Afghan's Taliban orders Buddhas destroyed

Wisdom Quarterly, original text from The Guardian archives

Buddhism traveled directly from NW India to SW Sri Lanka (The Southwestern Coast)

• Why the fanatical destruction of ancient India and modern Afghanistan's spiritual heritage?

"Because God is one God and these statues are there to be worshipped and that is wrong. They should be destroyed so that they are not worshipped now or in the future." Officials from the Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and the Promotion of Virtue will be sent out to destroy the statues.

• Recollection (anussati) not worship, but "God" ordered it?

Mullah Omar's order, the latest in a long line of anti-cultural and misogynistic decrees, appeared to be a stark response to a visit by western diplomats who travelled to Kabul after reports that ancient statues in the capital's museum were being destroyed.

• The Buddhas of Afghanistan rise again

The diplomats met the Taliban's information and culture minister yesterday but were not allowed into the museum. More than a dozen pre-Islamic artifacts in the museum have been damaged in recent months by zealous Taliban soldiers. Most of the building's finest treasures were looted in fighting which followed the decade-long Soviet occupation.

Massive Buddha statues adorn many countries like Thailand (Plusgood/Flickr.com)

• The US, USSR, China, everyone wants to strip Afghanistan of natural resources (minerals, oil pipeline thruway, strategic military bases)

Over the past 20 years many of Afghanistan's richest archaeological finds have been smuggled across the border to Peshawar, Pakistan, and sold to private collectors. Others have been destroyed by artillery and rocket fire.

• Did Titans (Asuras) or U.S. forces and arms suppliers (fighting a long covert war against Soviets) instigate this, letting the blow back hit the Taliban as a pretext for U.S. retaliation? U.S. PsyOps already uses the propaganda of fighting misogyny as a justification.

In the past Mullah Omar has ordered non-Islamic artifacts to be protected, although to little effect. Afghanistan's finest archaeological site is in Bamiyan, 90 miles west of Kabul, where the world's tallest standing Buddha is 174 feet (53 meters) high, carved out of a sandstone cliff-face. Nearby stands another Buddha 120 feet (37 meters) high.

Although the sculptures, carved in the 2nd century AD, withstood Genghis Khan's invasion, the land was mined during the Soviet occupation and they stand in a region where the Taliban are still fighting opposition forces.

In September 1998 the shorter Buddha's head and folds of the robes were blown up by a Taliban commander. He then fired rockets at the groin and the folds of the clothes of the larger statue. Since seizing Kabul four years ago the Taliban have enforced a brutally strict interpretation of Islamic law. Original story

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