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Buddhism amid the Ruins - Page 2

© Yeshe Chodon

Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation is a Buddhist based Charity Mission founded by Buddhist Nun Venerable Cheng Yen. According to a November 22, 2001 article in The Damma Times, this organization along with Knightsbridge International and Afghanistan Relief International "delivered more than 500 blankets to the refugee village of Hoji-Malla. This is the same refugee camp where the team has delivered 30 tons of wheat, sugar,cooking oil, and tents over the past couple of weeks." On November 7, 2001, a new electrocardiogram unit was delivered to the hospital in Khoja-Baldeen by the same humanitarian coalition. Ironically, two relief workers were injured in the act of delivering the blankets.

Such stories give hope that Afghanistan has not entirely been abandoned.

Finally, in an article titled To survive Afghanistan must reclaim its history, from The Lycos News Service 16th November 2001,it becomes evident that the seeds of multiculturalism and religious diversity have been trampled into the land-mined dust, but lie just below the surface and given decent conditions, may well sprout again.

The roots of Afghanistan's tragedy lie in the denial of its own splendid past. Reclaiming some of its true history would help it make a new beginning, says Shobha Tsering Bhalla, managing editor of Lycos Asia.

Along with human rights, the Taliban can lay claim to another victim - history. In less than a decade it has taken Afghanistan back to the dark ages, obliterating its glorious past.

What an irony that Afghanistan, once a thriving centre of two of the world's most peace-loving and tolerant religions (Buddhism and Hinduism) should now be the definitive crucible of hatred - hostage to what must be the most culturally intolerant political group in the world.

As any student of ancient history knows, the oldest Hindu text, the 5000-year old Rig Veda, originated in Afghanistan (in its songs, the region around the Kabul River was called Kabuha or Kabukha) and the renowned Indo-Grecian Gandhara School of art flourished not far from Kandahar, now the Taliban's citadel of doom.

Indeed, for several centuries, until 450 A.D. Gandhara was a centre of Buddhist civilisation. Today, the dust and rubble of the mighty Bamiyan Buddhas built by the great Kushan king Kanishka lie in mute testimony to the death of history in the Hindu Kush region, home of one of the world's oldest civilizations - the Indus Valley civilisation.

Although bigots run it now, Afghanistan was once a haven of liberal values. And it was most so during the reign of the Buddhist emperor Ashoka who ruled the region from 270 B.C. to 232 B.C.

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