photo: Jill Caughley
photo: Leanora Pratt
photo: Jill Caughley
photo: Jill Caughley
Newsletter for 2008
Large Buddha niche
October 2008
Letter from Bamiyan, Valley of the Buddhas
Dear readers,
Last summer we organised a sponsored walk in Afghanistan - our third - to raise funds for SGAA. Having been twice up the Panjsher Valley [2003,2005] this was our first time in Bamiyan, famous for its huge standing Buddhas which, sadly, were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. The party comprised 16 intrepid walkers and six of the Gall family, including two daughters, one granddaughter, my son-in law, my wife Eleanor and myself. It was a great success and we raised about £90,000. What follows is my own thank you letter to my sponsors, which I hope you will enjoy reading.Well, we made it! Despite dire warnings from the Foreign Office saying 'Don't go to Afghanistan on any account, you're liable to be kidnapped, ambushed or blown up,' we did, and had a marvellous time into the bargain.
Bamiyan, even after the destruction of the Buddhas, is still hugely impressive and above all, beautiful. We had the good fortune to stay in a charming new establishment, owned by a remarkable Japanese lady, Hiromi, called the Silk Road Hotel in tribute to Bamiyan's great days - roughly from the 1st century to 1221 AD. That was when the camel caravans travelled the road from China to Rome, carrying silk and jade west and spices, Roman glass, wine and gold and silver plates east. [One knows the precise date of the demise of Bamiyan because that was the year when Genghis Khan destroyed the city and every living thing in it].
For a millennium, however, not only did the caravan trade make Bamiyan rich, it brought the new religion of Buddhism from Nepal and re-exported it to China, Japan and Korea. Under its brilliant king, Kanishka, c. 130 AD, Buddhism flourished, monasteries were built and a thousand or more monks lived in the caves that honeycomb the cliff face on which I used to gaze in awe every morning as the sun rose and I did my exercises.
Between 535 and 600 AD the first, Small Buddha was carved out of the golden sandstone and 50 or so years later, in the early 600s, the large Buddha followed. They were probably the first giant statues of the Buddha in human form. They were also the masterpieces the Taliban destroyed in a fit of religious fanaticism in March, 2001. The niches are still there - the large Buddha's empty - its shattered remains stored at its foot. The Small Buddha's is obscured by a scaffolding erected by Messerschmitt [once renowned for its fighter aircraft], behind which the German-run International Council on Monuments and Sites [ICOMOS] are drilling 30-foot holes and pumping in a special compound to stabilise the rock face, badly cracked by the Taliban explosives. Six ICOMOS restorers came to dinner on our first night in Bamiyan and told us they thought the Buddhas could be 'restored,' by using a Greek method called anastylosis. But, they insisted, at the moment they were merely working on the stabilisation of the niches, the sine qua non for any restoration. One of their veteran restorers, Edmund Melzl, from Munich, told me he thought there was not enough of the Large Buddha left standing to restore it - reconstruction is taboo - but with the Small Buddha it was possible because it 'still had most of its legs left.' We shall see.
Next night we had an urbane Franco-Afghan archaeologist, Professor Zemaryalai Tarzi, as our dinner guest. He is searching for a 'lost' Reclining Buddha described by a Chinese pilgrim, Xuan Zang, in 632 AD as 'more than 1000 feet [333 yards] long.' Sceptics think it no longer exists but Tarzi has persuaded himself and more importantly the National Geographic Magazine that it does. Earlier he gave us a fascinating tour of his latest dig, a royal monastery not far from the Small Buddha, where he has unearthed the foundations of two stupas. He thinks he is on the right track.
Some of the more athletic walkers climbed up behind the Large Buddha niche and reappeared on the cliff above from where they had an unrivalled view of the Valley. Later that morning, the Germans invited us to inspect their work at the foot of the Small Buddha, where we watched some strong local lads loading great chunks of rock, blown off the cliff face by the original explosions, on a sled and dragging them by sheer muscle power to the foot of the statue. There, as the Afghans wrestled the lumps of rock into position, Professor Erwin Emmerling, also from Munich, explained they would help to shore up the cliff base. 'Aren't you actually starting to restore the Small Buddha?' I asked, slightly provocatively. 'No,' he insisted, 'we are only stabilising the cliff. Once that is completed, the decision will be made to restore or not.'
That decision is fraught with political, financial and cultural pitfalls. No one, for example, has yet offered to put up the money [the sum of $50 million has been mentioned]. Restoration is a hot potato and no one wants to burn their fingers trying to pick it up. Perhaps the veteran Japanese historian, Professor Kasaku Maeda has offered the best solution. He suggests one Buddha should be restored and the other niche left empty to remind the world of the Taliban's crime.
Next day we walked across the Kakrak valley to where another smaller Buddha had gazed serenely across the peaceful green fields and woods for centuries It too was gone, the victim of the same insane hatred of the other. One was thankful that some fine paintings, discovered in a nearby cave by French archaeologists 30 or 40 years ago, had long ago been removed to the Kabul Museum for safekeeping. Having been covered by a coating of mud, presumably to protect them from vandals, they were in a state of perfect preservation. But you still can't see them. They remain hidden in the Museum's vaults like so many of Afghanistan's treasures.
