The High Line in New York has selected artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen to produce its next plinth commission, scheduled to open next spring.
Titled The Light That Shines Through the Universe, the commission will see Nguyen present a re-created version of one of the two Bamiyan Buddhas that once stood on a cliff in central Afghanistan. Dating to the 6th century CE, the Bamiyan Buddhas are typically seen as symbols of the syncretism of cultures along the Silk Road.
Lately, I had been fixing some historical inaccuracies mistakes from a painting that I did last year, as well as doing more research and tons of reading about the place. While the scenery/ atmosphere of Bamiyan was pretty much inspired by our modern-day famous Buddhist pilgrimage cities such as Kathmandu, Nepal; Lhasa, Tibet, and Chiang Mai, Thailand (as well to the one's across the northeastern Indian subcontinet to modern day Myanmar), I think that Bamiyan would be much more ornate and richly decorated than I would ever imagine; due to it’s often being considered “the main/popular pilgrimage destination” for a lot of people from all over the continent during ancient times. (Archeological stuffs had been shown that aside tons of statues of Greeks and Hindu gods, native Middle Eastern & Persian Zoroastrian deities were also seen, accompanied with Buddha and many various Bodhisattvas. (Not to count numerous gods and goddesses of East and Central Asian region that came through the Silk Road trade afterwards, too!)
[From left to right shown the clothes that people might have been worn around the late 6th-early 7th century CE (a.k.a. Just a few years at the end of Classical Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages): Sassanid Persian noblewoman; the Byzantine woman from the Roman province of Syria; Saka/ Scythian father and daughter from the northernmost region of Sogdiana; two Tocharian/ Yuezhi merchants of Xinjiang region of China (with their clothes were both inspired from Ancient Persia and Ancient China); a descendant of the Macedonian Greek (often known as “Yonas/Yavanas” by the Indians); Xuanzang, the famed Chinese Buddhist monk and scholar; Tang dynasty Buddhist donor; a late Gupta-era Indian dancer; a Turko-Mongol attendee from northeastern parts of Central Asia and finally; an Afghani woman in her traditional jewelry and headdresses.]
Unesco says it has not been consulted on project and local experts are alarmed at Taliban plans
The Taliban have launched construction work on a tourism complex just metres from the cliff that held the Bamiyan Buddha statues, which archeologists and experts warn could cause permanent damage to the sensitive world heritage site.
The project aims to “rebuild” a historic bazaar, which was destroyed in the civil war of the 1990s. Under the Taliban blueprint, the area will become a tourism centre with restaurants, guesthouses, parking, public toilets and handicraft and grocery shops.
But the ruined bazaar is itself a historic site that may sit on top of older ruins, and it is also close to the fragile cliff of Buddhist monastery caves that is one of Afghanistan’s greatest treasures.
“This old bazaar is in the archaeological buffer zone of the world heritage site and Unesco [the UN agency that manages the listings] has never been in favour of reusing this place,” said a diplomat with expertise in heritage issues in Afghanistan, who asked to remain anonymous.
“On the contrary, these buildings are located in the middle of an archaeological zone, and the buildings themselves are in some way part of the late 19th- and early 20th-century heritage and therefore their reconstruction is sensitive.”
In 2001, the Taliban destroyed two giant statues that had towered over the valley for more than a millennium, but the niches where they stood, and surviving cave frescos and other remains still make the site one of global importance.
The main road through Bamiyan was re-routed years ago to limit vibrations and fumes from traffic. This new plan would bring a heavy influx of people and vehicles back into a fragile area, officially designated a protected zone.
Mawlawi Saifurrahman Mohammadi, the provincial director for information and culture [...] said over 20 strict building controls had been fixed to respect the sensitive nature of the site. They include limiting buildings to a single storey, restricting the use of concrete for drains and pavements, and controlling the type of stones and plaster used.
He said the project had been signed off by Unesco, the United Nations educational, scientific and cultural agency. “[The central government] negotiated with Unesco and they sent us back a guideline on how to do it.”
But Unesco, which monitors world heritage sites and has been working at Bamiyan for decades, said it had not been consulted on the project, and had not given its approval to rebuilding the bazaar. It warned in a statement that the building could affect conservation work.
