess, and there are historical precedents for such a solution. During the Islamic Mughal Empire of India (A.D. 1526-1761), thousands of miniature paintings of rulers and other living beings were produced in exquisite books.

At times of fundamentalist resurgence, the depictions were considered un-Islamic, just as the Taliban edict states today. However, rather than destroy this precious art, Islamic authorities simply required that a black line be painted across the throat of each "living" being to signal that it was "dead." Archaeologists could have lived with a slit in the throat of each Bamiyan Buddhas. Today, a new focus on Afghanistan's starving people has led to lifting the Taliban "food blockade" to rebel territory. It is fitting that in his previous lives, as recorded in Jakata Tales, the Buddha often sacrificed himself, becoming food for a tiger and her cubs, for instance, and for a hungry hawk chasing a pigeon. But while the Buddha had learned to accept impermanence, most archaeologists have not. W.J. Rathje is a Visiting Professor at the Stanford University Archaeology Center, and a Senior Editor of Discover Archaeology. Thanks to: E E Ho, Amitabha Buddhist Society, USA; Z. Yang, C. Witmore, and G. Schopen, Stanford; L-L. Chen, University of Kansas; May Gu, Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation; and M.

Mahar, University of Arizona. "An attempt to wipe out history": The destruction of the Bamian Buddha colossi in 2001 | Afghanistan Analysts Network The empty niche of the larger buddha in Bamian, 2004. Photo: Thomas Ruttig. On 26 February 2001, the leader of the Afghan Taleban movement, Mullah Muhammad Omar, ordered from his headquarters in Kandahar that “all statues and non-Islamic shrines in the different areas of the Islamic Emirate must be broken” because they were worshipped by people of non-Islamic religious beliefs and were therefore ‘idols.’ This kind of worship, he added, had to be prevented from happening in the future. (The full text of his edict was never published, but was widely reported.) The destruction covered the two famous Buddha statues at Bamian. Preparations for their demolition started today 14 years ago, on 1 March 2001. This act of cultural vandalism was met with shock not only in the international community but also among Afghans – although most of them were unable to articulate it openly.

Attempts to rescue the statues failed and their destruction led to the further isolation of the regime. AAN’s Thomas Ruttig and Kate Clark look back, based on their contemporary reporting. The decision had been taken, Taleban radio Voice of Sharia reported, after “consultations with the religious leaders” of the Emirate, as a result of a “religious judgment” of the ulema and the regime’s Supreme Court. According to Taleban sources at the time, Minister of Culture Qudratullah Jamal – who was considered a hardliner among the Taleban – had personally asked the ulema for a decision on how to deal with the ‘idols’ which the ‘Islamic Emirate’ had, till then, protected as part of the cultural heritage of the country – also per en edict by Mullah Omar. In 1998, he had prevented the Taleban commander who took Bamian from destroying the statues. The Taleban had till then tried to compare themselves favourably to the mujahedin who had looted all that could be carried away from the Kabul museum during the civil war. Before the destruction: one Bamian Buddha with his face already blackened by the Taleban. Photo: SPACH.

In 2000, the president of the Museum told AAN colleague Kate Clark (then the BBC correspondent and the only western journalist based in Kabul) that idols were safe in the Emirate, so long as no-one worshipped them: “It’s nothing to do with ideology. It’s about the culture and history of the country and how the country has been defined by them.” In Bamian, the Taleban regime had even put guards in front of the Buddha statues, organised access for tourists, including selling tickets, while preventing any photos from being taken. It is still not clear what made them change their minds. On 12 February 2001, Clark had broken the story of how the Taleban had secretly smashed statues in Kabul’s National Museum. Jalal denied the story, but refused to allow journalists or diplomats to enter the museum. Concern grew that the Taleban would destroy the colossal statues of the Buddhas at Bamian. Then, on 1 March he said all available forces had been moved five hours previously to carry out the fatwa of the Afghan ulema. Apart from Bamian and the National Museum in Kabul, he explicitly mentioned Herat, Kandahar, Ghazni and Jalalabad.

(In Ghazni, less reported, another important Buddha statue, at Tapa-ye Sardar, was destroyed.) Not much left: The Buddhist stupa at Tapa-ye Sardar in Ghazni, 2005. Photo: Thomas Ruttig. The Taleban’s fatwa caused a worldwide wave of horror and protest. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan got involved. In Paris, Zmaryalai Tarzi – Afghanistan’s chief archaeologist in the 1970s – demanded: “We urgently have to alert world opinion against this unacceptable decision.” Former Afghan king Muhammad Zaher Shah in Rome denounced the fatwa in one of his rare press statements as directed “against the national and historic interests of the Afghan people.” On 1 March, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan dispatched his Personal Representative, Francesc Vendrell, to Kabul. Vendrell, however, did not get any assurances from Taleban foreign minister Ahmad Wakil Mutawakel that the artefacts would be spared. The fact that Jalal announced the implementation of the destruction exactly while Vendrell and Mutawakel were holding negotiations showed that the Taleban gave little importance to the anyone else’s opinion.

