The Liberator

00:00 Introduction 01:05 The Buddha and anatta/no-self 03:37 Early Buddhist art, aniconism and nirvana. 05:27 From no-self to emptiness: sunyata and impermanence 06:18 Impermanence in action: the history of Bamiyan and Buddhism 10:38 Conclusion In May 2001 the Taliban shocked the world by exploding two 1500 year old statues of the Buddha with dynamite. The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas was seen my most observers as an appalling act of cultural vandalism. But is it possible that, in reducing these ancient sculptures into empty niches, the Taliban unwittingly proved the truth of the religion, Buddhism, that they set out to insult? Join me as we look at the history of Buddhist thought and art, as well as the story of the Bamiyan Buddhas and their elusive creators, in order to prove a remarkable thesis – that by blowing up the Buddha, the Taliban proved his teachings right…

 Primary sources Santideva, The Bodhicaryavatara, Kate Crosby and Andrew Skilton (trans.), 1995. Sutta Nipata, Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu (trans.), 2016 Xuanzang, The Great Tang Dynasty Record of the Western Regions, Li Rongxi (trans.), 1996 The Heart Sutra (I read a couple versions but I found the Triratna version most elegant in its rendering.) https://thebuddhistcentre.com/system/… Secondary reading Dalrymple, William, The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World, 2024 Dehejia, Vidya. Aniconism and the Multivalence of Emblems.” Ars Orientalis 21 (1991): 45–66. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4629413. Higuchi, Takayasu, and Gina Barnes. Bamiyan: Buddhist Cave Temples in Afghanistan.” World Archaeology 27, no. 2 (1995): 282–302. http://www.jstor.org/stable/125086. Huntington, Susan L. Early Buddhist Art and the Theory of Aniconism.” Art Journal 49, no. 4 (1990): 401–8. https://doi.org/10.2307/777142. Seckel, Dietrich, and Andreas Leisinger. Before and beyond the Image: Aniconic Symbolism in Buddhist Art.” Artibus Asiae. Supplementum 45 (2004): 3–107. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1522713. #history #buddha #afghanistan #religion #ancienthistory