In 2001 the world mourned the
senseless destruction of the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan, Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, the Buddhas of Bamiyan are only a small part of a great heritage
of Buddhist art that is being destroyed by war and fanaticism. This is the
heritage of Buddhist Gandhara.
The ancient kingdom of
Gandhara stretched across parts of present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was
a vital commercial center of the Middle East many centuries before the birth of
the Prophet Muhammad.
For a time, Gandhara also was
a jewel of Buddhist civilization. Scholars of Gandhara traveled east to India
and China and were influential in the development of early Mahayana Buddhism.
The art of Gandhara included the earliest oil paintings known in human history
and the first -- and some of the most beautiful -- depictions of bodhisattvas
and the Buddha in human form.
However, the artifacts and
archaeological remains of Gandhara still are being systematically destroyed by
the Taliban. The loss of the Bamiyan Buddhas gained the world's attention
because of their size, but many other rare and ancient pieces of art have been
lost since.
In November 2007 the Taliban
attacked a seven-meter tall, 7th century stone Buddha in the Jihanabad area of
Swat, severely damaging its head. In 2008 a bomb was planted in a museum of
Gandharan art in Pakistan. The explosion damaged more than 150 artifacts.
The Significance of Gandharan
Art
Nearly 2,000 years ago,
artists of Gandhara began to sculpt and paint the Buddha in ways that have
influenced Buddhist art ever since. Earlier Buddhist art did not depict the
Buddha. Instead, he was represented by a symbol or an empty space. But
Gandharan artists pictured the Buddha as a human being.
In a style influenced by
Greek and Roman art, Gandharan artists sculpted and painted the Buddha in
realistic detail. His face was serene. His hands were posed in symbolic
gestures. His hair was short, curled and knotted at the top. His robe was
gracefully draped and folded. These conventions spread throughout Asia and are
found in depictions of the Buddha to this day.
In spite of its importance to
Buddhism, much of the history of Gandhara was lost for centuries. Modern
archaeologists and historians have pieced together some of the story of
Gandhara, and fortunately much of its wonderful art is safe in the world's museums,
away from war zones.
Where Was Gandhara?
The Kingdom of Gandhara existed,
in one form or another, for more than 15 centuries. It began as a province of
the Persian Empire in 530 BCE and ended in 1021 CE, when its last king was
assassinated by his own troops. During those centuries it expanded and shrank,
and its borders changed many times.
You can
find the general area of Gandhara on this map
of present-day Afghanistan and part of Pakistan. The old
kingdom included what is now Kabul, Afghanistan and Islamabad, Pakistan. Find
Bamiyan (spelled Bamian) west and slightly north of Kabul. The area marked
"Hindu Kush" also was part of Gandhara. This map
of Pakistan shows the
location of the historic city of Peshawar. The Swat Valley, not marked, is just
west of Peshawar and is important to the history of Gandhara.
How Buddhism Came to Gandhara
Although this part of the Middle
East has supported human civilization for at least 6,000 years, our story
begins in 530 BCE. That year the Persian Emperor Darius I conquered Gandhara
and made it part of his empire. Then in 333 BCE Alexander the Great defeated
the armies of Darius III and gained control of Persia, and by 327 BCE Alexander
controlled Gandhara also.
One of Alexander's successors,
Seleucus, became ruler of Persia and Mesopotamia. However, Seleucus made the
mistake of challenging his neighbor to the east, the Emperor Chandragupta
Maurya of India. The confrontation did not go well for Seleucus, who ceded much
territory, including Gandhara, to Chandragupta.
Chandragupta left the Mauryan
Empire, which included the territory of Gandhara, to his son, Bindusara. When
Bindusara died, probably in 272 BCE, he left the empire to his son, Ashoka.
Ashoka the Great
Ashoka (ca. 304–232 BCE; sometimes
spelled Asoka) originally
was a warrior prince known for his ruthlessness and cruelty. According to
legend he was first exposed to Buddhist teaching when monks cared for his
wounds after a battle. However, his brutality continued until the day he walked
into a city he had just conquered and saw the devastation. "What have I
done?" he cried, and vowed to observe the Buddhist path for himself and
for his kingdom.
Ashoka's empire included almost
all of present-day India and Bangladesh as well as most of Pakistan and
Afghanistan. It was his patronage of Buddhism that left the greater mark on
world history, however. Ashoka was instrumental in making Buddhism one of the
most prominent religions of Asia. He built monasteries, erected stupas, and
supported the work of Buddhist missionaries, who took the dharma into Gandhara
and Gandhara's western neighbor, Bactria.
King Menander
The Mauryan Empire declined
after Ashoka's death. The Greek-Bactrian King Demetrius I conquered Gandhara
about 185 BCE, but subsequent wars made Gandhara an Indo-Greek kingdom
independent of Bactria.
One of
the most prominent of the Indo-Greek kings of Gandhara was Menander, also
called Melinda, who ruled from about 160 to 130 BCE. Menander is said to have
been a devout Buddhist. The Pali
Canon contains
a dialogue, called The Milindapañha, alleged to be between King Menander and a
Buddhist scholar named Nagasena.
After Menander's death
Gandhara was invaded again, first by Scythians and then Parthians. The
invasions wiped out the Indo-Greek kingdom.
The Kushans
The Kushans (also called the
Yuezhi) were an Indo-European people who came to Bactria -- now northwestern
Afghanistan -- about 135 BCE. In the 1st century BCE the Kushans united under
the leadership of Kujula Kadphises and took control of Gandhara away from the
Scytho-Parthians. Kujula Kadphises established a capital near what is now
Kabul, Afghanistan.
