Facelift for Pakistan Buddha (Jahanabad)

Dawn.com; Wisdom Quarterly

Sculpture of the Buddha with face destroyed by Taliban, Jahanabad, Swat Valley, Pakistan (AP)

  

JAHANABAD, Pakistan (ancient Gandhara, India) - When the [CIA-created] Taliban blew the face off a towering, 1,500-year-old rock carving of the Buddha in northwest Pakistan almost five years ago, it fell to an intrepid  Italian archaeologist to come to the rescue.

  

Thanks to the efforts of Luca Olivieri and his partners, the 6-meter (nearly 20-foot)-tall image near the town of Jahanabad is getting a facelift. And many other archaeological treasures in the scenic Swat Valley are being excavated and preserved.

  

Extremists have a history of targeting Buddhist, Hindu, and other religious sites they consider heretical to Islam. Six months before the 9-11, 2001 attacks, the [CIA/]Taliban shocked the world by dynamiting a pair of 1,500-year-old Buddhist statues in central Afghanistan. [The plan was to create a pretext to invade, which included saving women from Islamic sexism and, apparently, imposing a Western Judeo-Christian brand.]

  

The Jahanabad Buddha, etched high on a huge rock face in the 6th or 7th century, is one of the largest such carvings in South Asia. It was attacked in the fall of 2007 when the Pakistani Taliban swarmed across the scenic Swat Valley. The army drove most of them out two years later, but foreign tourists who used to visit the region still tend to stay away.

 

Olivieri himself had to leave in 2008 after more than two decades of tending to the riches dating back to Alexander the Great and the Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim invaders who followed. The 49-year-old head of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan returned in 2010 and is back at work. More (CBS News coverage)

• Attacked Buddha gets facelift in Pakistan (Irrawaddy)
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