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Lying sprawled amid the craggy peaks of the central highlands of Afghanistan, in a place called Hindu Kush, is the Bamiyan Valley. The valley is around 264 km from Kabul, and has an altitude of 2,500 metres. Apart from its long heritage and stunning scenery, Bamiyan Valley was known for harbouring two enormous ancient Buddha statues that were carved right into the cliff face and were the largest standing Buddha statues the world had ever seen. The statues themselves were gigantic. One of the statues measured 175 feet high and the other 125 feet high. These Buddhas were constructed around 50 years apart, sometime between 544 and 644 AD. Both of the Buddhas were hewn right into sandstone cliffs about half a mile apart. I remember being on the clifftop entering tunnels that led you down to the back of the head where you could then look down over the valley. The front of the heads (their faces) were sliced off. We were told that this was done by the Muslims when they invaded the area. In 2001, The Taliban wanted to have a society strictly following the Islamic law. In Islamic law, there is no place for any other religion. Idol worshipping is considered to be blasphemy. The giant carvings of Buddha were considered as a representation of “pagan” belief and hence were destroyed. |
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