BAMIAN

bəmyänˈ, town (1984 est. pop. 52,000), capital of Bamian prov., N central Afghanistan, on the Kunduz River. The population is predominantly Hazara. It was long a major caravan center on the route across the Hindu Kush between India and central Asia. By the 7th cent. the town was a center of Buddhism; the Chinese pilgrims Fa Hsien and Hsüan-tsang traveled through the town. Bamian was invaded by the Saffarids in 871. A Muslim fortress town from the 9th to the 12th cent., Bamian was sacked by Jenghiz Khan in 1221 and never regained its former prominence.

The Bamian valley is lined with cave dwellings cut out of the cliffs by Buddhist monks. Particularly interesting were two great figures (one 175 ft/53 m high, the other 120 ft/37 m) carved from rock and finished in fine plaster. The statues were destroyed, however, in 2001 by the Taliban, which considered them idolatrous. The area also has grottoes decorated with wall paintings in Greco-Buddhist styles.

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The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved.

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Questia Books and Articles on: Bamian
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books on: Bamian  - 55 results

       More book Results: 1-10 11-20 21-30 31-40 41-50 >>  
 
...with that which led to northern India by Bamian, Kabul, and the Khyber. While the sea...preferred the latter, for the ruins of Bamian still fill the pass, while the remains...workings are, indeed, said to exist near Bamian, but the cost of transporting ore from...
...Nomads on the ancient silk road through Hindu Kush XXIX A nomad woman leads camels through Bamian Valley XXX A turbaned trader of sheepskin coats, Afghanistan...
...243 Kunduz 260 Khanabad 264 Bamian 267 Shibar 271 Charikar 274...
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journal articles on: Bamian  - 9 results

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...Germany lead provincial reconstruction teams. Germany is in charge of teams in Kundus and Feysabad, while New Zealand leads the Bamian team. The fact that both countries are involved in Afghanistan and worked together in the same contingent in addition to both...
...influence of the Stanislavsky system. Only 1 percent consisted of Brechtian theatre, reflected by a total of three productions: Bamian Hongqi Yingfeng Piao (Eight Red Flags Fluttering Against the Wind; 1957), Dadan Mama He Tade Haizimen ( Mother Courage; 1959...
...Islami, which fell to the Taliban in March 1994; Hezb-e Wahdat, which was driven out of Kabul in 1995 and from its final base in Bamian in August 1998; and the Uzbek-led Jonbesh-e Miii Islami under Abdul Rashid Dostum and Malik, which was defeated in August 1998...
...in Gardez, the concept was internationalized, with Britain, New Zealand, and Germany setting up their PRTs in Mazar-e Sharif, Bamian, and Kunduz, respectively. As US forces shifted to stabilization operations in early 2004, the PRT network was expanded throughout...
...and a far cry from contemporary stereotypes of Islam embodied by the Taliban and their destruction of the Buddhist statues at Bamian. Such fundamentalist impulses bear no relation to the great flowering of Mughal aestheticism. Jyotsna G. Singh Michigan State...
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magazine articles on: Bamian  - 6 results

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...stood as sentinels along the cliffs of the Bamian Valley, a welcoming band of green along...described them in his writings. The Buddhas of Bamian were by all accounts a wondrous sight...valleys of Afghanistan, the Buddhas of Bamian stood as testaments to this ancient time...
...or falling down in a corner in Herat, Bamian, Kabul, or Kandahar and dying for the...to stone yet, was the Buddha statue of Bamian. With all his grandeur, he felt humiliated...amputation of the hand of some bandit in Bamian, the stoning to death of a young adulterer...
...the American adventurer commandeered a military mission over the perilous Hindu Kush mountains into the Bamian valley. And in the desolate Bamian stretches, where Shiite Hazara tribes lived in perpetual fear of marauding Uzbek warlords, Harlan struck...
...Museum, and filmmaker Bernard Weber are heading a campaign to raise more than 1m pounds sterling to recreate the 1,800-year-old Bamian Buddhas, destroyed by the Taliban last March. The project aims to unite art historians, scientists and Afghan craftsmen. A scaled-down...
...a functioning multiethnic administration. The third region encompasses Hazarajat or Central Afghanistan with its capital in Bamian. It is the home of the Hazara, who have been divided by a provincial system that consistently has favored Pashtuns. A fourth...
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newspaper articles on: Bamian  - 8 results

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...else to recommend it. BUDDHA COLLAPSED OUT OF SHAME (PG, pounds 15.99) ***** This enchanting tale set in the Afghan town of Bamian follows a little girl as she struggles to raise money to buy a notebook so she can go to a girls school across the river. I...
...subject of human rights, the interim government says it is addressing this problem. There are reports of mass graves in the Bamian region, northwest of Kabul, where the Hazara tribe, Shiite Muslims of Asian origin, has been the major victim of local ethnic...
...prices, have left some 9 million Afghans facing critical food shortages. In 30 years of almost continuous warfare, farmers in Bamian province say they have never seen anything this bad. The Maldon research institute in a report on Sympathy for Taliban in Pakistan...
...werent well-coordinated. There was no history of coordinating among countries this way - especially in response to the sacking of Bamian in Afghanistan. Mr. Rose instigated meetings between scholars, resulting in a proposal - accepted by the then-head of the U...
...ISI) that has elevated the Sunni Pashtun tribes over Irans natural allies, the Shiite Hazara tribe, which populate central Bamian province. In addition, Iran has borne the economic cost of hosting some 2.4 million Afghan refugees with little financial...
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encyclopedia articles on: Bamian  - 3 results

 
 
BAMIAN b myan , town (1984 est. pop. 52,000), capital of Bamian prov., N central Afghanistan, on the Kunduz River. The...Fa Hsien and Hsuan-tsang traveled through the town. Bamian was invaded by the Saffarids in 871. A Muslim fortress...
...Afghanistan. In early 2001 the Taliban militia destroyed all statues in the nation, including two ancient giant Buddhas in Bamian , outside Kabul. The destruction was ordered by religious leaders, who regarded the figures as idolatrous and un-Islamic; the...
...covered with reliefs and inscriptions. In Afghanistan at Bamian are ruins that show the great impact of Iranian art forms...the 4th to the 8th cent. Frescoes and colossal Buddhas adorn Bamians monasteries, revealing a fusion of Greco-Buddhist and Sassano-Iranian...


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