When the devotees of the Sakyamuni in the Kushan empire, nearly two thousand years ago, set about carving two giant statues of the Buddha on the rock-conglomerate escarpments of present-day central Afghanistan, little did they know what would be wrought in the first year of the third millennium.
By ordering the destruction of the two towering statues in Bamiyan (it is not entirely clear that they are totally destroyed at the moment of going to press) and hundreds or perhaps thousands of others scattered about in the moribund museums and archaeological sites around the country, the Afghan leader Mullah Omar and the Ulema as a whole have shown themselves to be a) intolerant, b) anti-intellectual and anti-knowledge, c) anti-history and anti-heritage and d) ignorant of economics.
Given that Sakyamuni himself was born in present-day Nepal, and given the large Buddhist flock in this country, it is natural that the destruction of Buddhist iconography hits us harder in the heart. While the soul of Himalayan Buddhism is Mahayanic and Vajrayanic and the period the Bamiyan Buddhas epitomise, Gandharan, both nevertheless have the underpinnings in the message of the Sakyamuni, which is the display of karuna, the feeling of compassion for fellow creatures.
What the Taliban of Afghanistan have done by destroying the Buddhistic heritage of the country is show lack of karuna on an unimaginable scale. Firstly, it is lack of empathy for the devotees and artisans of nearly two millennia ago, who built these images, long before Islam and its anti-idolatry message slipped into the rugged mountains of Central Asia. Secondly, it is lack of understanding for the greater mass of humanity, Buddhist and non-Buddhist, who all share in the ownership of these images. Lastly, it shows complete disregard for the interests of the Afghans themselves, who were custodians of this heritage for the rest of civilisation and who (in better times) benefited economically from the Buddha's existence. At one time, Bamiyan's Buddhas and the nearby lakes of Band-e-Amir were the greatest tourist attractions of Afghanistan. The place will be no more than a place of mourning.
There is one lesson that can be derived at this moment of desecration, as the Sakyamuni would also perhaps have advised us. It is to learn that there is that dark patch in each of our souls, which if allowed out by the confluence of social forces, can erupt as mob action at the mass level. In the 1960s, Mao Zedong brought out the mob with his cultural revolution and destroyed the great gumbas of Tibet. In 1992, a Hindu mob violated the Babri mosque, barely 200 km south of our border in Ayodhya. We in Nepal, too, must keep guard against being manipulated by forces which allow similar actions to take place.
What we must remember in these intolerant times is that not all Muslims are Talibans, and Islamic nations have condemned the desecration of the Buddhas. And without being cynical, let us remind ourselves the Taliban is a CIA creation via Pakistani ISI deep in the Cold War years when the goal was to fight the Evil Empire. Look who is evil now. And it is US-led global geopolitics that has pushed the Afghans into a corner with sanctions, and the Talibans have reacted in the only way they know how. Speaking of which, whether the Bamiyan Buddhas (there are two of them) are or are not on the World Heritage Site list is irrelevant. The list is just a wish list. But the Buddhas are a heritage, as much or more (because of their antiquity) than the Taj Mahal. This was the kind of crisis where the new director of Unesco, should have jettisoned all other commitments, hired a jet and flown to Kabul on a rescue mission. Appointing a special representative is the old way. It does not suffice in the age of global cultural crimes against humanity.
