Toppling of Taliban Government has now reached to almost 10 years, but it needs decades to recover ethnic and sectarian wounds inflicted by Taliban towards innocent people of Afghanistan in general and destruction of two giant standing statues of Buddha in particular, which were historical and cultural heritage of the country in Bamyan, Hazarajat. Read more
Mining threat to ancient Afghan monastery at Mes Aynak
Ten years ago, the Taliban blew up Afghanistan's ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan, provoking international outrage. Now, the country's rich heritage is facing a new threat. A Chinese mining venture has set its sights on another ancient Buddhist site, reports the BBC's Quentin Sommerville. Mes Aynak lies in Logar province, a short helicopter ride from Kabul. Read more
Buddhist site in Afghanistan faces threat from China miners
Now, almost 10 years to the month after Taliban fundamentalists blew the Bamiyan Buddhas apart, Afghanistan's archaeological treasures face a new threat: capitalism. Just south of Kabul, French and Afghan archaeologists have unearthed a 5th-century Buddhist monastery at a 4,000 hectare site called Mes Aynak - and are racing against time to excavate more ruins before Chinese miners obliterate them in their quest for natural resources. Read more
A traveller falls into a river and calls for help. A huge stag with a fur of nine colours saves the drowning man. The queen of a nearby kingdom dreams about the stag and longs for its fur. She prompts the king to post a reward for anyone who can locate the deer. The traveller had promised the stag not to tell anyone about it, but on hearing about the reward, he goes to the palace and breaks his promise. When the king attempts to shoot the stag, the deer's body emits a dazzling light that shields it from the arrows. The stag tells the king how it saved the traveller. The king is moved and sets it free. Due to their greed, the traveller and the queen both die.
This Buddhist fable is depicted in one of the caves of the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, one of the most famous Buddhist sites in Northwest China's Gansu province. In Cave No 257, this story is painted in nine sections. The Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes and a number of other grottoes played an important role in the spread of Buddhism in China, and storytelling became one of the strongest tools.
Senior priests at Buddhism's holiest site have been accused of chopping off a branch from the ancient tree under which Buddha attained enlightenment to sell as a souvenirs. The desecration of the holy tree in the northern Indian town of Bodh Gaya allegedly took place in June when three men ordered a branch of the tree cut off, said Pranay Kumar Singh, a lawyer who has filed a complaint about the incident in a local court. Mr Singh said the suspects, who include the chief priest of the Buddhist temple at the site, planned to sell pieces of the branch to pilgrims, who are known to pay up to £5 for a single leaf of the tree that provided shade for Buddha's contemplations.
Channel 4 news
Bodh Gaya is a large village situated at latitude 24° 41' 60N, longitude 84° 58' 60E, in the southern part of the Indian state of Bihar. The environment around the village is rural, being made up of cultivated areas interspersed with open ground on which grow mango, tamarind and palm trees. Bodh Gaya or Bodhgaya is famous for being the place of Buddha's attainment of Enlightenment. Historically, it was known as the Bodhimanda (ground round the Bodhi-tree), and there was a large monastic settlement there. The main monastery of Bodhgaya used to be called the Bodhimanda-vihra (Pali). Now it is called the Mahabodhi Temple. For Buddhists, Bodh Gaya is the most important of the main four pilgrimage sites related to the life of Gautama Buddha, the other three being Kushinagar, Lumbini, and Sarnath. In 2002, Mahabodhi Temple, located in Bodh Gaya, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Gandhara art, sculpture development, evolution of Mahayana School of Buddhism The land of Pakistan is blessed with the vast treasure troves of the world and one of the most important treasures is the glorious civilization of Buddhism flourishing in the North Western areas of Pakistan. The mountains of these areas are witness to one of the highly creative ideology springing from Buddha, taking refuge in the mountains from Karakurums in Chilas to Pir Panjal Mountains near Taxila.
Islamist militants in Pakistan have tried to blow up a seventh-century Buddhist rock carving in an attack reminiscent of the destruction of ancient Buddha statues in Afghanistan six years ago. There was, however, no damage to the image of the sitting Buddha carved into a 40-metre high rock in mountains 20 km north of Mingora, a town in the scenic Swat valley, northwest of the capital, Islamabad. A group of masked-men tried to destroy the carving on Tuesday, said provincial archaeology department official Aqleem Khan.
"Militants drilled holes in the rock and filled them with dynamite and blew it up. The explosion damaged the upper part of the rock but there was no damage to the image itself"
After months of excavation, a 1,300-year-old giant stone statue of Buddha revealed its perfectly preserved face yesterday in a mountainous area of Gyeongju, the capital city of Koreas ancient Silla Kingdom. The 5.6-meter tall sculpture was discovered in May, face down and buried in the ground. Archaeologists worried that the face had been destroyed when the 70-ton statue fell over hundreds of years ago. However, after careful excavation, specialists found that the Buddhas nose missed a rock bed by only 5 centimetres, likely saving it.
Afghanistan's Bamiyan Buddhas The empty niches that once held Bamiyan's colossal Buddhas now gape in the rock face - a silent cry at the terrible destruction wrought on this fabled valley and its 1,500-year-old treasures, once the largest standing Buddha statues in the world.