The ancient city of Bamyan is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, home to Genghis Khan’s palace and the Great Buddhas. Buddhist monks crafted the Buddha statues 15 centuries ago, and also excavated caves out of the sandy-coloured cliffs where they lived a life of devotional asceticism. The monks are long gone, and in 2001 the Great Buddhas were blown up by the Taliban. The authorities have started rebuilding them from the fragments, but that work has been suspended while the wisdom of the...
more »The ancient city of Bamyan is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, home to Genghis Khan’s palace and the Great Buddhas. Buddhist monks crafted the Buddha statues 15 centuries ago, and also excavated caves out of the sandy-coloured cliffs where they lived a life of devotional asceticism. The monks are long gone, and in 2001 the Great Buddhas were blown up by the Taliban. The authorities have started rebuilding them from the fragments, but that work has been suspended while the wisdom of the project is debated. For some it is appropriate to restore the Buddhas to their former glory and cement the potential of Bamyan as one of Afghanistan’s leading tourist attractions. For others the destruction of the Buddhas is itself an important reflection of Afghanistan’s recent history, and that history should be reflected upon and not airbrushed over. There are about 200 caves in Bamyan and around two-thirds are now occupied by displaced people, most of them driven from their homes by conflict. Islamic Relief supports some of these families through its orphan sponsorship programme and through a small microcredit project that is enabling women-headed households to keep livestock. We spoke to several families living in caves in one of the cliffs near the Great Buddhas.
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