They said their attempts to maintain a normal relationship with the outside world had been the only reason that the non-Islamic statues had been kept thus far; with the new UN sanctions adopted in late January this reason was no longer valid. Apart from the ulema, Afghans inside the country were not consulted about the affair (but nor were they about anything). While the Taleban claimed dismissively that their decision had only been rejected “by some intellectuals and artists,” conversations in Afghanistan painted a totally different picture: the author and all his interlocutors had not met a single Afghan who was in favour of the destruction or even indifferent. Indeed, the destruction made their spirits sink: the destruction of important historical monuments destroyed their hope that the Taleban might be ready for political moderation. Clark also reported that it was difficult to find an Afghan who agreed with the Taleban’s destruction of the two ancient statues. Then, (now President) Ashraf Ghani, in an interview with the BBC Pashto Service on the fatwa, described the Taleban as “jahil” (ignorant, in the way humanity was before the coming of Islam). Mullah Omar ordered Clark’s expulsion from the country.

After her expulsion, she said : The destruction of the statues has felt like an attempt to wipe out history. And for a country that has seen so much destruction, this deliberate demolition of something ancient and irreplaceable felt obscene. Jalal had already reported that tanks and rocket launchers were being put to use against the two giant Buddha statues. When this did not work, holes were drilled into the statues, filled with explosives and the two statues blown into pieces. TV footage of the explosions broadcast on al-Jazeera on 19 March 2001 confirmed the destruction of the two colossi. Also destroyed: The third, smaller Buddha statue in Bamian, 2004. Photo: Thomas Ruttig. According to the Vienna-based Afghanistan expert, Professor Max Klimburg, the two monumental Bamian statues from the 3rd and 5th centuries, 55 and 38 metres high, embodied the Buddha Dipankara, the ‘Buddha of the Previous Era’, and the Buddha Shakyamuni, the ‘historical’, ie of the (then) current era.

An Iranian traveller from the 11th century called them the Surkh But (Red Buddha) and Khing (or Khonuk) But (Moon-White or Cold Buddha). In medieval Persian and Turkish sagas, as well as in Bamian itself, the two statues were referred to as Salsal (“the light of the universe”) and Shamana (or Sha(h)mama, “the king’s mother”).(1) and considered as among the wonders of the world for centuries – although on 8 March 2001, The Economist claimed that “almost no one” had heard anything about the “two stone statues until ten days ago.” As French journalist Frédéric Bobin reported in a recent Guardian article , the meaning of the two statues changed further in local legends. Local people had forgotten they were figures of the Buddha and made them into “an allegory for unhappy love, a foreshadow of Romeo and Juliet set in the Hindu Kush. Salsal, prince of Bamiyan, Shamana, a princess from another kingdom.

Their love affair was impossible so, rather than live apart, they turned into stone, beside each other for all eternity.” Bobin also describes the recently invigorated debate whether the two statues could be reconstructed, although experts have repeatedly said that putting the rubble back together would be impossible. The Taleban’s work of destruction cannot be undone. (1) See for example here , in an Afghan source, and in Oxford professor for classics, Llewelyn Morgan’s authoritative 2012 book The Buddhas of Bamiyan: The Wonders of the World . Earlier AAN dispatches about the Bamian Buddhas you can read: “The Destruction of the Bamian Buddhas” (1) and (2) by Thomas Ruttig (28 February 2011) here and here The Death of the Buddhas of Bamiyan | Middle East Institute The Death of the Buddhas of Bamiyan US Government 3 Originally posted December 2009 The 2001 destruction of the two giant Buddhas in Bamiyan is, by far, the most spectacular attack against the historical and cultural heritage of Afghanistan committed during the country’s recent period of turmoil.

On February 26, 2001, and after having consulted a college of ‘ulama’, Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader of the Taliban, issued a decree ordering the elimination of all non-Islamic statues and sanctuaries in Afghanistan. A kind of jihad was launched against the two Buddhas — the one to the east 38 meters high, and the other to the west, 55 meters high — hewn into the cliff of Bamiyan. “Our soldiers are working hard; they are using all available arms against them,” said the Taliban’s spokesman. [1] Rockets and tank shells were brought in to help, and the destruction was completed with dynamite. On March 14, the Taliban issued a public announcement that the giant figures had been destroyed. Mullah Omar’s decree had prompted many attempts by Western countries and moderate Muslim clerics and heads of state from among Afghanistan’s neighbors to convince the Taliban to call off their plans. The need to preserve a cultural heritage and to respect religious tolerance was at the core of this general protest. UNESCO emissaries pleaded in vain that a necessary distinction should be made between idolatry and exemplarity — between a secular admiration and an idolatrous veneration.

Others insisted on the exemplarity of piety, the “lesson of faith,” that these statues could offer to the believers of all religions. In fact, the Taliban’s argument gave these ambassadors of culture no chance of success: “If the statues were objects of cult for an Afghan minority, we would have to respect their belief and its objects, but we don’t have a single Buddhist in Afghanistan,” said the Mullah, “so why preserve false [sic] idols? And if they have no religious character, why get so upset? It is just a question of breaking stones.” [2] Besides the steps taken by UNESCO to save the statues, the MET (New York), as well as some Buddhist states, such as Thailand, Sri Lanka, and even Iran, offered to “buy” the Buddhas. Yet, the victory over the Buddhas could only be won if there were witnesses. This is why journalists were flown to Bamiyan on March 26 to see with their own eyes the gaping openness of the niches, deep into the cliff, where the statues had stood. Prior to that, on March 19, the Taliban had agreed for this one occasion to let Al-Jazeera cameramen witness the final phase of the demolition.

