25 Years After Bamiyan Buddhas...So richly and brightly were they decorated that...

 25 years ago, The Taliban began the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas on March 2, 2001, and completed the demolition over several days that same month

 Edmund Richardson, “Alexandria: The Quest for the Lost City”, 2021:

“…The gigantic Buddhas were almost 1,500 years old. The smaller Buddha, 115 feet tall, was constructed in the middle of the sixth century ad. The larger Buddha, which stood even taller, at 174 feet, joined it around half a century later. The Buddhas did not mark a serene pilgrimage site on the edges of the known world: Bamiyan was, at the time, a riotous stop on the Silk Road. The Buddhas were painted in wild, vivid colours: incandescent red for the larger and blinding white for the smaller. So richly and brightly were they decorated that the Chinese traveller Xuanzang thought one of them was made entirely of brass.

But Buddhism had been swept out of Afghanistan in the wake of the Islamic conquest of the region. Not even the stories remained....

...Standing at the foot of the smaller Buddha, Masson spotted a flight of stairs ascending into the rock walls. He followed them uncertainly. The passageway was narrow and dark, carved out of the red stone of the cliffs. The walls and ceiling seemed to press in on him. Masson climbed higher and higher. The only light came from narrow slits cut in the rock.⁷² Through them, he caught glimpses of the Buddha: a fold of drapery, a gigantic arm, a pendulous earlobe. Outside, the world was hushed and still. A few plumes of black smoke rose on the wind.

Then Masson emerged into the light above the Buddha’s head and saw a world more beautiful, and stranger, than he had ever dared to imagine. Outside, the winter sun shone on clear, bright drifts of snow. Close to the top of the cliff-face, within the caves, lapis lazuli and gold shimmered in shafts of sunlight. Everywhere Masson looked there were domes, intricate carvings and impossibly beautiful paintings. This was no footnote in history: this was an entire lost civilisation, unknown to western scholarship. It was like seeing colour for the first time: he realised that here in Afghanistan, there was a whole world of wonders waiting to be discovered.

Masson was dizzy with awe. Even his sketches, after years of sober black and white, suddenly spring into full colour. At that moment, looking down on Bamiyan, he knew that he wanted to tell the story of Afghanistan. He had no idea how: he knew that he was ‘standing only on the threshold of discovery’.⁷⁵ But, inside, his heart was dancing. ‘Inveni portum,’ he scribbled on a pencil sketch of the caves. ‘Spes et Fortuna valete.’ ‘I have reached safe harbour. Farewell, hope and fortune. You have played your games with me: now, play them with others.’

That night, the sky was full of falling stars…”

(Charles Masson is the central figure in Edmund Richardson’s book Alexandria: The Quest for the Lost City, described as an ordinary, working-class Englishman who deserted the East India Company army to become a renowned 19th-century explorer, archaeologist, and spy in Afghanistan. He is credited with discovering the ancient city of Alexandria Beneath the Mountains.)

 

a 19th-century lithograph by French artist Xavier Raymond depicting the two colossal Bamiyan Buddhas