BĀMIYĀN

Located 240 miles northwest of Kabul in present-day Afghanistan, Bāmiyān was a point of intersection on the major thoroughfares of antiquity. References to Bāmiyān as a religious center can be found in the writings of the Chinese pilgrim to India Xuanzang (ca. 600–664 c.e.). The site ultimately fell into disuse after its annihilation by Genghis Khan in 1222, an act of revenge for his son's death during the siege of the citadel Shahr-i-Zohak, which sits high above the Bāmiyān valley. In the eighteenth century, Buddhist images at the site were used for artillery practice by the Mogul emperor Aurangzeb, and in the nineteenth century Bāmiyān was explored by British archaeologists. The most extensive research done at Bāmiyān was under the auspices of the French.

The trading post of Bāmiyān sits in a lush valley beneath the mountains of the Hindu Kush, with a precipitous mountain at its back and an escarpment suitable for carving at its face. This escarpment came to be covered with innumerable grottos carved from the living rock, comprising Buddhist assembly halls, meditation caves, and icon niches. All told they cover at least one mile. Until 2001, there stood within carved niches a monumental fifty-three-meter buddha image at the western end, and a smaller thirty-five-meter buddha at the eastern end. Originally covered with brilliant pigments and gold, these buddha figures left a lasting impression on Xuanzang, as well as on the thirteenth-century Arab geographer Yakut. Both remarked upon the great buddha images of Bāmiyān as being without compare elsewhere in the world.

There is debate as to the iconographic identity of the two images. It is generally argued that the smaller buddha figure represented the historical Buddha, Śākyamuni, largely because that is how the image is referenced in most of the chronicles of the times. The larger buddha is thought to have represented the universal buddha Vairocana. Written accounts of this statue as wearing a crown support this possible iconographic identification. This statue, like its smaller counterpart, displayed the drapery patterning that originated in Gandhāra. Constructed no later than the sixth century c.e., both images were first carved out of the living rock, then completed using an additive technique employing wooden dowels to attach additional pieces, covered by clay and stucco, and lastly painted. The interior of the image niches were also covered with painted depictions reflecting the syncretic beliefs of the rulers of Bāmiyān at the time. Both statues were missing their faces as early as the eighteenth century, with at least one scholar arguing that the faces were once covered by metal plates, which were easily removed.

The colossal buddhas of Bāmiyān survived the vicissitudes of the various political changes in the region until March 2001. After issuing an edict against images and idolatry, the reigning Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime in Afghanistan—after spurning attempts by international organizations to buy or preserve the statues—proceeded to destroy them. Two days of artillery barrages were required to successfully destroy what Aurangzeb had left behind. The niches that protected the buddha images still remain, their outlines forever an echo of what were once the most aweinspiring Buddha images in all of Asia.

See also:Huayan Art; Persecutions

Bibliography

Baker, P. H. B., and Allchin, F. R. Shahr-i Zohak and the History of the Bāmiyān Valley, Afghanistan. Oxford: B.A.R., 1991.

Beal, Samuel, trans. Si-yu-ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World, Chinese Accounts of India, Vol. 1. Calcutta: Susil Gupta, 1957.

Flood, Finbarr Barry. "Between Cult and Culture: Bāmiyān, Islamic Iconoclasm, and the Museum." Art Bulletin 84, no. 4(2002): 641–659.

Godard, André, et al. Les antiquités bouddhiques de Bāmiyān: Memoires de la délégation archéologique Française en Afghanistan, Vol. 2. Paris: Éditions Van Oest, 1928.

Klimburg-Salter, Deborah E. The Kingdom of Bāmiyān: Buddhist Art and Culture of the Hindu Kush. Naples and Rome: Istituto universitario orientale, Dipartimento di studi asiatici, 1989.

Rowland, Benjamin. The Art of Central Asia. New York: Crown, 1974.

Karil J. Kucera