Such an extraordinary attack on religious and cultural emblems led many to speculate about the real intentions of the Mullah. Two kinds of explanation of the Mullah’s astounding decision are possible. The first, based on his and his close collaborators’ explicit argumentation, highlights the Taliban clerics’ conception of Islamic law. The second, a more contextual explanation, takes into account the position of the Taliban regime on the international scene. This point of view is supported by the contradictory statements made by the Taliban since they came to power. In July 1999, three years after the entry of the Mullah’s forces into Kabul, the Taliban Minister of Culture spoke about the respect due to pre-Islamic antiquities and also mentioned the risk of retaliation against mosques in Buddhist countries. He made clear that, though there were no Buddhist believers in Afghanistan, “Bamiyan would not be destroyed but, on the contrary, protected.” [3] The famous February 26 decree appears as a real volte-face since it maintains that “these statues were and are sanctuary for unbelievers” — hence the religious obligation to destroy them.

The assault against the Buddhas seems thus to be an answer to a changing political context, a kind of reprisal against the sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council on the Taliban regime and the refusal of most UN members to recognize the Taliban Emirate. Besides, the Taliban themselves expressed afterwards their indignation and anger at the protest coming from the “West,” which they described as being exclusively concerned with saving “idols” but ignorant of the misery of the Afghans. According to this point of view, Afghan cultural heritage is an indirect victim of the Western countries’ rejection of the Emirate and of their double standard — moved by the destruction of the statues but indifferent to the ordeal of the Afghan people. In the West, the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan has been condemned as an intolerable attack against the whole of humanity’s most precious treasures. The making of the Afghan national heritage with the Buddhas as its jewel is intimately related to the European venture. The first European travellers, who in the 19th century mentioned the gigantic figures in their travelogues, were for the most part secret agents, explorers, and traffickers.

In 1832, Alexander Burnes, an agent of the Indian Political Service, described the “couple of idols” as relics of a past cult. He found them inelegant, even unsightly, and good only for savages and their primitive beliefs. [4] Charles Masson, an Indian Army deserter, while visiting the site in 1833, was the first to recognize the effigy of the Buddha in the figures. He was also the first to admire them. He wrote: “The traveller surveying […] the vast and mysterious idols and the multitude of caves around him will scarcely fail to be absorbed in deep reflection and wonder…” [5] But what about the Afghans? What was their feeling about this “jewel” of their cultural heritage, this Western invention? For many Afghans, the two giant figures, for them a male and a female, were a reminder of the monstrous idols Lât and Manât mentioned in the Qur’an. This being said, the inhabitants of central Afghanistan looked at the Buddhas as a familiar presence, and, in their religious beliefs, as survivors of pre-Islamic times, whose pagan origins were occasionally recalled by the local mullahs.

For most Afghans and for the Taliban, the category “cultural heritage” hardly existed or was, at best, suspicious. More vehement was their protest and more convinced were they that it only reflected a belief — the cult of masterpieces of Art — as illegitimate as that of idol-worshippers. The Taliban’s position precisely revealed their negation that a space for secular veneration could exist, wherein Art would have replaced the God of the monotheists. The worldwide mobilization against the Buddhas’ destruction did not cause the foreign military intervention in autumn of 2001 or the collapse of the Taliban regime. Nevertheless, the Taliban’s iconoclasm surely contributed, in the West, to the de-legitimization of their regime. Meet the Guys Who Helped Blow Up the Famed Bamiyan Buddhas - Vocativ Meet the Guys Who Helped Blow Up the Famed Bamiyan Buddhas By Ali M. Latifi Nov 13, 2014 at 11:43 AM ET BAMIYAN, AFGHANISTAN—Sayed Merza Hossain crouches on a dirt and gravel hill.

Behind him is the maze of steel pipes and stacked wood boards from the scaffolding that fills the gaping hole left by the massive ancient Buddha statues he says the Taliban forced him to blow up more than a decade ago. The 40-year-old, who now works as a bicycle repairman in the local market, says he regrets what he did as a Taliban prisoner over the course of 25 days in March 2001, and yet he’s almost eager to recount the story of how the statues, carved into the limestone cliffs back in the fourth and fifth centuries, were erased from the face of the earth. Screen grab from a CNN video showing the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan being destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. In fact, he has the story down to an art. “Meet me in front of the [larger] Buddha at 4 p.m. The light will be perfect for your footage,” he tells me when I asked to interview him in July. As he recounts a story he has told countless times, Hossain stares straight out into the potato field-covered valley ahead. Only rarely, when he needs to convey the magnitude of what happened, does he turn to face the vacant niche behind him.

