There was recently mention in the media of a religious extremist in Egypt calling for the destruction of the pyramids. I first heard talk of this last summer-- around the time that the shrines in Timbuktu were destroyed.

I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing the moment I learned that the Taliban had blown up the Buddhist statues of Bamiyan.

Sitting in the backseat of a car in Los Angeles in 2001, we were stopped at a traffic light. The radio news mentioned it, but conversation in the car continued on-- I don't think anyone noticed or was really listening.

Despite the fact that they had been firing rockets at the statues for months, still it was a shock to hear that the statues had been completely destroyed-- and that these 1400 year old statues no longer existed.

How could they actually have gone through with it? I thought.

Although their destruction came as a shock, in fact the two statues had been practically tortured to death after months of rocket fire, canon fire, machine gun volleys and weeks of dynamiting.

The Japanese had been working furiously behind the scenes when the Taliban first made their intentions known to the world. Working with UNESCO and several Islamic governments, even their concentrated efforts could not stop what was to be. Years later, my Japanese friends still bring it up.

You see, the Japanese are sometimes called the world's great antiquarians. And they can trace their own tradition of Buddhist sculpture back to Bamiyan. So they --like many people-- find it nearly impossible to grasp why anyone would have wanted to destroy those precious 55 meter and 38 meter-tall statues, which for so long had towered up against the sandstone cliffs in what is called one of the world's most beautiful high-altitude valleys.

Even a thousand years ago, the statues were famous in China and Japan. So important were they in ancient times that rather than taking the direct route straight to India, the venerable Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang walked an extra thousand miles or so just to see them during his famous 7th century journey to India.

Xuanzang's caravan prevailed against blizzards, mountain gods, and robbers and finally approached Bamiyan, an oasis town in the center of a long valley separating the chain of the Hindu Kush from that of the Koh-i-baba range...The first sight of the Great Buddha must have made the weary travelers gasp.-- Immense cliffs of a soft pastel color and behind them indigo peaks dusted with snow, rising to a height of 22,000 feet. They saw reddish cliffs in the cold, clear air; as they came closer, they could make out two gigantic statues of the Buddha standing in niches carved in the mountain. Closer still, they saw the two colossal figures were colored and glistening with ornaments; the smaller wore blue, the larger one red, and their faces and hands were gilded.

Once painted in ultramarine and carmine, the statues were as famous for their extravagant colors as they were for their size. It must have been a spectacular sight!

The ultramarine pigment used at Bamiyan was the same blue so adored by the Renaissance painters. The pigment is painstakingly derived from the lapis lazuli rocks mined from one place in northeast Afghanistan. The mines are located not far from Bamiyan; and from there, donkeys transported the expensive pigment in rough sacks over mountain ranges East into Central Asia and West to Venice and beyond.

In Europe, the precious pigment was so valuable that it was worth more than its weight in gold, and the legendary painters of the Renaissance were often forced to wait till their patrons provided them the pigment before they could apply the heavenly blue to Mary's robes --for ultramarine had become the color associated with the Virgin Mary by that time (For more, see my post: Sacre Bleu 瑠璃色).

Bamiyan was long famous for being a conduit between East and West. Located on the trade route between India and Persia, the art of the region has had a tremendous influence on the artistic traditions of both the East and the West. So when, for example, Ikuo Hirayama--Japan's celebrated painter and Hiroshima survivor-- visited Bamiyan in 1968, he said he was going there in order "to seek the origins of Japanese culture and follow the way Buddhism diffused." For Bamiyan was at the very heart of things.

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But the Statues are gone. So, now what?

Part of Mary Beard's Wonders of the World Series, I highly recommend The Buddhas of Bamiyan, by Llowelyn Morgan. In addition to the historical context, Morgan goes into some detail on the destructions of the statues and what he believes to be the Al-Qa'ida connection. It is very interesting--for according to Morgan, Afghani religious scholars, as well as a delegation of religious leaders from many Muslim states, were very clear in telling the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, that the destruction of the statues could never be sanctioned or explained by Islam. The statues were no longer objects of worship--they were relics.The leader of the Taliban himself had made it clear he had no intention to do harm to the statues not months before. So this "change of heart," says Morgan, can be traced back to Al-Qa'ida influence.

But what can be done now--at this point in time, now that the statues are gone?

In general, I favor the Japanese National Treasures system of protecting cultural properties within the context of the nation-state. By designating National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties, certain works of art become protected by law (and thus cannot ever be sold as their preservation is safeguarded by the various nation-states who lay claim to them).

Bamiyan, however, is unique in that the art works had such a profound influence both East and West to the extent that their significance utterly transcendends the current nation-state of Afghanistan. Like ancient Egyptian art, the art works are situated in a pre-Islamic culture that has little to do with the nation-state of that place today.

We are reminded by the experts not to forget that along with these Buddhas, 2000 sculptures in what was left of the Kabul Museum were also smashed. So much has been lost.

