Let’s start with some background. First of all, I guess many people would have been surprised to hear that there were such Buddha images in Afghanistan, which has been an Islamic country for around a thousand years. But of course it was not always so.

From very early times, Afghanistan was an important staging post on the great Silk Road, the trade route along which goods travelled back and forth, from China in the East to the Mediterranean world in the West, and points in between. Unless merchants travelled by sea, there was no other choice than to go through the mountain passes of Afghanistan. As a result of the rich traffic passing through it, this area became prosperous and came in time to sustain a rich and complex civilisation. What’s more, the area was exposed to new ideas that came from the distant East and West, brought by the merchants and other travellers who used the Silk Road.

It is not known exactly when Buddhism was first introduced to this area. But it is known that Buddhism expanded from its origins in northern India along the trade routes, so it is quite possible that Buddhism was established in a small way in this area within the first few centuries after the passing away of the Buddha. We also know from the historical records that this was one of the regions to which the great Mauryan emperor Asoka sent missionaries to spread Buddhism. This was during the 3^rd century BCE. By this time, the region had come under the rule of Greek kings, following the conquests of the Macedonian Greek conqueror Alexander the Great, and the area was known as Bactria. So in terms of the world history of Buddhism, this is very early, only around two hundred years after the Buddha’s parinibbana and around the same time as Buddhism reached southern India and Sri Lanka.

Although Buddhism does not seem to have been adopted as a state religion by the Greek kings of Bactria, they appear to have been interested in Buddhist philosophy. We have evidence for this in the famous Pali text Milindapanha, which is usually rendered in English as the Questions of King Milinda or the Debate of King Milinda. This records a dialogue between the Greek king Menander (Milinda in Pali) and the Buddhist monk Nagasena, in which the sceptical king is convinced by the soundness of the monk’s answers to his questions. It is clear that Buddhism flourished during this period, particularly in the area known as Gandhara, nowadays east Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. In fact, the kings of this region tolerated a diversity of religious belief and practice within their realms, and there is archaeological and historical evidence that Zoroastrianism and Hinduism, among other religions, also thrived during this period.

This cultural, philosophical and religious melting pot led to the development of a distinctive art style, known as the art of Gandhara. Greek influence on this art style was very strong. This art from emerged just as the first images of the Buddha in human form began to appear. Prior to this, the Buddha had been represented only in symbolic form through symbols such as the empty throne, the pair of footprints, and the wheel. It could be that the very first images of the Buddha in human form were made in what is now Afghanistan, or neighbouring countries, during the Gandhara period, although this is open to debate.

Many beautiful Buddha images have survived from this period, but the Buddhas of Bamiyan have always stood out because of their sheer size and their spectacular setting. These two giant Buddha images are located in the Bamiyan valley, around 230 kilometres northwest of Kabul, at an altitude of around 2500 metres. This is a very high altitude, at least by Australian standards, as the highest peak in Australia is Mt Kosciusko at only 2228 metres.

This valley was very important in ancient times, as caravans travelling the Silk Road generally made a stop here to rest and obtain supplies of food and water. The Buddha images were carved out of the rock in the sheer cliff walls surrounding the valley, probably around the 4^th or 5^th centuries CE. This would be around 600-700 years after Buddhism had first filtered into this area, so by this time Buddhism and become a mature and established part of the cultural landscape, although as noted above it was by no means the only religion practiced in this diverse and complex civilisation.

The images are very large, one standing at a height of 53 metres and the other at 38 metres. The general shape was hewn from the rock in the cliff wall, but the details such as the expression of the face, the hands, and some of the folds of the robes, were modelled from a mixture of mud and straw. This was allowed to dry in the baking sun, then covered with plaster, and the whole surface was then painted. The smaller Buddha had originally been painted blue, and the larger had been painted red. Both had the hands and faces had been painted in gold. In each case, the statues depicted the Buddha standing and displaying the hand gesture (mudra) conveying reassurance. One can imagine that they were a spectacular and comforting sight to the many travellers who came through this area.

The cliff faces surrounding the valley were honeycombed with cells hewn out of the rock, small dwelling places for monks and other holy persons who came to meditate and practice in this area. These cells stretch for 6 or 7 miles in either direction on both sides of the giant Buddha statues. Originally, there were beautiful frescoes on the cliff walls surrounding the giant Buddha images, but these have all but disappeared and only traces remain. They were lost in large part because the effects of time and the weather, but in part they were destroyed by iconoclasts at various times as wave after wave of invaders took control of the strategically located valley.