“Half of my home, my country, was destroyed.” It’s a reference to the statues that for centuries looked out onto the province, but it could also speak to the many conflicts that have ravaged Bamiyan. They span Genghis Khan’s brutal takeover of the now-ruined citadel city of Gholghola, the jihad against Soviet occupation, the civil war that followed, the rise of the Taliban and the U.S.-led invasion of 2001. UNESCO declared Bamiyan a World Heritage Site in 2003, but efforts to rebuild the Buddhas have stalled in part because so little of the original statues remains. There’s hardly any doubt that the Taliban orchestrated the demolition of the Buddhas in a quest to rid the world of any religious symbols that weren’t Islamic. But how they actually did it during those few weeks in 2001 has always been something of a mystery. I had heard countless secondhand tales over the years. But this summer and fall, I went to Bamiyan to try to piece together the story myself. While there, I found several people who claimed to have played a role in blowing up the statues.

Over the course of 10 days, each told his own Rashomon-like tale. As with any mystery, as some things became clearer, others became murkier. Hossain describes a decades-long familiarity with what were once the world’s tallest standing Buddha statues, at 150 feet and 120 feet, carved directly from the majestic cliffs, with a coating of paint applied to their heads to enhance their facial expressions. He recalls the three-hour walk from his home village to the weekly market in front of the monuments. Sayed Merza Hossain sits in front of the scaffolding. Ali M Latifi It was during those trips that he saw foreign tourists from then-Soviet states, as well as Germany and Japan. “We had a sense that these must be important symbols in the world that people from so far away would spend their money to see them,” Hossain says. During the decades of violent conflict in Afghanistan, war and poverty forced Hossain to take residence in the small caves that dot the cliffs between the two statues. In those years, two of Hossain’s children, aged 3 and 7, died from cold and hunger.

He says he buried them near the same dirt paths along which he later carried the explosives that ultimately blew up the Buddhas. In 1998, Hossain says, the Taliban arrested him. “My only crime was being a Hazara,” he says of his capture. “They would say: ‘They are Hazaras. They are infidels. They worship Buddhas.’” Throughout much of Afghan history, the Hazara, an ethnic group that makes up the majority of Bamiyan’s population, were persecuted and made into the servant class of a mainly Pashtun elite. For three years, he says, he was detained in a single room with 110 other mainly Hazara prisoners. He says he saw a fellow prisoner suffer a heart attack as he was lifted by a rope to plant explosives at the head of the statue. Others I spoke with also remember a distinct hatred among the Taliban for the Hazara people. This anger, says Janan Attahi, a Tajik day laborer in his mid-40s, was in response to the slaughter of dozens of captured Taliban prisoners by Hezb-e Wahdat, a Hazara-led militia.

“When they came to Bamiyan, the Taliban said to the Tajik people: ‘Find us an Hazara and we will give you 1, 2 million Afghanis so they could kill them,” says Attahi. “They would kill Hazaras for sport—it became like a game for them.” Soldiers belonging to Shiite faction Hizb-i-Wahdat on patrol in 1997 in front of the Buddha statues. The Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, ordered the destruction of all statues in the country in 2001. AFP/Getty Images/Jean-Claude CHAPON Yet Attahi doesn’t buy the prison part of Hossain’s story. He says it doesn’t make sense, given how the Taliban loathed the Hazara. “Imagine them keeping and feeding more than 100 Hazaras in prison for several years,” he says. Though it appeared that Hossain may have been embellishing some things to play to his audience—and earn bigger tips—other accounts seem to back up some details of his story. The Taliban had initially fired at the statues with everything from assault rifles to stinger missiles and RPGS, all to little effect.

Then, Hossain says, he and others were forced to plant explosives at the base of the statues. “The first explosion set the whole area on fire, but it only cut off two of the legs,” he says of the larger Buddha. The few Afghan Taliban remaining at the site then got the help of foreigners, who launched rockets and canons at the Buddhas, Hossain says. Like so many other Bamiyanis I’ve spoken to over the years, Hossain insists it was Arabs in “long robes” who oversaw the destruction of the Afghan monuments. “These were foreigners, speaking different languages, who ruined our historical site,” he says. Abol Karim, who lived nearby, was 17 when the Taliban made him and 80 others raze the smaller of the two statues. Having seen his cousin killed in plain sight by the Taliban, Karim tells me he knew he had little choice when they rounded him up for an unknown task. Karim also recalls the heavy foreign presence at the site of the smaller Buddha.

“There were definitely [Pakistani] Punjabis among them.” Specifically, Karim tells of a mullah who “drove around in a red car” and spoke only Urdu, the national language of Pakistan. Nader (who asked to go by one name) says he was part of a similar roundup, and worked from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the site as part of the demolition crew. “They took us in Datsuns to help them bring the explosives, then we would dig the holes that they would be planted in.” In those nine hours, Nader says he saw no prisoners, but distinctly remembered the foreign advisers. For one former Taliban official, though, the men’s stories are the same old propaganda espoused by Hazara bitter over losing control of Bamiyan when the Taliban arrived. Waheed Mozhdah, a former official in the Taliban Foreign Ministry, rejects the idea that the Taliban mistreated Hazara or that they imported foreigners to help blow up the statues.

