Collateral damage of a Hegomonic War: The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas

Wanton destruction of cultural significant sites during times of civil war, international war or for political posturing is not acceptable and it was a crime. It should have never been acceptable. Iconoclasm under political, economic or religion pretext is still Iconoclasm. It can and has been argued that even the western idealization of revering cult objects turn muscological is a form of iconoclastic act; a form of desacralizing objects of their religious and culture significance by being viewed as icons of the past.   The difference is that museums, while they do house many items that were gathered under “suspicious” means, do not themselves condone or promote intolerance.  Destroying such sites and objects as the Bamiyan Buddhas does and even if it was an act to reject the west for not lifting sanctions placed on the Taliban and therefore the Afghan people it only went to promote further intolerance.  How? The destruction only gave more people who do not care for a tolerant world fodder to promote their own views.  Neither side is beneficial in our world today. Neither side can ever been seen to promote the necessary cohesion need in a globalized world today, though many would even argue how can there talk of a globalized world if so many still live without so many of the basic civil liberties that the other take for granted.  How?  We cannot forget that while places like Afghanistan live in their country devastated by war there leaders and the elite, just like any developing country and their city-states, live drastically better lives than their periphery-states.  Is it all about misappropriation of funds? I think it can be argued it is though it just doesn’t begin and end, always, with a corrupt and/or intolerant misogynistic fundamentally/extremist Taliban-like government, which I strongly urge like so many others are not used as the poster child of Islam.   They, while not alone, are an exception that has grown out of a time and place and believes by reverting back to medieval tendencies it can prevent poverty and famine.

It could be argued that the Taliban had a point. That the west was more concerned for the protection of these sites than the people suffering on the ground. One just has to look at the close to 10 million dollars spent on the protection and revivification of culturally significant sites in Afghanistan rather than the spending that money on infrastructure projects that will go much further to enrich the lives of the Afghanis.  That can be said, if one only provides numbers for the funds provided to such project carried out by UNESCO and their counterparts. And, let’s not forget that these sites promote the type of tolerance and awareness of the significance of Afghanistan is to our understanding of all world history.  Is it a shame that this it seems is done out of a love for objects rather than love for all human beings, I would say, yes. But let’s face it, people who knew about the torment that was occurring everyday in Afghanistan wished it to stop. How could it though when the population was persuaded to allow the Taliban to take control and prevent and positive communication between them and the international community.

I’m not arguing that we all should be like the west. I enjoy diversity. That diversity must be allowed to flourish and just like UNESCO’s mandate states to prevent such a thing is in itself a crime.  Humanity is frail.  We are bias.  Speak of change makes our hairs go on end, not because we cannot weather it, because we would rather not have to.  The Taliban had a right to want change. I would even grant that if their people had wanted to live under Islamic Law and along with that all peoples were given the rights to speech and education all the better. Is it a strike against those of the west who gave arms to peoples without truly knowing their agendas of course it is and has been of great powers of the silk roads and modernity.  We have to be careful though and understand the sanctions we not placed upon Afghanis because the world wanted them to suffer it was because they had no other choice but the Taliban or some worse group that they suffered. Irregardless the Taliban acts of iconoclastic behaviour was insolent and, again, only gave fodder for individuals whom wanted to normalize Islam as a group who only desire was to undermine western ideologies. The world and Afghanistan is better off now that they are not under the finger of Taliban just as any country is better off who are allowed to freely choose among a variety officials. Not that it will always be like the democracies of the west or do I believe we should even demand that of countries that are calling for democratic freedom.  Diversity should not be vilified. Hegemony should not be the norm as we move into the 22^nd and 23^rd century for it only prevents cooperation and cohabitation.  If there is anything we should take from 9/11 is that we cannot forgo other people’s ethnicity and cultures in an attempt to cultivate a better world.  For just as the west has at times for political, economic and religious reasons normalized others in vain attempts to solidify their superiority. Underlying all iconoclastic behaviour because of political, economic or religious reasoning is a form of hegemony at its worst.