A German team was pushing for rebuilding the statues. Some think that if at least one of the statues can be pieced-back together again, they should be. It would cost something like $30 million to piece together the smaller one. UNESCO rejected this plan.

Paris-based Afghani archaeologist, Dr. Zemaryalai Tarzi has another plan. Instead of re-building what is lost, Dr. Tarzi would like to unearth a third statue (said to be 1,000 feet long), which if it exists at all, has not been recorded as having been seen by anyone other than Xuanzang over a thousand years ago! If it does exist, it would be the biggest Reclining Buddha statue on earth. The only problem is that no one has seen it in over a 1000 years. Dr. Tarzi, however, remains undaunted. "Let's raise this new masterpiece from the earth and waive it in the face of the terrorists who destroyed our statues!" he says.

Another provocative idea was J. Otto Seibold's 2002 New Yorker proposal. I can't find an online reproduction of the image (here is a photo of a reproduction from Morgan's book). Seibold had suggested that two huge Buddhas be erected in Manhattan and two miniature twin towers be created in the empty niches at Bamiyan--this perhaps illuminating the notion of "spectacle" that connected the destruction of both the twin statues and the towers? ("Dynamite and Celebrity" says Morgan about Al Qa'ida). The miniature Twin Towers would be used to house refugees, thereby silencing the complaints that everyone cares more about the statues than the human beings who are hungry and were living in their shadows.

And, finally there was one more idea concerning how to replace what was lost.

A Japanese artist, Hiro Yamagata, a few years ago set in motion a plan to "re-store" the statues through laser technology --beaming images of the statues onto a cliff using $9 million solar and wind enerated technology. The plan never received UNESCO approval.

I loved the idea myself since --in the end-- the inherently ephemeral nature of a beam of light would bring home the idea that something precious and irreplaceable has been lost. And that there are some things that once gone can never be brought back again. Transience also being something appreciated by Buddism, I think it is both appropriate and poingant.

December 14, 2012

When the German explorer Albert von Le Coq was at Kizil as part of his grand travels to "borrow" ancient artifacts in Central Asia (carving frescos right off the walls in some cases!), he was stunned to come upon cave temples in what was by that time the middle of nowhere with murals of such beauty that he described them to be "the finest in all of Turkestan."

These murals were of astounding beauty. And most surprising of all was the blue pigment used in the paintings decorating the cave walls. He would write,

“…the extravagant use of a brilliant blue – the well-known ultramarine which, in the time of Benvenuto Cellini was frequently employed by the Italian painters, and was bought at double its weight in gold."

A color likened to the brilliant blue of the heavens above; as Le Coq explains, this ultramarine pigment was the same blue pigment so beloved by the Renaissance painters. How is it possible, he wondered, that the most expensive blue in the Renaissance painter's palate was also to be found in this remote spot in Central Asia?

One Day many years ago somebody told me that all the true ultramarine paint in the world came from one mine in the heart of Asia.

It's true, it seems that all the ultramarine paint in the world was painstakingly derived from the lapis luzuli rocks mined from one place in northeast Afghanistan. Located not far from Bamiyan; from the Sar-e-sang mine in Afghanistan, donkeys transported the expensive pigment in rough sacks over an ocean of mountain ranges-- East to Central Asia and beyond, and West to Venice and beyond.

In Europe, the precious pigment was so expensive that it was worth more than gold, and the legendary painters of the Renaissance were forced to wait till their patrons provided them the pigment before they could apply the heavenly blue to Mary's robes (for by this time the color was symbolic of Mary).

Finlay says in today's money, a pound would cost about $3000.

The color is truly heavenly-- just look at the Wilton Diptych-- shown above. That is all lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. It is the same color blue that was used at Kizil in what is now Western China and the same color blue that was used in painting the great Buddhist statues that stood over the Bamiyan valley for 1400 years.

In Medieval Byzantium dark blue was the color reserved for an empress. It was also--along with gold--the costliest material of all and so was used in paintings of the Virgin Mary as an expression of devotion.The color became, therefore, a symbol of Mary, and this is where the term, la sacre bleu comes from too...

Cennino Cennini, in Il Libro dell'Arte, wrote that "Ultramarine blue is a color illustrious, beautiful and most perfect, beyond all other colors; one could not say anything about it, or do anything with it, that its quality would still not surpass."

Even the great Michaelangelo was famously unable to finish his painting The Entombment because his promised shipment of ultramarine fell through.

In the East too, lapis luzuli was treasured. Called vairya in Sanskrit, lapis luzuli was one of the Seven Buddhist treasures (七宝)--along with gold, silver, pearls, agate, crystal, and coral. In Japanese, it is written 瑠璃. Ruri is also used as a girl's name, signifying the beautiful gem-like quality of the color. In fact, one of the most beautiful women I ever met in my life had that heavenly name.