He tells Vocativ that it was Sherin Agha Salangi, an Afghan with “experience in explosives,” who advised the Taliban “on how best to destroy the Buddhas.” As my interview with Hossain comes to an end, an old man, dressed in the traditional piran tomban, climbs to the hill we’re sitting on and asks simply: “Is this the way to the Buddha statues?” The man, who’s in his 60s, says he packed his clothes in a black trash bag and made the six-hour journey from Kabul to see the statues. After Hossain drives off on his motorcycle, the man comes back down the hill. “As a child, I had heard about these statues. I told myself one day, before my life is over, I will go to see them. I only wish I could have seen them as they were.” Bamiyan Buddhas: 2001 2001 Even though the statues have been targets of iconoclasts, the Buddhas have also been a treasured part of the area, even by Islamic leaders.

In 1999 Mullah Mohammad Omar even stated that since there was no longer a Buddhist population within Afghanistan that would be worshipping the statues, they should be protected. He acknowledged the possibility for great financial gain that the Buddhas could provide for the region from travelers and researchers. Only two years later, the statues were destroyed after a complete reversal in the Afghani opinion on the subject. The Taliban government had begun to outlaw all forms of entertainment and figural decoration at least a year before the destruction of the Buddhas. Finally in March of 2001, an official decree was issued by the Talibani government: "Based on the verdict of the clergymen and the decision of the Supreme Court of the Islamic Emirate (Taliban) all the statues around Afghanistan must be destroyed. All the statues in the country should be destroyed because these statues have been used as idols and deities by the non-believers before. They are respected now and may be turned into idols in future too. Only Allah, the Almighty, deserves to be worshipped, not anyone or anything else." The Buddhas were soon destroyed after a month long bombing of the statues.

Images courtesy BuddhismToday.com , CNN.com and UNESCO.org After 1,700 years, Buddhas fall to Taliban dynamite - Telegraph After 1,700 years, Buddhas fall to Taliban dynamite By Ahmed Rashid in Islamabad 12:00AM GMT 12 Mar 2001 THE world's two largest standing Buddhas - one of them 165ft high - were blown up by the Taliban in Afghanistan at the weekend. A Buddha of Bamiyan statue stands over 150 feet high above a small town situated at the foot of the Hindu Kush mountains of central Afghanistan, prior to its destruction After failing to destroy the 1,700-year-old sandstone statues of Buddha with anti-aircraft and tank fire , the Taliban brought a lorryload of dynamite from Kabul. A Western observer said: "They drilled holes into the torsos of the two statues and then placed dynamite charges inside the holes to blow them up." The operation to wreck the statues carved into a cliff in the Bamiyan Valley in the Hindu Kush mountains of central Afghanistan was supervised by Mullah Obaidullah, the Taliban defence minister.

There has been an international outcry since Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban leader, issued a special edict on Feb 26 ordering the destruction of all non-Islamic statues. Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General, had pleaded with the Taliban's foreign minister, Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, in Islamabad yesterday to save Afghanistan's cultural heritage. He was told that all other "moveable statues" - including more than a dozen smaller Buddha statues in the Kabul Museum - had also been destroyed. Related Articles Treasures survived centuries of war 12 Mar 2001 Mr Annan, who spent half an hour with Mullah Wakil during the first leg of his South Asia tour, showed dismay and frustration while talking to reporters. He said: "They will be doing themselves a great deal of disservice and no religious leaders from the Islamic world have supported the edict. I told them you have to respect what is sacred to others." Mr Annan added that it was "not going to be easier now to raise money" from the international community for the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Afghanistan. More than one million people have been displaced by the fighting and drought.

But, no government has told me categorically that they would not help the desperate people of Afghanistan." Mullah Wakil said the work of destroying the Bamiyan cliff statues had started already, "but they are very tough ones".But his mention of steel rods and cement walls which were erected in the 1930s to bolster the back of the standing Buddhas and which are now exposed made it clear that the frontal part of the statues had been blown up. Mullah Wakil insisted that the edict was an internal matter for Afghanistan and had been "excessively exagerrated in the outside world and the media". He said the Taliban had no intention to disrespect any other religion. "We do admit the relics were the cultural heritage of Afghanistan, but the part that contradicts our Islamic beliefs we would not like to have them any more." Mullah Wakil said the edict had been under discussion by the Taliban authorities for more than a year and did not permit the removal of the statues to other countries - which Japan, India and New York's Metropolitan Museum had offered to do.

He said the Taliban would rebuild the Kabul Museum to show off the remaining historical objects, which do not represent living things, which are forbidden according to the Taliban's harsh interpretation of Islam. The destruction of the statues is almost certain to lead to even greater condemnation and the isolation of the Taliban by the international community. In January, the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on the Taliban. Over World Protests, Taliban Are Destroying Ancient Buddhas - The New York Times The New York Times World |Over World Protests, Taliban Are Destroying Ancient Buddhas Search Continue reading the main story Correction Appended The Great Buddhas of Bamiyan priceless artifacts that 800 years ago survived the wrathful cannon fire of Genghis Khan -- are being steadfastly destroyed bit by bit with hammers, spades and explosives, Afghanistan's Taliban militia stated officially today for the first time. ''The head and legs of the Buddha statues in Bamiyan were destroyed yesterday,'' Mawlawi Qudratullah Jamal, the Taliban's minister of information and culture, told reporters in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital. ''Our soldiers are working hard to demolish the remaining parts.