One afternoon we walked up a steep path to the top of the old citadel, Shahr-i-Gholghola - the City of Noise. The view is superb although its story is a grim one: how in the course of a few days or at most weeks, Genghis Khan, the Mongol Destroyer, razed the once great city of Bamiyan to the ground and slaughtered every living creature there, men, women and children, and even the animals and birds. The sound of their screaming gave its name to the Shahr-i-Gholghola. On the way to the citadel, we passed an old qala, or fortified house which belonged, according to legend, to the beautiful but jealous daughter of King Jalaluddin. Furious that her father planned to marry a beautiful young princess from neighbouring Ghazni, she decided to betray him to Genghis Khan who was besieging the city. The conqueror was in ugly mood, having been snubbed by the Khwarizm Shah, ruler of the area, and seeking revenge. For weeks the garrison held out until the daughter decided to take a hand, shooting an arrow into Genghis Khan's tent with a message which revealed the source of the city's water. Once he knew the secret, Genghis Khan was able to cut off the supply. Eventually the city surrendered and was put to the sword. But instead of rewarding the vengeful princess, Genghis Khan had her stoned to death for treachery. Bamiyan never recovered from the Mongol invasion. Only the Buddhas, for some obscure reason, survived.
Perhaps the highlight of our journey was a two-day visit to Band-i-Amir, [King's Dam] the spectacular sapphire blue lakes with pink cliffs that lie about 50 miles west of Bamiyan. Thanks to the Governor, we were allowed to use her camp on the edge of the main lake, where the hardier walkers swam in the clear but very cold water. Opposite was the shrine, built in honour of Hazrat Ali, nephew and son-in-law of the Prophet. Afghans believe the water, which is rich in sulphur, has curative properties, above all for women. Most days you can see fully-dressed ladies, with a rope round their middle, being cast into the water. A few seconds later, terrified - most of them cannot swim - they are hauled out, gasping, and landed like so many fish.
Hazrat Ali, who was also the founder of the Shia sect, is the local hero, a sort of Muslim Robin Hood, whose feats of derring-do are legion. He is credited, for example, with building the five, fairy-tale blue dams in one day to save the skin of an unlucky young man who was being victimised by the cruel king. Frightened out of his wits, the king became a Muslim on the spot. Even more heroic was Hazrat Ali's despatch, in the style of St George, of a fearsome fire-breathing dragon which had terrorised the valley of Bamiyan for months. Every morning the villagers had to produce, for the dragon's breakfast, a beauteous young maiden not to mention a brace of camels and various other odds and ends. Then one morning, instead of a maiden, the dragon found Hazrat Ali waiting for him, sword in hand. Huff and puff as he might, his fiery breath scorching the landscape, the dragon was no match for Ali who split the monster in two with one prodigious blow. We walked along the summit of the Dragon rock, along the deep crack said to have been made by Ali's sword - obviously the result of some earthquake or other upheaval - marvelling at how the rock's shape was exactly as you imagined a recumbent dragon might look. If you put your ear to a fissure in the rock, you could hear distant rumbles which the locals claim are the last groans of the long-a-dying dragon.
More prosaically, we spent four nights in all in Kabul. On arrival we visited Babur's Gardens, lovingly restored by the Aga Khan's team led by Jolyon Leslie, the Museum, and the Bala Hissar, the historic fortress which towers over the Old City, ably marshalled by the ever-energetic Brigadier Bill Woodburn. On our final day, with Jolyon Leslie himself as guide, we saw another Aga Khan project, the rescue by restoration of historically and architecturally important houses in the Old City.
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| A rocket hit the house, in Uruzgan, of this young boy [left], damaging one leg so badly he had to have it amputated. The club foot boy [right], despite the seriousness of his case, was young enough to be successfully treated. | |
We also had time to see our old clinic, the Kabul Orthopaedic Organisation [KOO], now Afghan-run. It is doing very good work, still advised and supported by us, treating mine and rocket victims and many cases of club foot by the Ponseti technique, which one of our consultants, Philip Henman from Newcastle, introduced to Afghanistan three years ago. Since then, between December 2005 and May 2008, our now expert staff have successfully treated 627 children with club foot, 450 boys and 177 girls. Boys are more prone to get the condition, apparently.
Eleanor, Fiona and I plus two walkers, Eliz Hurt and John Casson, then drove to Jalalabad for a two-day visit to our clinic there. Despite the reduction in activity which always occurs in Ramadan, the month of fasting, we were impressed by the Women's and Children's department where the two senior ladies were busy plastering one small boy with club foot. His grandmother had brought him by bus to the clinic, about 30 miles from Khogiani, south of Jalalabad. Now the Ponseti method depends on a six-week treatment, with the plaster being removed, the foot manipulated and repositioned if necessary and the plaster replaced every week. The grandmother said she could afford to come only once a month, because the fare was so expensive [700 Afghanis, or $14 - $4 a day is a good wage for a labourer]. The deputy head of the Women and Children's section said the money set aside for patients' transport had run out. Fuel prices had gone up so much the budget was no longer enough. How much did they need? About double, she said. I thought it would be a good idea to increase it from Afs12,000 [$240, £140] to Afs20,000 [$400, £235] a month, the money to come from the Walk proceeds, provided the committee agreed. It seemed to me pointless to operate popular and successful programmes like Ponseti and DDH [displacement of the hip] if needy patients - who must be treated as young as possible - could not afford to get to the clinic.
So the money you have so kindly given will help us treat and cure many more cases of club foot; many more cases of DDH; many more cases of cerebral palsy, which leaves a child unable to walk or even sit [we provide special, made-to-measure chairs in our own workshop]; to provide many more calipers and other walking aids which help polio victims, in particular; as well as prostheses [artificial limbs] for the only slightly decreasing numbers of mine victims. Last but not least we are proud of our production of wheelchairs which like all our treatments are designed to restore or at least increase mobility, so that patients can get about on their own and earn a living. For the disabled, mobility is the key to a better life.
Thank you all very much for supporting us.
With my Very Best Wishes,
Sandy Gall Chairman SGAA