In Search of the Lost Buddhas (video)

David Adams, Timeline: World History Docs, 7/6/19; Dhr. Seven, A. Larson, Wisdom Quarterly

Fred Maroon: Afghanistan: Giant Buddha Statue in the Bamiyan Valley 1968 (1stdibs.com)

Afghanistan: In Search of the Lost Buddhas with David Adams (Bamiyan Valley)

Fred Maroon (1stdibs.com/art/photography)

"Afghanistan" [Scythia/Shakya Land] is not so much a country as it is a series of shifting borders.

It is a place with no easily definable physical or civil boundaries, a place where war is now an everyday fact of life, a place where more children will learn to use a gun than will go to school.

About 1.5 million Afghans have been killed during the past 20 years of war. Perhaps another 4 million have fled. Every major road has been torn apart by tank treads. Almost every major building left standing has been blown full of holes.

The big Buddha and cave complex (Bamiyan)

This is the most militant Islamic state on Earth, but it was once was peace-loving and Buddhist.

In the Bamiyan Valley [which scholar Ranajit Pal, Ph.D. posits was the original Kapilavastu, where Prince Siddhartha was raised] north of Kabul, the two largest statues of the Buddha on the planet were carved in the third century. [A third, larger reclining Buddha statue remains buried, as divulged by National Geographic.]

David Adams was the last Westerner to exhaustively film the Bamiyan Buddhas before they were blown up in 2001.

• Content licensed from David Adams Films (Queries: realstories@littledotstudios.com)