Eventually the Kushans
extended their territory to include part of present-day Uzbekistan as well as
Afghanistan and Pakistan. The kingdom extended into northern India as far east
as Benares. Eventually the sprawling empire would require two capitals
--Peshawar, near the Khyber Pass, and Mathura in northern India. The Kushans
controlled a strategic part of the Silk Road and a busy port on the Arab Sea
near what is now Karachi, Pakistan. They became wealthy, and their wealth
supported a flourishing civilization.
Kushan Buddhist Culture
Kushan Gandhara was a
multiethnic blend of many cultures and religions, including Buddhism.
Gandhara's location and dynamic history brought together Greek, Persian,
Indian, and many other influences. The mercantile wealth supported scholarship
and the fine arts.
It was under Kushan rule that
Gandharan art developed and flourished. The earliest Kushan art mostly reflects
Greek and Roman mythology, but as time went on Buddhist figures became
dominant. The first depictions of the Buddha in human form were made by artists
of Kushan Gandhara, as were the first depictions of bodhisattvas.
The
Kushan King Kanishka I (127–147) in particular is remembered as a great patron
of Buddhism. He is said to have convened a Buddhist council in Kashmir. He did build a greatstupa in Peshawar. Archeologists discovered and
measured its base about a century ago and determined the stupa had a diameter
of 286 feet. Accounts of pilgrims suggest it may have been as tall as 690 feet
(210 meters) and was covered with jewels.
Beginning in the 2nd century,
Buddhist monks from Gandhara actively engaged in transmitting Buddhism into
China and other parts of north Asia. A 2nd century Kushan monk named Lokaksema
was among the first translators of Mahayana Buddhist scriptures into Chinese.
King Kanishka's reign marked
the peak of the Kushan era of Gandhara. In the 3rd century the territory ruled
by Kushan kings began to shrink. Kushan rule ended altogether in 450, when what
was left of Kushan Gandhara was overrun by Huns. Some Buddhist monks gathered
as much Kushan art as they could carry and took it to what is now the Swat
Valley of Pakistan, where Buddhism would survive for a few more centuries.
Bamiyan
In western Gandhara and
Bactria, Buddhist monasteries and communities established during the Kushan era
also continued to grow and flourish for the next few centuries. Among these was
Bamiyan.
By the 4th century Bamiyan
was home to one of the largest monastic communities in all Central Asia. The
two great Buddhas of Bamiyan -- one nearly 175 feet tall, the other 120 feet
tall -- may have been carved as early as the 3rd century or as late as the 7th
century.
The
Bamiyan Buddhas represented another development in Buddhist art. While earlier
Kushan art had depicted the Buddha as a human being, the carvers of Bamiyan
were reaching for something more transcendent. The larger Bamiyan Buddha is the
transcendent BuddhaVairocana.
Vairocana represents the dharmakaya, beyond time and space, in which all beings
and phenomena abide, unmanifested. Thus, Vairocana contains the universe, and
thus, Vairocana was carved on a colossal scale.
Bamiyan art also developed a
unique style distinctive from the art of Kushan Gandhara. Bamiyan art was less
Hellenic and more of a fusion of Persian and Indian style.
One of the greatest
achievements of Bamiyan art has only recently been appreciated --
unfortunately, after most of it was defaced by the Taliban. Dozens of small
caves were dug out of the cliffs in back of the great buddhas, and many of
these were decorated with painted murals. In 2008 scientists analyzed the
murals and realized that some of them had been painted with oil-based paint --
the earliest use of oil painting yet to be discovered. Before, art historians
had placed the beginning of oil painting in 15th century Europe.
The Swat Valley: Birthplace
of Tibetan Vajrayana?
Now we go back to the Swat
Valley in north central Pakistan and pick up the story there. As stated
earlier. Buddhism in the Swat Valley survived the Hun invasion of 450. It was
said that at its peak of Buddhist influence, the Swat Valley was filled with
fourteen hundred stupas and monasteries.
According to Tibetan
tradition the great 8th century mystic Padmasambhava was from Uddiyana, which
is thought to have been the Swat Valley. Padmasambhava brought Vajrayana
Buddhism to Tibet and built the first Buddhist monastery there.
The Emergence of Islam and
the End of Gandhara
In the 6th century CE the
Sassanian dynasty of Persia took control of Gandhara, but after the Sassanians
suffered a military defeat in 644 Gandhara was ruled by the Turki Shahis, a
Turkic people related to the Kushans. In the 9th century control of Gandhara
reverted to Hindu rulers, called the Hindu Shahis.
Islam reached Gandhara in the
7th century. For the next few centuries Buddhists and Muslims lived together in
mutual peace and respect. Buddhist communities and monasteries that came under
Muslim rule were, with a few exceptions, left alone.
But Gandhara was long past
its prime, and conquest by Mahmud of Ghazna (ruled 998–1030) effectively put an
end to it. Mahmud defeated the Hindu Gandharan King Jayapala, who committed suicide.
Jayapala's son Trilocanpala was assassinated by his own troops in 1012, an act
that marked the official end of Gandhara.
Mahmud left the Buddhist
communities and monasteries under his rule alone, as had most Muslim rulers.
Even so, after the 11th century Buddhism in the region gradually withered away.
It is difficult to pin down exactly when the last Buddhist monasteries in
Afghanistan and Pakistan were abandoned. However, for many centuries the
Buddhist cultural heritage of Gandhara was preserved by the Muslim descendants
of the Gandharans.