“Unesco has neither requested nor been associated with this project, which is located in the heart of the archaeological zone and could be problematic for the proper conservation of the world heritage site,” it said in a statement.
Heritage experts from Bamiyan also said they were alarmed at the destructive potential of the plan.
“This is a very restricted area, nobody is allowed to do any construction here, but the Taliban have decided to rebuild,” said one official who asked not to be named criticising the government. “I worked here in the past and I know the value of the site.
Bamiyan governor Abdullah Sarhadi [...] said he decided to launch the reconstruction after the owners of the shops came to petition him. They said they had effectively been robbed of their land when it was marked a heritage area and rebuilding banned.
“We should not let people have their land taken away here,” he said. “People could not get their [rightful] property, now it’s time they get it back.”
In tacit recognition of the area’s potential archeological value however, Mohammadi said the government would reserve the right to reclaim the bazaar area for archeological excavation in future.
The Pentagon gamed every possible scenario of a war on Iran – and the results are grim. Sound generals – yes, there are some – know the US Navy would not be able to keep the Strait of Hormuz open: it would have to leave immediately or, as sitting ducks, face total annihilation. So Trump threatening to destroy 52 Iranian sites – including priceless cultural heritage – is a bluff. Worse: this is the stuff of bragging by an ISIS-worthy barbarian. The Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas. ISIS nearly destroyed Palmyra. Trump Bakr al-Mar-a-Lago wants to join in as the destroyer of Persian culture.
Pepe Escobar, 'Financial N-option will settle Trump’s oil war', Asia Times
What did the ancient Greeks think of Buddhism? And are there any Buddhist monastic monks who are Greek themselves?
Before writing this paragraph essay, I just wanted to clarify myself first and gave props to my lovely Greek friend, @alatismeni-theitsa for letting me find and explore this part of the hidden histories of the Ancient Greek world. As a Southeast Asian who grew up in a society that was deeply ingrained by Buddhist philosophical teachings and traditional practices from the beginning of 1st-2nd century CE, I often have a lot of conflicting and contradictory thoughts/ ideas of how the society of Ancient Greco-Roman viewed upon Buddhism, and how cool it would be if the Greek settlers in one of those areas emigrated it into their own Western cultural practices and traditions.
Though I find it’s impossible to give a full and totally-reliable answer for all of the Ancient Greeks who lived in the Hellenistic Empire after the Alexandrian conquest, through some archeological and historical research, I will relate what I know on the answer both lie on the sides: “yes” and “no”. (As the reading sources will be listed down below, as usual.)
- It is a “yes” because the Greeks’ interaction with the natives of the Indian subcontinent can be considered as the first contact between the Greek culture of the West and Buddhism of the East, and that many Greek conquerers established their cities and kingdoms in the regions of Bactria and northern India, where Buddhism was already thriving. Historically, it was Cyrus the Great (558-530 BCE) who first built the universal empire, stretched from mainland Greece to Indus River, and founded the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia. Since the Persians had been slackened on holding onto its Indian regions into its tight control, many small local, independent kingdoms began to arose in 380 BCE. In 327 BCE, Alexander the Great overran the Persian Empire against Darius I and located his own political entities within these territories, as he would later fight against numerous Indian monarchs in the Punjab region, South Asia during that time too. (The name Punjab literally meant as “the land of five rivers” in Persian.) The furthest Eastern point of his Hellenistic Empire was in the Indo-Greek city of Taxila, now located in modern-day Pakistan; as Alexander himself was exhausted and frightened by the prospect of facing another giant Indian army at the Ganges River. (This might have inspired the story of “Dionysiaca” by Nonnus, where Zeus orders Dionysus to wage on a fighting conquest against the Indians, in order to earn his own title of godhood. And on the other hand, the Greeks were mentioned as “Yavanas” or “Yonas” - a Sanskritized version of the name “Ionia”- in the classical Indian texts - such as “Yuga Parana” and the “Mahabharata”, and other Buddhist texts as well.)
