Prior
to 1998, single-most iconic symbol of rural and untouched
Afghanistan, was a pair of giant Buddha statues that stood in their
hillside niches near a beautiful rustic place, Bamiyan. An ancient
traveller mentions that if heaven is to be ever found on Earth, it
would be in Bamiyan only. The distant snow covered peaks from north
and south, surrounding grayish-brownish mountain ranges with razor
cut vertical cliffs from all sides and right in the middle a
refreshing green river basin, which itself is at an height of 8000
feet, is how Bamiyan can be described. The river, the
greenish-yellowish fields on both the banks, dotted with earthen
forts make the landscape stunningly beautiful and picturesque and
make it look as if a model has been laid out. It is said that
whenever anyone entered the Bamiyan valley, his mind automatically
felt detached from the problems of his world. This probably was the
reason why Buddhist monks were attracted to Bamiyan in the first
place.
No one
precisely knows, when the Bamiyan Buddhas were carved out of the
hillside. The archeologists now believe with the application of new
carbon dating method that smaller image of the two was carved out in
507 CE and larger image was carved in 554 CE. In the year 632 CE, a
learned Chinese monk made a journey by land from China to India in
search of the original Buddhist scriptures and teachings. His name
was Xuan Zang and he had believed that true Buddhist religion was
being practiced only in India. He stayed at the Nalanda university,
in present day Bihar state of India and had completed his learning of
the true religion as per his belief. Every one knows this part of the
history, yet very few understand that Xuan Zang's travelogues are
perhaps our only guide books about the political, social and
religious conditions of this region in those times. Xuan Zang had
traveled to India by a route passing through present day Afghanistan.
Being a Buddhist monk, he had considered that traveling through a
particular region of present day Afghanistan was of paramount
importance to him. This region was located to the south of the state
of Bactria and part of the Hindukush mountain ranges and was known as
Bamiyan. To visit Bamiyan and pay his respects to the Huge Buddha
statues there, was of utmost importance to him. Xuen Zang has left
detailed description about Bamiyan and the huge Buddha statues there
in his travelogues.
As per
Xuan Zang's description, there were three images of Buddha. Two
standing images and a third image of sleeping Buddha at the base.
This sleeping Buddha was 1000 feet long. This third image however
finds no mention in subsequent history anywhere. The smaller standing
image on left was 114 feet high and the taller image on right was 165
feet high. These images were not completely carved out of stone.
Their shapes were roughly carved out and subsequently a cement formed
by grinding earth, hay and horse's hair together with some binder was
applied all over the rough images to give final shape to the image. A
coat of paint was given over the cement coating layer. Afghanistan's
extremely dry weather had ensured that this cement coating and the
paint layer would have a long life that can survive for centuries.
The larger Buddha image was painted in blood red colour, whereas the
smaller image was painted in multicolours. Xuan Zang says that the
smaller image was painted golden. The apparel worn by Buddha in these
images had a distinct Greek touch. Experts have said that it was
obviously seen that both images were influenced by the Gandhar, Greek
and Persian sculpture. On both sides of the rock cut cave or shelter,
in which the Buddha images were sculptured, there were many small
cave like structures cut in the wall. Wall painting similar to
Ajintha caves were painted on the walls of these caves. With this
decoration, the Buddha images and the entire scene looked very
majestic and grand.
The
calm and quiet of the affluent Bamiyan was destroyed for the first
time in 1272 when great conqueror Genghis Khan sent a small army led
by his grandson to capture Bamiyan. In the ensuing battle, the
grandson was hit by an arrow and died. After learning about this,
Genghis Khan was so angry that he sent his army to Bamiyan with
orders that no human or animal should survive the onslaught. The
signs and remnants of the total ruin and destruction brought about,
are still visble in form of some of the ruined forts. Luckily,
Genghis Khan's soldiers were scared of touching the Buddha images and
these were saved.
In the
fifteenth century, then Amir of Afghanistan, Babur loved the beauty
of Bamiyan and made efforts to bring back old glory to Bamiyan.
However, since the silk route trade had diminished then, Bamiyan
remained in the backgrounds. When Mughal king Aurangjeb came to
power in Delhi, he tried to disfigure Bamiyan Buddhas. Luckily again
his soldiers were not able to achieve much, except for slight
disfigurement of the Buddha faces.
After
these historic attempts to destroy the giant statues failed, Bamiyan
Buddhas were left in relative peace till 1998, when another band of
Muslim fanatics known as Taliban, captured power in Afghanistan and
decided to demolish the Buddha statues. Taliban cadres were keen to
destroy Bamiyan ever since 1998. Initially Taliban destroyed many
small Buddha images carved in small caves on both sides of major
Buddha images. The history lovers from all over world requested
Afghanistan Taliban not to destroy Bamiyan Buddhas and make the world
loose one of its historic monuments. This was of no avail. Finally in
February 2001, Chief of Taliban in Afghanistan, Mulla Umar gave
orders to destroy Bamyan Buddhas. In March 2001, Taliban planted
powerful mines near the Buddha images and both the images were
destroyed and big heaps of crushed stone and loose earth was all that
remained of Bamiyan Buddhas.
In
2003, United nations declared Bamiyan as a world heritage site and
efforts were started to save whatever remained at Bamiyan. This also
means that any modifications to the face of the cliff would, in
practice, have to be approved by UNESCO's Expert Working Group. A
controversy has now arisen, whether to re build the giant statues or
just maintain the caves or niches, in which giant statues once stood.
In
1970, before Taliban had destroyed the statues, Indian conservators
had re-built the giant feet of the statues, to replace the missing
originals. Last year, German conservators doing stabilisation work on
the eastern niche, quietly began building pillars to support the
stonework and protect visitors from potential collapse. However, what
they had built looked looked much like the feet built earlier by
Indians. When UNESCO discovered, what was happening, it immediately
asked the Afghan government to order the work suspended.
Germans
are however not convinced. German branch of the International Council
on Monuments and Sites, was awarded the contract by UNESCO to do much
of the conservation work on site. Michael Petzet, an archaeologist,
is the president of this German organization. He says making no
secret of his intent: "These feet, it was only the idea for the
safety of the whole structure,and maybe in the future if the Afghan
government wants to make a little bit more, they can build upon
this."
Brendan
Cassar, Chief of Cultural Heritage, is the UNESCO's culture
specialist in Afghanistan. He disagrees with what Michael Petzet
says. In support of his argument, Casser says:
"Our
priority has been to stabilise iconic elements of the World Heritage
site that are unstable. The point is, a very small percentage of the
surface remains, some pieces are the size of a car and some a grain
of sand." In addition, the type of sandstone from which the
Buddhas were carved is highly unstable. He feels that one can not go
to step 10 unless steps 1 to 9 are addressed, to make a good
restoration. There is also a problem of availability of funds.
Pledges from donors to fund even the basic work have fallen short by
at least $700,000.
Afghanistan
Government wants that at least the smaller statue of the two should
be re-built. According to Abdul Ahad Abassi, head of monuments for
the Afghan culture ministry, the Government has formally requested
that the smaller Buddha be rebuilt, and UNESCO's World Heritage
Committee is studying the issue. Abdullah Mahmoodi, of the Bamiyan
Tourism Association says: “I say rebuild one of them to attract
tourists, particularly from Buddhist countries like Japan and South
Korea. One ( empty niche) should remain like that to remind people
what the Taliban did. The best way to protect our monuments is to
make them valuable again."
With
opinions so passionately split, Bamiyan Buddhas are unlikely to
re-emerge from the heaps of rubble.
25th
March 2014
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