My own favorite blue is Huizong's blue --that shimmering lavendar blue he longed to re-create in his imperial ceramic glazes--like "the the color of the sky, in early morning after a rainshower..." That blue was the blue that would become a kind of longing in people --existing more in people's imaginations and hearts than anywhere else. But Cellini's blue--that lapis luzuli blue from Bamiyan-- is perhaps the most treasured blue of all times. It was, after all, a color to designate a celestial Queen.

November 04, 2012

Now he knows the dear price men have to pay Not to follow Christ, by the experience Of this sweet life and of its opposite

A best seller since medieval times, I've long wondered, why it is that everyone prefers Dante's Purgatorio anyway?

Am I the only one who-- while utterly unable to imagine hell-- often finds myself lost in dreams of paradise? I always think it would be the most wonderful thing in the world to construct my own image of paradise as inclusive and elaborately detailed as Dante's vision. But, alas, I suppose in an age where we no longer share a grounded education in the classics, it would be hard to write paradise in any enclopedic way; and by necessity anything I would write would be only personal anyway.

The quote on my Jeanine Payer ring, "The experience of this sweet life," comes from Paradiso XX, 47-8, when Dante and Beatrice arrive at the sphere of Jupiter. A place of serenity, this is where they meet the souls of just lawgivers and righteous kings.

Gazing upward, the two standing side-by-side, watch as the lights of a myriad of illuminated souls form the words diligite iustitiam qui iudicatis terram ("cherish justice, you who judge the earth"); these lit souls then disband to come together again in the shape of a great eagle--symbol of the Roman empire but also symbol of Jupiter, the god of Justice. The souls begin to sing until their voices come together to speak as one voice, which spills forth from the mouth of the eagle-- commanding our hero to look at the eye of the eagle.

Doing as commanded, Dante sees forming the shape of the eagle's eyes six great kings who there serve as the highest ranking souls in the sphere. Looking closely, Dante is taken aback to find two pagans among the Christian righteous. The first pagan is the Roman Emperor Trajan and the second the Trojan Ripheus. The eagle laughed with "great sparkling and much cheer" at Dante's amazement, this laughter thereby indicating the inscrutability of God's Will (an important reminder of the limits of human understanding/ non conosciamo ancor tutti li eletti).

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Talking with Jesuit priest in training Matt Farley on his show Entitled Opinions, Robert Harrison suggested that as one moves back and forth across the Protestant-Catholic divide, one striking difference is in the weight given to "faith" versus "works." (for in the former, no matter how many good works one may perform, in the end it is faith that is truly crucial).

I think this is very true, and with its rich pagentry of feast days and saints, at Catholic Mass there is a kind of exhortation to "become saints to one another" through our good works. Saints are not necessarily perfected souls but are those whose actions toward others are understandable in terms of beatitude.

This is something I think Dostoevsky was the great master at depicting--- in the form of Alyosha Karamazov. And according to saintly Alyosha, if the greatest virtue is Love, this is something that must take the form of good works. To Alyosha, the opposite of Christ is not Satan but Misanthropy. And, it is in our mode of being out in participation with each other through which we set in motion our narratives of inter-connected salvation. (This being something expressed so beautifully in Cloud Atlas, I thought).

Back to the quote on my ring, though. I am going to summarize Dante scholar and translator Anthony Esolen's brilliant interpretation of the amazing manner in which the Roman enperor Trajan --a pagan!!-- found himself in this most exalted position in paradise.

In Dante's worldview, there were only two categories of souls: that of saints and that of sinners. But Dante suffered over the seeming injustice that there were sinners in Limbo who were there by providence alone. All the unbaptised babies, for example, and those born before Christianity-- was it fair that they were in Limbo?

The Roman emperor Trajan lived during the early Christian days. He did not persecute the Christians and let them live in peace (as long as they didn't practice openly). But this was not what attracted Dante. Rather it was the Medieval story concerning Pope Gregory the Great. Pope Gregory recognized Trajan for having stopped to console a poor widow who he came across while leading his armies to war. The widow's son had been murdered and though Trajan had bigger fish to fry, he stopped ("and turned around") and listened to her. Then, before moving on, he dealt justice. This story had deeply moved Pope Gregory and in scholar Esolen's words, Gregory came to love this image of the pagan emperor. So in love and so devoted was Gregory to this memory that he prayed intensely for God to do something so that Trajan could return to life once more in order to receive baptism.

And legend has it that this wish was granted to Gregory, and thereby Trajan was translated back to life. Gregory, then, was able to preach to him himself and from Trajan's own free-will, he was then baptised. Our man Dante, therefore, places the ex-pagan in one of the highest spheres of heaven.

This is a love story. For, as Esolen says:

Had Trajan not humbled himself (and he was on the verge of not humbling himself) and inconveienced his army to hear out the woman, Gregory would not have fallen in love with his memory. Lacking that devotion, he would not have prayed; had he not prayed, he would not have moved God to the miracle...

Trajan, then, by providence born a pagan; through love was re-born and thereby came to know the sweetness of paradise ("this life")-- in addition to its opposite (Limbo, in his case).