Contempary Faces of the Silk Roads

There is no question that when a vacuum all is pulled to the centre irregardless of makeup. If that vacuum is the wake left behind after independence; a country freed from generations of draconian rule that saw a suppression of ethno-religious freedom, while its demographics consists of a various number of political/religious movements, there will arise from the fray fundamentalists.  That is not to say that all fundamentalists will raise a sword and call for the heads of their counters on stakes or care more about preventing foreign involvement than they do about what is happening within their own communities.  There will be name calling and once cohesive groups will split and there may even be a few glasses broke.  What we can also be sure of is the desire for any person caught in the vacuum to cling to their ancestral lineages and in doing so wish for a country in which they did not feel as if they were being asked to choose brethren over brethren.  If again the situation is heightened by a high degree of outsider influence, worse yet a seemingly ill-conceived smear campaign or a cover up for a badly managed counter-insurgency initiative.  There will be and has been more than a few broken glasses, which will only give greater rise to what has been seen within Central Asia and certainly within the Afghanistan and people will be killed.  Fundamental movements who do not see the need to work within democratic reforms will certainly be seen by some as beneficial and exactly what is need within their country.  Are these people not those who fear or care not for the well being of others who are not of their religiosity? This is not to say that all fundamentalists or those who wish to burkas worn are desire to topple the west or rush through Central Asia like the Mongols from the west and convert all non-Muslims to Islam. What cannot be the answer is to try and make it sound that just because the CIA sold arms to Saudi Arabia who then sold them to the Mujahedeen who later became the Taliban that this fundamental group did not call for reforms that oppressed women or cultivated a culture that gave rise to other fundamentalist groups that also were worse in both their treatment of woman and use of opium for raising of monetary means to further their political/religious movements.  What cannot be accepted is any regime that does not open public debate and that means media outlets and politicians from the outside disseminating rhetoric that lumps all fundamentalism as an attack on democratic and religious freedom.  So be it in vacuum left behind from the Britain’s who colonized India from the Muslims who filled the vacuum left behind by the vanishing Mongols who themselves spread east after taking over the western steppes of the silk Roads from China, what should never be tolerated is any religious/political group that within any region of the 21^st century that does not give the same religious/political/societal freedom to both women and men.  If that is not a given right then, while I don’t advocate force, means should always be taken to ensure that these groups are aware they are themselves wrong if their form of fundamentalism means oppression what applauding those fundamentalist, who may not hold to the same religiosity or dress, yet wish for democratic reform, a lack of political corruption and religious oppression and societal freedoms be it for woman or man. So while there may be violent uprising internal within predominantly Muslim countries or attacks on the west by a few singularities we should certainly hold over making statements about intent and picking sides until the dust settles and all these groups reveal their true colours.

DunHuang

The stratification of history within the caves is what fascinates me most about the Dunhuang caves.  It takes no stretch of the imagination to transport myself back to a time when the caves themselves were filled within Buddhist monks insightfully and calming taking themselves through the Dhyanas in order to reach the unconditioned.

Along with their lay followers they would have complied their texts and saw to the creation of the monastery’s many caves. Over time the art work would have flowed and the many Dynasties would have given patronage to their cause and to feed their own flames of desire to be apart of what they saw as their path to enlightenment.

Over time when they regional lay patronage out shined the imperial demand for art the copies of the originals would have flowed out across the land. Their desire and and the desires of the Cao family seen in heir assistance in creating this massive monument to the devotion and inspiration that Buddhism gave to so many in China, though it seems to have halted in a flicker of a flame.

What is so fascinating about these caves is the stratification of history that regardless of the end was to spread and cultivate within their lands a better understand of their traditions myths, historiographies and their own interpretations.  Though in the end it may have been nothing but a workshop for copies of yesterday, within  the caves and on the wall leaves an imprint of what some will do to maintain and spread their faith and hope.

Chang’an

Taken from a ten foot stone tablet that once stood as a edifice to Nestorian Church within China during the Tang Dynasty, it would not be difficult to imagine a time and place that radiated tranquillity, tolerance and prosperity,

The sovereign has the power to act!
While the ministers record;
We raise this noble monument!
To the praise of great felicity.

In actuality, the China during the Tang dynasty may have been much less tranquil than this stone tablet may have lead us to believe, though under the rule of the Tang China did indeed go through a period of prosperity.  Allowing the Tang, through their abundance of wealth received by the taxation and tributes demanded by official decrees from the lucrative international trade of commodities, to openly receive the Nestorians and provide them protection and the means to erect themselves a Church.  By no way would this have been a protected haven to develop their scriptures; a place protected from the hardships of life that befell those who lived outside the borders of the imperial palace, it was a hard life and a life on the fringes of the society.