They will come down soon.'' He said he anticipated no difficulties: ''It is easier to destroy than to build.'' Last Monday, Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban's supreme leader, issued a surprise edict that ordered the destruction of all statues. ''These idols have been gods of the infidels,'' declared the mullah, a one-eyed recluse who is better known in Afghanistan as Amir-ul Momineen, the commander of the faithful. The Taliban, who practice a stern interpretation of Islam, have controlled most of the nation since 1996 -- and hold about 90 percent now. They have become notorious for many of their dictums, among them the head-to-toe sheathing of women, the refusal to provide education for girls, and the imprisonment of men who trim their beards. Continue reading the main story But until this week, statuary had been spared. ''It is not a big issue,'' Mr. Jamal said today of the ban. ''The statues are objects only made of mud or stone.'' But most of the world has reacted otherwise. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Afghanistan has been a crossroads of Europe, India and China.

Great conquerors have come through its mountains, as have traders, ideas and religions. Islam supplanted Buddhism more than 1,000 years ago. While most of Afghanistan's art treasures have been looted over the years, many objects of value remain. Certainly, no one has been able to carry off the towering Buddhas of the city of Bamiyan, which is about 90 miles west of Kabul. The mammoth figures are hewn from sandstone and embedded in a cliff. One is 175 feet high, the other 120 feet. Both are at least 1,500 years old, and are considered among the greatest pieces of early Buddhist art. After Mullah Omar's announcement, people from all over the world have been arguing for the statuary's reprieve. Preservationists have voiced outrage, museums have made offers. Buddhists have pleaded for religious tolerance. Muslims have argued that the Taliban are mistaken in their narrow interpretations of the Koran. Today, Mr. Jamal, the information minister, effectively told the world to mind its own business. However much the uproar, the ''implementation of the decree will not be delayed,'' he said.

Besides, the world ''knows that they cannot have a say in this'' because other nations are ''not kind'' to Afghanistan. Indeed, only three countries -- Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government. But even those three have been disapproving this past week. Pakistan has protested the decree. Unesco's Arab group, which includes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, has described the demolition plans as ''savage.'' A special representative of Unesco, Pierre Lafrance, met with the Taliban's ambassador in Pakistan today and was quoted as saying afterward that he saw ''a glimmer of hope.'' He hopes to go to Afghanistan on Sunday. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy Accompanying the world's outrage is its puzzlement. The Taliban crave recognition. But instead of acknowledgment from the United Nations, the Taliban have received sanctions, in part as punishment for hospitality given to the alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden. Advertisement Continue reading the main story In recent weeks, however, the Taliban had taken a remarkable step to get out of the dog house.

Mullah Omar banned the growing of poppies, used in making heroin. Afghanistan is the largest poppy producer and the Taliban's tax on it is a major source of income. Though the commander of the faithful had issued similar decrees before, this one seemed accompanied by the Taliban's enforcement. Drug control officers for the United Nations have reported that the poppy yield has been virtually eliminated. The sacrifice of the poppy crop was no small thing. The timing could not have been worse for Afghan farmers, many of whom have already left their land because of a catastrophic three-year drought. More than 700,000 Afghans have left their homes since the fall, according to aid groups. Nearly a million people are at risk of starvation, according to the United Nations. Afghanistan badly needs help, and the Taliban have been making appeals. However, the destruction of irreplaceable religious relics would hardly seem to enhance sympathy. ''What kind of people would destroy the heritage of mankind?'' asked Rakhaldas Sengupta, 75, a retired archaeologist in New Delhi. In 1969, he became head of an Indo-Afghan team to restore the Great Buddhas of Bamiyan.

They were crumbling from age. And, over the centuries, they had taken substantial abuse. The Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan ordered a cannon attack. ''One of the Buddhas suffered a broken right leg below the knee and took a shot to the left leg up to the thigh,'' Mr. Sengupta said. In the 17th century, the Moghul emperor Aurangzeb ordered an attack on the Buddhas. ''Parts of the wooden frame were burned, and there was damage to the upper part of the face and the lower lip and the hands,'' Mr. Sengupta said. Advertisement Continue reading the main story In 1998, according to Ahmed Rashid, an author and an expert on the Taliban, just after occupying Bamiyan, they blew the face off the smaller Buddha with dynamite and fired rockets into its groin. ''The Buddhas have lived through great damage and still survived,'' said Mr. Sengupta. ''Some things can be restored.

But if they are brought down in chunks and then ground into bits, what will be there left to do?'' Correction: March 8, 2001, Thursday An article on Sunday about the destruction of ancient statues of Buddha by the Taliban, the militant Islamic movement that rules Afghanistan, referred incorrectly to an earlier effort to destroy them, in Genghis Khan's time. He did not use cannon fire; cannons were not developed and used in warfare until many decades after his death, in 1227. Bamiyan Buddhas | South Asia (article) | Khan Academy Bamiyan Buddhas Email West Buddha, c. 6th-7th c C.E., stone, stucco, painted, 175 feet high, Bamiyan, Afghanistan, destroyed 2001 (photo: © Afghanistan Embassy) West Buddha surrounded by caves, c.