- It is a “yes” because from this previously-mentioned cultural interaction, emerges the artistic manifestation movement of Greco-Buddhism; where the first anthropomorphic depiction of the Buddha begins to appear, often have a youthful Apollo-like face, his eyelids were half-closed and often wearing Roman toga-like garments. (that were common in the Imperial Greek and the later Roman statues.) Previous images of the Buddha were often aniconic - consisted of his foot markings, the bodhi tree, the lotus, and the wheel of dharma - symbolizing the cycle of life. Scenes of Greek mythologies that involved deities such as Zeus, Poseidon, Heracles, Athena, and Aphrodite, etc. were still a common display in these Indo-Greek cities, as well, and they are sometimes incorporated as “smaller deities/divinities” and “protectors” within the Buddhist iconography.
The region of this flourishing culture and artistic style was known by the name “Gandhara”, located in the north of the Kabul river, Afghanistan and up to the valley of Peshawar, Pakistan; and it might possible that Buddhism in this area was once filled with the Greek and Achaemenid Persian conversions. (So yes, Greek Buddhist monastic monks did exist! And that they did practice and participated in Buddhism!) Gandhara was later conquered by numerous nomadic tribes (the Huns and Mongols), then the Hindus, and finally Muslim Sassanid Caliphates (aided by the Turks); lead to the destruction of many historic Buddhist sites, forced cultural assimilation and religious convergence to Islam in many regions of Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India. One of the most recent destruction of these ancient Buddhist sites can be seen through the destruction of Bamiyan Buddhas by the local Afghan extremist group, the Taliban in 2001.
- It is a “yes” because Buddhism might have influenced back at several Greek schools of philosophies and might have played some parts in the later Christian theologies as well. (Albeit are very, very heatedly-debated and controversial !) Many Greek philosophers who have accompanied Alexander in his Eastern campaigns, such as Pyrrho of Elis have opened their own schools that dealt with skepticism and cynicism based on the philosophical teachings of Buddha. And many Christian authors such as St. Clement of Alexandria and St. Jerome are aware of the tales of Buddha and sometimes mentioned them in their own scripts as well, as “he was the one born from the side of the virgin”, with the stories of non-canonized Christian saints “Barlaam and Josaphat” might have been based on the story of his personal life, too.
- However, it is a “no” because as a Buddhist myself, unlike the common pagan religions of the West; Buddhism is not really a central authoritative religion that was lead by a holy being/ divinity, even though it’s kind of look like one. But it was not about the idea of total rejection of worshipping one’s own pantheon of gods, either. Buddhism is rather about the spreading of philosophical teachings/ideas of Siddhārta Gautama himself, on how to guide your own life, and to alleviate one’s own sufferings (without the help of any divinity) and the construction of burial mounds known as “stupas” - where it contained Buddha’s sacred relics and his Bodhisattvas, as it was also used as a meditating place for monks as well. (Even though there are some parts of Greek influence in the arts of stupa construction, and there are some contradictory sources that cited “the construction of stupas” originally came from the wider traditions of the Ancient Mediterranean and the Indus Valley. Since it is now also considered as “a prominent part of India's cultural heritage”, so I guess it is kind of a 50/50 ? Both yes and no ?)
- It is also a “no” because around the time of King Ashoka’s reign - who had been known to adopt Buddhism as “his main state religion and renounce violence/ brutality from the Kalinga war” and responsible for the openings of many Buddhist monasteries in every four points of the compass - Buddhism are just only two centuries old and it was still preferably new, in comparison with the old, ancient pagan Greek gods of the West and that the historical Buddha himself- Siddharta Gautama lived from 480 - 400 BCE, in the area of Lumbini, now located in the modern-day India-Nepal border. However, that does not mean the spreading of Buddhism is impossible, as this new philosophical teachings of Buddhism might perhaps had been popular to the Greeks royals who lived upon the eastern fringes of Seleucid Empire; but haven’t reached out to all of the Greeks who lived in other parts of the Mediterranean area yet. (As Ashoka’s grandmother was alleged to be the daughter of Seleucus I Nicator, and wife of Chandragupta Maurya. And that intermarriages between these two Indo-Greek kingdoms for reasons of “peace treaties” and “political alignments” are quite common around this time, along with the sending and receiving of aphrodisiac gifts.) And even though these areas later broke down into smaller independent Indo-Greek city-states/kingdoms (180 BC- 10 AD) and the Parthian Empire (247 BC-224 AD), the religious practices of Buddhism are still flourished within them.