While it would seem from the tablet that a number of them would have been allowed to visit the capital and receive an audience with the high official of the Emperors court.  To what extent that they were allowed to take the exams and reach greater heights within the dynasty may not be a great a mystery.  If I were to make an educated guess, I would say not very often, considering that from other sources the Tang often used the exams to separate the educated peoples of right heritage.  These certainly would not have been Nestorian immigrants.  If not within the court, where did the Nestorians then gain their audience?  The audience was either the merchant class or the corvees.

Amongst the merchant class, Nestorians may have been received by those of similar beliefs, yet the numbers certainly would have been few considering the nationalities of merchants and their ever- declining status of the Nestorians within their own homeland.  Amongst the merchants they may have been known as outcasts, a people who could not win the hearts of their own and so left to find others.  It may even be argued that they never truly held status within their own homeland and even there lived on the fringes.

It would seem that would leave the corvees, the working class, though those who administered the pawnshops, brothels and markets as sources denote were often Buddhist.  Those who have turned to the Nestorians may have been the slaves, the unpaid, the downtrodden.  These peoples of the Tang certainly were not educated by any means considering from sources they barely if ever ate even meat, except during a major festival that happened once a year.  If not educated then certainly within a system that prided itself on the written word, arts and wisdom of their culture the Nestorians would have found it difficult to win adherents.  Possibly why, as sources seem to indicate, began to take up the language, the nomenclature, of their new Chinese homeland, since certainly that was the only means of ever trying to make a better life for themselves and their congregations.

It is not to say that they were not diligent and that their scripture were not advanced, since they did hold a place within the dynasty for over two centuries.  What certainly was their decline or at least cease to further creation of scripture was the 845CE decree that forbade foreign clergy within the Tang’s borders.  A resultant of a number of factors: warfare in the traders’ homeland, changes of peoples allegiances that led many to take arms against the Tang, a puritan-esque movement because of unwillingness of peoples to take on Chinese customs, etc.  All of which points to why the Nestorians were not allowed to continue their churches, yet what is most interesting is that these were not foreigners.  The Nestorians were by 845CE Chinese and because of being in their homeland and no place to worship would have just receded from the language and therefore the minds.

Sogdians; merchants, scribes, peoples with families.

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While this entry is certainly not on time, it may be said like so many who travelled the silk roads that it was held up by the distances in which their letters had to travel.  What is my excuse, interestingly … Continue reading →

Dreams and Landscapes a Pilgirm’s fire.

Xuanzang, alone, upon waking from his slumber and recalling a dream of far off mountains and rolling sand dunes embarked on two decade journey from the Eastern China to Northern India.  Trained as Buddhist monk and with an uncanny capacity for learning languages embarked on his journey, though it was decreed that no such journey could take place by anyone.  He was certainly not to remain a lone pilgrim for long as we quickly learn that being a Buddhist with a heart.  He won the hearts and minds of Kings.  Fair famed he gain the assistances on his spirituality quest for the truth about Buddhism that was lacking in China; however, it would seem that wherever this Buddhist departed peril was soon to follow.  It would seem that like so many pilgrims that would travel west to east rather east to west that being hungry for the truth about such romanticised and at time lore stepped in dragons, demons and miracles, were at times disconnected from the real implications of their personal quest.  It would seem that irregardless of the implications of any pilgrimage it should never be enough to discourage a person from going forward; if in their hearts they can say, it is not for just personal gain rather the gain of all, say, Buddhists.  So, while Xuanzang may have left a bit of turmoil in his wake, roused the imaginations and ambitions and even egos of those who he had gained assistance from, since it would seem he was regarded as a bit of a rouge Buddhist rather than a Chinese Pilgrim.  A role that it would seem he was more than willing to oblige to, it would seem his discovery and written reports are indispensable in reconstruction of the silk roads by given first had accounts of places that would seem to today standards lore rather than reality.  So, though, he was hungry for the truth and at times a bit quick to judge peoples he was certainly not reminiscent of a hungry ghost that only devours for devouring sake.

They will be coming around the Mountain…They will be riding their white horses…

What I guess is bothering me most about the reading is the lack of correlation between the people of the Bactria and Gandhara regions that the Yuezhi ascended upon and dominated. Regions that throughout history, it seems, only changed dynasties through bloodshed. I would not go so far as to say there was no bloodshed, since it is well record that the Scythians through fierce battle took the region of Bactria before the arrival of the Yuezhi who caused upheaval of the people within these regions as they, the Yuezhi entered the fray. What seems to me plausible, as it was portrayed in our readings, that there may direct correlation between languages spoken and the lack of bloodshed between Yuezhi and the people of Bactria, Gandhara and the regions east of Malhura. Languages that in part related to languages referred to by the Chinese as existing in the eastern region of the Taklamakan region and extending to the regions north and south. A similarity in language that could be in part stem from an ancestral link that would have allowed these nomadic peoples cause to take power over the five princes, tribes, of the regions of Bactria and Gandhara. That in part would give account for the Yuehzi adherence to Buddhism.