6th-7th c C.E., stone, stucco, paint, 175 feet high, Bamiyan, Afghanistan, destroyed 2001 (photo: © Afghanistan Embassy ) Prior to their recent destruction, the 6th-7th century, rock-cut Buddha sculptures in the Bamiyan Valley of central Afghanistan were considered the largest in the world. Known collectively as the Bamiyan Buddhas, the two monumental sculptures have amazed both Buddhist and non-Buddhist visitors for more than a thousand years. Like many of the world’s great ancient monuments, little is known about who commissioned the Bamiyan Buddhas or the sculptors who carved them. However, their very existence points to the importance of the Buddhist faith and the Bamiyan Valley during this period. Buddhism along the Silk Route Bamiyan is located between the Indian subcontinent (to the southeast) and Central Asia (to the north), which made it an important location close to one of the most important branches of the Silk Route. The Silk Route was an ancient series of linked trade routes that connected the East to the West and carried both material wealth and ideas.

Bamiyan’s central location along the Silk Route, along with its fertile plains amid harsh terrain, made it an ideal location for merchants and missionaries to stop during their travels. Many of the missionaries and merchants in this area during the middle of the first millennium were practitioners of the Buddhist faith. Buddhism had long been an important religion in the region, having been introduced during the early Kushan period. The Kushan Empire controlled the region that now consists of Afghanistan, Pakistan, northern India and parts of China. It lasted from the 2nd century B.C.E. until the 3rd century C.E. Map showing Bamiyan and contemporary contiguous nations Map showing Bamiyan and contemporary contiguous nations Buddhism spread, in part, because it was not location specific. Believers did not need to worship at a particular temple or at a particular site as part of their practice. Worship could take place anywhere and at anytime. This freedom resulted in the emergence of Buddhist cave architecture throughout Asia. Indeed, if one visits Bamiyan today, one will see nearly 1000 Buddhist caves carved along 1300 meters of cliff face.[1] It is against this backdrop of carved caves that the two monumental Buddha images were carved.

Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley (photo: © UNESCO/G. Gonzales Brigas) Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley (photo: © UNESCO/G. Gonzales Brigas ) Monumental Buddhas Prior to their destruction in 2001, two monumental Buddha sculptures could be seen carved into the cliff facing the Bamiyan Valley. The larger of the two figures, located on the western end (on the right in the photo above), measured 175 feet in height. The art historian Susan Huntington has argued that it represented the Buddha Vairochana. The smaller of the two monumental statues, located to the east, depicted the Buddha Shakyamuni. This figure was also enormous and measured 120 feet in height. [Explain the Buddhas Vairochana and Shakyamuni] Vairochana is the celestial or transcendent Buddha. Shakyamuni, also called Siddhārtha Gautama, is the historical Buddha who is believed to have lived sometime between the sixth and fourth centuries B.C.E. Both images were carved into niches of the cliff side in high relief.

The area near the heads of both Buddha figures and the area around the larger Buddha’s feet were carved in the round, allowing worshippers to circumambulate. Circumambulation, which is the act of walking around an object such as a stupa (a reliquary mound) or an image of the Buddha, is a common practice in Buddhist worship. Plan of larger Buddha showing feet carved in the round and smaller cave chapels (Godard, Godard, and Hackin, Les Antiquites Bouddhiques de Bamiyan, Paris and Brussels: les Editions G. Van Oest, 1928, fig. 18 Plan of larger Buddha showing feet carved in the round and smaller cave chapels (Godard, Godard, and Hackin, Les Antiquites Bouddhiques de Bamiyan, Paris and Brussels: les Editions G. Van Oest, 1928, fig. 18 The two large Buddha images reflected the international environment of the Bamiyan Valley and were influenced by the art and cultures of India, Central Asia and even ancient Greek culture. For example, both Buddhas wore flowing robes and have been described as having wavy curls of hair.

This hairstyle and the flowing drapery are elements rooted in early Gandharan Buddhist imagery that combined Hellenistic Greek traditions of representation with Indian subject matter.[2] [Explain Gandhara] Gandhara was the name of a region of Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan that was conquered by Alexander the Great in 330 B.C.E. Alexander vastly expanded the Greek Empire and introduced Classical art and culture to the regions he controlled. This Hellenistic influence was adopted by the Buddhist artists of Gandhara and influenced representation there for hundreds of years. East Buddha (detail with drapery in 1975), c. 6th-7th c C.E., stone, stucco, painted, 120 feet high, Bamiyan, Afghanistan, destroyed 2001 (photo: Pierre Le Bigot , CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) East Buddha (detail with drapery in 1975), c.

