The Buddhas of Bamiyan

Wonders of the World

by Llewelyn Morgan

For 1,400 years, two colossal figures of the Buddha overlooked the fertile Bamiyan Valley on the Silk Road in Afghanistan. Witness to a melting pot of passing monks, merchants, and armies, the Buddhas embodied the intersection of East and West, and their destruction by the Taliban in 2001 provoked international outrage. Llewelyn Morgan excavates the layers of meaning these vanished wonders hold for a fractured Afghanistan. Carved in the sixth and seventh centuries, the Buddhas represented a confluence of religious and artistic traditions from India, China, Central Asia, and Iran, and even an echo of Greek influence brought by Alexander the Great’s armies. By the time Genghis Khan destroyed the town of Bamiyan six centuries later, Islam had replaced Buddhism as the local religion, and the Buddhas were celebrated as wonders of the Islamic world. Not until the nineteenth century did these figures come to the attention of Westerners. That is also the historical moment when the ground was laid for many of Afghanistan’s current problems, including the rise of the Taliban and the oppression of the Hazara people of Bamiyan. In a strange twist, the Hazaras—descendants of the conquering Mongol hordes who stormed Bamiyan in the thirteenth century—had come to venerate the Buddhas that once dominated their valley as symbols of their very different religious identity. Incorporating the voices of the holy men, adventurers, and hostages throughout history who set eyes on the Bamiyan Buddhas, Morgan tells the history of this region of paradox and heartache.

Genres: Art, History, Nonfiction, Buddhism

256 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2012

About the author

Lecturer in Classics at Oxford University

Reviews

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a rather good look at the Buddhas that were destroyed by the Taliban. It is strongly recommended, however, that you read or at least know a history of Afghanistan before reading. I would have been a little confused in some places if I hadn’t.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the fame of the Buddahs of Bamiyan there aren't many books around on the subject in any depth. This book starts with the destruction of the statues in 2001 by the Taliban and then takes you through their history. This book alternates between being very informative and frustrating. It has a lot of good information in it but it is very let down by the sparse illustrations and what appears to be a lack of input from the French archaeologists who dug at the site for many years prior to their destruction.

In short - this is a great starting point to look into the history of these statues but you are going to need to go elsewhere - and do a lot of digging online - to find out what they really looked like.

[Jess Monnier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book, and a part of one of my favorite series. Excellent writing and easy to follow. I don't know much about Afghanistan history, but that wasn't a problem here. Everything was well explained. (And there are book recommendations in the back if you want to learn more!)

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting history of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan, tracing their story and people's reaction to them from the Buddhist period, through the Islamic period, and into the 19th and 20th centuries, and even beyond their infamous destruction by the Taliban. It is well-researched and authoritative, with a good selection of illustrations and quotes from different encounters with the Buddhas. The early history particularly interested me, with some really interesting descriptions from the travelling Chinese monk Xuanzang in the 7th century. It was then interesting to read of the tolerance, and indeed a certain amount of appropriation of the Buddhas, in the early Islamic period. He discusses the gradual transition from Buddhism to Islam in the area of Bamiyan, showing that it wasn't a sudden conversion, and explaining that it was most likely due to commercial interests (which had been central to Buddhist Bamiyan too). The next cultural encounter with the Buddhas at Bamiyan that Morgan goes into in depth is that of the British, and a series of British imperial adventurers in the 19th century left interesting accounts of Bamiyan, and they seemed very obsessed with identifying links to Alexander the Great and Greek civilization. The final chapter then covers more modern archaeological efforts (principally French and Japanese) to investigate the site at Bamiyan, before concluding on what the future of the (now destroyed) Buddhas of Bamiyan should be, including a discussion of the tensions between the Hazaras of Bamiyan and the Pashtuns dominant in the rest of Afghanistan. Whilst an interesting read, I felt the somewhat verbose style knocked a star off for me - I'm slightly turned off by paragraphs that run over several pages, for instance.

[Narma · Rating 5 out of 5]

The destruction of the Bamiyan emphasized in the book is not exclusive to Afghanistan, but is rather a dilemma throughout South and Southeast Asia these days. From Bodh Gaya to Borobudur to the Buddhist remnants in Malaysia, Buddhist architecture, history, and culture (as all architecture and ideology pertaining to eastern traditions) are destroyed and erased from the planet daily. Like Bamiyan, it would not be long before all are forgotten.

[Amanda O'neill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. I once heard Afghanistan described as a 'swallower of empires', and I had to learn more. Morgan takes the reader of a fabulous journey through the thousands of years that the buddhas have gazed out of the places on Baniyan. Hi account starts and finishes with the destruction and where Afghanistan goes from here. I loved this book.