- It is a “no” because there are a lot of internal socio-political problems that happened in the region of Levant, ruled by Seleucid and Ptolemaic Empire (now known to be located in the modern-day Syria and the Israel-Palestine border) after the 1st century BC- which might make the teachings of Buddhism unable spread further into the West. This can be range from the ongoing competition and conflict of these two empires, the continuing cultural exclusiveness of the local Jewish population to the Hellenization of Greco-Roman cultural and philosophical ideas, the hostility of foreign conquerors from all directions (especially from the Parthians and Armenians), and the slow rise of Christianity - who soon to be dominating all parts of Europe, after the eventual fall of future Rome. The Seleucid Empire finally was overthrown by the efforts of the Roman general, Pompey the Great and the Armenian king Tigranes the Great from 83BC- 63 BC, finally turning them into the small Roman province of Syria. What Seleucid I’s grand vision of a vast, multi-cultural empire living together in peace had now been lost and reduced to nothing, with its ancient historical monuments are now being continously looted and destroyed from future civilizations. (The latest event that happened here was the destruction of Palmyra and Hatra from ISIS in 2014.) And about the previously-mentioned “Jewish resistance of Greco-Roman Hellenization”, it was when the Jewish traditional customs of “Sabbath” and “circumcision” were been officially outlawed by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and when the Judeo-Christian god being equated with the Olympian Zeus and sacrifices of pigs were made at the Temple of Jerusalem; that led to the outrageous Maccabean revolt in 167–160 BCE, and the celebration of modern-day Hanukkah festival in remembrance.
Because of all of this, the Buddhist culture began to travel to many places of the Far East through the caravan and seafaring routes of Silk Road; and through huge modifications and cultural syncretism, it’s become the East Asian image of the Buddha that we often saw today. (The “cultural syncretism” can be included their own local/regional folk religions and philosophical beliefs (such as the beliefs of Confucianism, Zen) creating new pantheons of buddhas, bodhisattvas, and semi-divine deities.)
TL/DR: The Greeks, after the Alexandrian conquest, did influence a lot of parts in Indian culture, thanks to a complex chain of social, cultural and political factors. Some of these influences are still persisting within Greece and India to this day. And yes, there are a lot of cultural interactions between the Greek of the West and the Buddhism of the East; and that there are Buddhist monks who are Ancient Greek themselves, too.
+ Sources:
The Crash Course introductory video about Buddhism
Bettany Hughes’ introductory documentary video about Seven Wonders of Buddhism, even though she only just tap a small parts of Greco-Buddhism (For anyone who haven’t introduced or didn’t know about the concepts of Buddhism such as karma, dharma, nirvana, samsara, please watch this.)
The Khan Academy article about the destruction of Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Buddha statues, and the Greco-Buddhism culture once stood there.
The cultural links between India and the Greco-Roman world from Ancient Encyclopedia
The history of Seleucid Empire, during and after the conquest of Alexander the Great from Ancient Encyclopedia.
The debatable/controversial legacy of Buddhism to the Ancient Greek culture, philosophy and the Christian theology (Since I am a Buddhist myself for my whole life, I don’t really know much about other religions such as Christianity. So I let the Wikipedia article to speak for itself, even though it is not always 100% trustable.)
Bamiyan Buddhas, these Silent Heroes * Bamiyan Buddhas stood for two millennia as silent heroes, #symbols of Buddhist faith, witnesses to the Silk Route and wars. Til one fatal day. #TuesdayBookBlog #TravelTuesday #art #history
The Bamiyan Buddhas stood for nearly two millennia as silent heroes, symbols of the Buddhist faith, witnesses to the hustle and the bustle of the Silk Route with its whirlwind of wealth, ideological exchange, and art, and to countless illogical wars.
In silence they stood since the middle of the first century, and witnessed. Did they know they were the largest in the world? Perhaps they heard…
Burned Libraries With ashes of dead books And dead paintings And dead knowledge The murder if history With 8,200 feet tall coffins Riddled with blast scars And dynamite smoke Dust clouds like ashes bloom Out of the opening of An empty sarcophagus where cultures once lay buried Destroying an image A life A world Creates as much of a spectacle As the image was on its own In the great temples of Rome And India And Mesopotamia.