Not that it would be of necessity that there was an ancestral link for the Yuezhi having taken Bactria, the newly formed Yuezhi-Kusana dynasty, would have had the resources for conquest. By no means am I trying to portray that these people were of recent ancestry either, yet a cause for their success, if the Yuezhi did not have a written language of their own when they invaded the agrarian peoples of Bactria, could have been similarities in language between at least the ruling castes.

In as such, after the release of Buddha from its earthly-bodhisattva vessel of Guatama, a man known to have been born in Lumbini of N.E. India and had rejected his warrior class within his Sakya clan, that saw Buddhism rise during Asoka’s reign in Northern India. While to the North West, the ruling people of Bactria were the Scythians. To their far east lived the Yuezhi, a pastoralist nomadic people, of varying names and regions who at the time were suffering defeat by the Xiongnu and were not willing to the Han dynasty war against their invaders. This caused the Yuezhi to move west and as nomadic pastoralist did assimilated agrarian cultures for survival of the culture. In conquering Bactria, the Yuezhi eventually took power over regions of the five princes that included Asoka’s regions. In doing so, they adopted the Kusana as their dynastic name and took the form of a sedentary people. As the rulers of this stretch of land, they influenced the regions’ art, language and religion, especially Buddhism that through Kusana trade affiliations with China allowed it to move quietly east and north east when Hinduism rose and Kusana rule weaned. What could be induced is that if the Scythians and Yuezhi-Kasana were linguistically similar through, say, being of nomadic tribes that moved west at different points in history and were connected with the north-west regions of the ancient oasis town Turfan during the first millennium B.C.E. That may point to the walled cities, say, of Gautama’s father also being of a similar linguistic family with Asoka. His dynasty’s turn to Buddhism may have been political and ancestral not to mention spiritual and by some seen as a conversion of an Indian. Even if it was just over Asoka’s affiliation with what the indigenous and/or those who claimed ancestral links with these regions that caused Hindu is rise and Buddhism decline, specifically, during the era that was concentrated on by Stanislaw Czuma, Stanislaw with Rekha Morris and Xinru Liu and or readings for this week.

A period that may have seen a Saka qua Buddhism qua Asoka qua Scythian qua Kasana via, it at invariable times in sequential moments, China’s Antiquity and its war; wars that saw transfers of regions in the Kasana Dynasty after the fall of Asoka and the Saka’nian Land of Buddhism to the Kasana. An ethnic conversion that was spreading, again, though at times receding, then rising, that for many Indians and South East Asians would be taken as further assimilation and a loss on Indian ethnicity. That through the expanse in time would be Chinese and a loss not only to Chinese Ancestry rather East and South East Asian Ancestry.

Now was it a good thing or a bad thing that happened when people started remembering about transfers of imagination and reason through the will because of societal demand. A question for the ages, it seems, or of the Kasana dynasty that at times were not powerful, yet at times let the worship of religion and art flourish; a success that saw an eventual schism in the rubric of ancestry and religion in their regions.

Even the historians of China could learn only what they were could through patronage, bribery, espionage and artistic form. So, this writer would also have agree with Xinru Liu, it is a shame that historians of east and west did not have an opportunity to speak with philosophers, poets or historians of the both east and west before the dark ages fell on many of these regions. An age, it seems, that wheels itself in by the destruction and loss of historical fact. A true history of the regions that would not, could not, or decided ought-not be spread through word or image that has always included commodities that evolved like artistic, literary, religious and political thought and action. Changes in the opinion about the Kusana and Buddhism may have political or religious, yet, in our readings, a correlation between a lack of bloodshed when the Yuehzi  became sedentary within the regions of Bactria and Gandhara and the regions east of Malhura revolved around the revolving vernacular. That in part could be due to a whole that is the language referred as being in the region of Turfan. Irregardless, Buddhism in particular owes a lot to the Kusana, since it was their interest, specifically art, that would allowed the creation of an Buddhist arena and the schism that brought about the few major Buddhist sects who  eventually recorded their sutras into their sects’ vernacular.