So it is important to remember that the Buddha images and the surrounding holy places have been subjected to damage for many centuries, long before the Taliban came along. Some parts of the faces of the Buddha statues had disappeared long ago, and we cannot be sure how much of this was due to damage caused by invaders, and how much was simply due to the effects of time and the weather. As details of the statues had been modelled in mud and straw, these features were softer than the rock, and would have been vulnerable to wear and tear as soon as there was no support system to maintain and repair them by re-plastering and re-painting from time to time. But there is no doubt that the statues have suffered damage on previous occasions at the hands of successive waves of invaders and conquerors. Although the area was an important Buddhist centre for around 700 years, Islam became the dominant force in the valley from the 9^th century CE and onwards to the present time. The Taliban are merely the most recent in a long line of iconoclasts to target the statues.

Despite missing some detailed features of the faces and hands, the statues must have continued to be an amazing sight. They tower over the valley, standing serenely and majestically in their niches in the cliff walls. The figures are sculpted in the graceful and elegant style that characterised Gandharan art, and the folds of the robes softly delineate the figures. They are considered to be among the oldest and most precious statues of the Buddha anywhere on the planet. Their destruction would be a disaster on the scale of what happened during the Cultural Revolution in China, when there was wholesale destruction of priceless Buddhist sculptures and paintings throughout the country. Of course we should remember that senseless attacks on the heritage of one culture or religion in the name of a competing culture or religion is not confined to Asia. The history of Christian Europe is replete with similar examples, such as the havoc caused in the Islamic world by the so-called Crusades, or the loss of many ancient synagogues across Europe as a result of the persecution of Jews over many centuries.

Some of my friends who know that I am a Buddhist have said to me that they feel that what has been done to the statues is outrageous, and they think that I must be even more upset and angry than they are. But I tell them that as a Buddhist I try not to be upset and angry about such things. After all, it is a fundamental teaching of the Buddha that everything is impermanent, and that suffering is caused by our unwillingness to come to terms with this truth. When we look at it in this light, we can see that the statues were going to come to an end at some time, and these latest events are just an acceleration of that inevitable process. We have to learn not to cling to things, even those that are precious and beautiful, and to understand that everything changes and passes away.

The other thing I try to explain to my friends is that, to us as Buddhists, statues and other images of the Buddha are just representations of the Buddha and are not in themselves sacred things to be worshipped. The destruction of some statues does not alter the reality of the Buddha-Dhamma.

I also try to explain that as Buddhists we strive to rid ourselves of anger and hatred. To feel anger towards the Taliban will serve no practical purpose and will only make us unhappy, blinding us to the way forward. As Buddhists, we need to recall what we have been taught about the laws of cause and effect. That is to say, if individual members of the Taliban have done wrong, they will bear the consequences in some way and at some time, no matter how we feel about it and regardless of whether we feel angry or vengeful or not.

By the way, it is worth noting that the destruction of the Buddhas cannot be blamed on all members of the Taliban, let alone on all Muslims. It seems that senior members of the Taliban hierarchy were divided about whether the statues should be destroyed. Previous Taliban edicts had declared that the pre-Muslim cultural heritage of the country should be protected, with specific reference to the Buddhas of Bamiyan. The statues had been saved from destruction on previous occasions, through the intervention of the Taliban authorities in Kabul. However it seems from recent reports by Western journalists who have been allowed to visit the site that the statues have now been seriously, perhaps irrevocably, damaged. Powerful explosive charges had been detonated in holes that had been drilled into the statues, and all but the basic outline of the statues has been obliterated.

Moderate Muslims throughout the world protested against the destruction of the statues, and moderate Muslim spokespersons in many countries argued out that it was a distortion of Islamic teachings for the Taliban religious leaders to direct that such images should be destroyed.

Ironically, just as the Taliban were destroying the Buddhas of Bamiyan, neighbouring Islamic states were taking steps to protect their pre-Islamic heritage. In Tajikistan, for example, the Islamic government has been working with the United Nations and other international agencies to restore a unique 5^th century CE stone statue of a reclining Buddha that had been discovered in the southern Tajikistan. It had been originally excavated in 1966 by Soviet archaeologists from a Buddhist monastery complex that had been built in ancient times along the Silk Road that also passed through the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan. Painstakingly reassembled from pieces that had been hidden in boxes in the basement of the Museum of National Antiquities in Dushanbe, the 'sleeping Buddha' is believed to be the largest ancient Buddha statue in Central Asia. , At nearly 1,500 years old it is around the same age as the Buddhas of Bamiyan.

We should also remember that there are many other examples of Muslim countries that have respected and protected their pre-Islamic heritage. Indonesia has Borobodur, Iran has Persepolis, Turkey has Ephesus, and so on. These examples are proof that it is possible for people to respect places, buildings and images that are associated with another religion while still holding a sincere and devoted commitment to their own religion.

Information published on the web and elsewhere by SPACH, the Society for the Protection of Afghanistan’s Cultural Heritage, c/- PO Box 2713, Islamabad, Pakistan.

News reports published in the Sydney Morning Herald, March 2001.

News reports published in the Far Eastern Economic Review, March and April 2001.

A Concise History of Buddhism, by Andrew Skilton (Windhorse, Birmingham, 1994).