Christians Defaced The Bamiyan Buddhas
By Robert Korczynski with the assistance of Grok by xAI Step into the Bamiyan Valley of Afghanistan in the seventh century just 400 miles off the ancient Silk Road that pulsed with travelers, and behold the Bamiyan Buddhas—colossal guardians standing at 174 feet and 115 feet or 53 meters and 35 meters, the grandest depictions of the Buddha or any religious figure ever carved into existence (Morgan, 2012). Chiseled into a towering limestone cliff in the 6th and 7th centuries, Salsal and Shahmama stood with their hands forming sacred mudras, their tranquil faces watching over the monasteries within their forms—caves where monks meditated, letting pilgrims gaze upon them from all angles, even from within the statues’ hallowed cores (Petzet, 2009). The Taliban shattered these wonders in 2001 obliterating them with explosives, but long before the Taliban destroyed their bodies someone else had removed their eyes, noses, and hands, and the larger one’s feet, and based on that unique pattern ...