6th-7th c C.E., stone, stucco, painted, 120 feet high, Bamiyan, Afghanistan, destroyed 2001 (photo: Pierre Le Bigot , CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Heavenly deities Much of what we know about the monumental Buddha sculptures comes from the Chinese monk Xuanzang (Hsuan-Tsang) who traveled to Bamiyan in 643 and documented his travels in the text The Great Tang Records of the Western Regions (Da Tang Xiyu Ji). As the earliest text describing the Buddha images, Xuanzang’s writings provide us with remarkable descriptions of the sculptures and the vibrant communities that inhabited the region. He wrote: When merchants coming and going happen to witness visions of heavenly deities, whether as good omens or as predictions of disaster, they worship the deities to pray for blessedness. There are several tens of monasteries with several thousand monks, who follow the Hinayana teachings of the Lokottaravada school.

To the northeast of the city, there is at a corner of the mountains a rock statue of the Buddha standing, one hundred forty or fifty feet in height, a dazzling golden color and adorned with brilliant gems. To the east there is a monastery built by a previous king of the country. To the east of the monastery there is a copper statue of the Buddha standing, more than one hundred feet tall. It was cast in separate pieces and then welded together into shape.[3] East Buddha, c. 6th-7th c C.E., stone, stucco, painted, 120 feet high, Bamiyan, Afghanistan, destroyed 2001 (photo: © Dr. H. Crane) East Buddha, c. 6th-7th c C.E., stone, stucco, painted, 120 feet high, Bamiyan, Afghanistan, destroyed 2001 (photo: © Dr. H. Crane ) Xuanzang’s descriptions of the Buddhas provide us great insight into not only what they might have looked like in the 7th century but also how they were engaged with the community around them.

Perhaps most surprising to our modern experience with Buddha imagery is that the monumental rock-cut sculptures are described by Xuanzang as being adorned with metal, color, and gems—not stripped down as we often see them in museums and galleries. Scholars agree that both images were covered in pigments of various hues so that they appeared to be made of metal and other materials, but that they were not cast entirely of “copper” as Xuanzang suggests of the smaller Buddha image. However, scholars such as Deborah Klimburg-Salter have argued that both of the monumental Buddhas’ faces were constructed of masks made of wood clad by a thin layer of brass, which were inserted onto ledges that appeared above the lower lips of both images.[4] Finbarr Barry Flood argues that the cuts to the faces were a later iconoclastic act.[5] [Explain iconoclasm] Iconoclasm comes from Greek and means to break images. There is a long tragic history of the willful destruction of art work for short-term political gain, often under the guise of religious belief.

Major iconoclastic spasms include the Byzantine Iconoclasms of the 8th and 9th centuries, the destruction of Catholic artwork during the Protestant Reformation and later during the French Revolution, and most recently, the crimes committed by ISIL against the people and the cultural heritage of Iraq and Syria. While there is debate over the material and treatment of the Buddha’s faces, we know that pigments were applied to the stucco that covered the stone surfaces of the sculptures. Stucco helped to even out the textured rock surface. One can imagine what a powerful impression these monumental Buddhas would have made on passersby and worshippers. West niche, c. 6th-7th c C.E., stone, stucco, paint, Bamiyan, Afghanistan, Buddha destroyed 2001 (photo: Carlos Ugarte, CC BY-NC 2.0) West niche, c.

6th-7th c C.E., stone, stucco, paint, Bamiyan, Afghanistan, Buddha destroyed 2001 (photo: Carlos Ugarte , CC BY-NC 2.0) Destruction Mullah Omar ordered Taliban forces to demolish the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001. The destruction was complete. Only outlines of the figures and a few details remain. The direction to destroy the Buddha images was motivated, in part, by the Taliban’s extreme iconoclastic campaign as well as their disdain for western interest and funding that had gone to protecting the images while there was an intense and growing need for humanitarian aid in the region. The Taliban’s claim that destroying the Buddha sculptures was an Islamic act is belied by the fact that Bamiyan had become predominantly Muslim by the 10th century and that the sculptures had up until 2001 remained a largely intact. The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas was a huge loss for our understanding of human history. However, even in darkness light has a way of emerging.

Since their destruction several new discoveries have been made near the sites of the Bamiyan Buddhas including the discovery of fragments of a 62-foot long reclining Buddha. Essay by Dr. Melody Rod-ari [1] Takayasu Higuchi and Gina Barnes, “Bamiyan: Buddhist Cave Temples in Afghanistan,” World Archaeology, vol. 27, no. 2, Buddhist Archaeology (Oct., 1995), pp. 282-302. [2] Llewelyn Morgan, Buddhas of Bamiyan: Wonders of the World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), p. 7. [3] Xuanzang, The Great Tang Dynasty Record of the Western Regions, translated Li Rongxi (Berkeley, CA: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 1996), p. 38.

[4] Deborah Klimburg-Salter, The Kingdom of Bamiyan: Buddhist Art and Culture of the Hindu Kush (Naples and Rome: Instituto Universitario Orientale and Instituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1989), 87-92. [5] Finbarr Barry Flood, “Between Cult and Culture: Bamiyan, Islamic Iconoclasm, and the Museum,” Art Bulletin, vol. LXXXIV, Number 4 (December 2002), p. 648. Additional resources:

Question: In which country were the Bamiyan Buddhas destroyed in 2001?
Answer: Afghanistan