Giant Buddhas

buddhafoot

Anyone seen this documentary about the giant statues of buddha in and around Afghanistan that were destroyed?

Interesting ... and sad.

-bf

Palzang

What documentary?

I suppose it's sad, but it's just another lesson in impermanence. I'm sure whoever built those Buddhas in the first place never expected them to last forever. Such is the nature of samsara. As for the Taliban who blew them up, I'd say their karma has already caught up with them.

Palzang

buddhafoot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giant_Buddhas
http://www.giant-buddhas.com/en/films/
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/03/EC80D34E-84DA-4579-8863-83C1C44C7CA8.html

This documentary. Very sad.

Taliban... very hateful? Intolerant?

Sad.

I'm not so sad that the giant buddha were destroyed - they're just statues. But, the history involved with them, how old they were, the culture that created them.

All gone.

-bf

Palzang

But it's also interesting that they found some hidden artifacts in the ruins of the Buddhas that revealed a lot we didn't know about the people who built them. The whole history of Buddhism in Central Asia is quite fascinating and largely lost.

Palzang

Xrayman

buddhafoot wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giant_Buddhas
http://www.giant-buddhas.com/en/films/
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/03/EC80D34E-84DA-4579-8863-83C1C44C7CA8.html

This documentary. Very sad.

Taliban... very hateful? Intolerant?

Sad.

I'm not so sad that the giant buddha were destroyed - they're just statues. But, the history involved with them, how old they were, the culture that created them.

All gone.

-bf

have you read that there has been an object found that was secreted inside one of the statues that seems to hold a sutra with some balls of clay (representing buddhas bones?) and a lotus pattern on it? intriguing!

Xrayman

sh*t! palzang, beat me to it!

buddhafoot

Yeah Xray... Pally is pretty quick. He's like a robot typing machine. Except that he's not really a robot and robots don't typically wear robes and he too is losing his hair and he eats a lot of meat. But other than that - he's got the whole robot thing going on.

You're right Pally - no sense in crying over spilt buddhas...

-bf

Tribesman

Some links for the Buddhas of Bamiyan:

http://www.photogrammetry.ethz.ch/research/bamiyan/buddha/index.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1214384.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan

Such an ignorant act of destruction. I'm afraid I've never seen the documentary though.

Simonthepilgrim

I was sorry to hear of the destruction of the buddha figures but I noticed, at the same time, that it was easier for people to get all het up about it because it was happening far away and in a country subject to disapproval. The destruction of beauty, both natural and of human origin, within our own countries passes without comment. We build houses on sites of special scientific or landscape value; we carve giant faces in hillsides sacred to native peoples.... are we any better than our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan?

buddhafoot

Very true, Simon.

But I see a little bit of difference between carving faces on a mountain sacred to a certain native people versus just destroying an object of art.

To me - we would have needed to raze those sacred mountains to the ground and left the rubble lying there for no other purpose than to destroy - to equal the destruction of the giant buddhas.

But as Pally said, impermanence, impermanence, impermanence.

-bf

Simonthepilgrim

buddhafoot wrote:

Very true, Simon.

But I see a little bit of difference between carving faces on a mountain sacred to a certain native people versus just destroying an object of art.

To me - we would have needed to raze those sacred mountains to the ground and left the rubble lying there for no other purpose than to destroy - to equal the destruction of the giant buddhas.

But as Pally said, impermanence, impermanence, impermanence.

-bf

Both, I fear, are assertions of superiority: the statues are destroyed to demonstrate that Sharia ruled Afghanistan; giant heads of politicos assert the dominance of another system. Both seek to change the purpose of the site and make it supportive of a new regime. As you say, impermanence and, I would add, overwheening pride which precedes a fall.

There is, of course, nothing new about this. Here in the UK, many of the early, pre-Christian sites have either been covered by churches, as at Glastonbury, or destroyed as was attempted at Avebury.

masteravatardavidsta

buddhafoot wrote:

Anyone seen this documentary about the giant statues of buddha in and around Afghanistan that were destroyed?

Interesting ... and sad.

-bf

Unfortunate that fanatical stupidity disfigured those statues ########### But what a powerful illustration of the impermanence of ALL things......Great and Small . :grr: :zombie::( :om:

ajani_mgo

I found it to be a lesson on impermenance, as my country once ran an advertisement on this documentary along the lines of this...

A giant Buddha statute resting with his head supported by his left arm. And a quote displays - "All things change. Nothing is permanent. - Gautama Buddha"

And almost immediately the scene switches to the instant when the statues got blown up, as it was recorded via video.

Alas, indeed!