Dharma under attack all over Asia. Burma's oppression of Buddhism, Ramar-Sethu issue, Nepal 'secular' communist take-over ('no longer a Hindu country'), attempts to make the Thai constitution say Thailand is not a Buddhist country :blink, and now this:
TSP is trying to blow up the
second largest Buddha statue (2nd after Bamiyan that their islamic brethren in Afghanistan blew up).
<img src='http://i.usatoday.net/news/_photos/2007/09/11/pakistan-buddha.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
And much of the news is silent, because I certainly didn't come across it in the news (found this in a Hindu blog). Silence is probably due to everyone feeling the need to pretend that islam is the ... what was it ... the tolerant religion of piecemeal ... I mean, piece, or whatever.
TSP has no respect for heritage. For them the magnificent Buddha statue must go because it is haraam. Everything is haraam in islam, even beauty (Buddha statue, women's faces), fun (poetry, music, ....), and humanity (adoption, getting along with people of other religions).
When they tried to blow it up the first time in Sept, the islamis failed. They are now trying a second time.
Note that the texts excerpted here do not contain the internal links that the original texts have.
http://varnam.org/blog/archives/2007/09/buddha_wins.php
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Sep 12 2007
<b>Buddha wins</b>
Islamic terrorists, this time from Pakistan, continue their fight against Buddhist rock carvings.
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->There was, however, no damage to the image of the sitting Buddha carved into a 40-metre high rock in mountains 20 km north of Mingora, a town in the scenic Swat valley, northwest of the capital, Islamabad.
A group of masked-men tried to destroy the carving on Tuesday, said provincial archaeology department official Aqleem Khan.
"Militants drilled holes in the rock and filled them with dynamite and blew it up," Khan said on Wednesday.
"The explosion damaged the upper part of the rock but there was no damage to the image itself," he told Reuters.[Pakistani militants try to blow up Buddha carving]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Joy at the Buddha escaping unscathed is shortlived because the faithful Islamis will not give up. They are determined to destroy the Buddha.
http://satyameva-jayate.org/2007/10/04/a...o-bamiyan/
(Other links in this post obtained from this one)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Most of you would remember the senseless destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by Taliban from a few years ago.
Some days go, I had alerted readers to another attack on Buddha statues - this time in Pakistan - which most media channels (including the revered BBC) chose to downplay.
Two days ago, the Islamic zealots returned to complete their unfinished business.
Excerpts from the story:
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->â<b>The historic statue of Buddha in Pakistanâs Swat Valley was attacked for the second time in 20 days on Saturday night, damaging its head and shoulders. Militants have threatened that a third attack is imminent when they will âdestroy it completelyâ.</b>
â¦The Pakistan government has not yet issued any statement.
Musa Khankel, local correspondent of The Newsâ¦told HT over telephone: â<b>They told me they will come again to complete the job. They were proud of what they had done. They said they considered it their religious duty</b>.â<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Information on this heritage Buddha statue:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-09...an-buddha_N.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->7-meter (23-foot) statue<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Nasir said before extremist violence scared off most tourists to the region, Buddhists from Sri Lanka, Thailand and Japan would come to visit the statue, which shows Buddha sitting cross-legged.
The statue was <b>built around the 1st century, during the Gandhara era, which flourished in that part of Pakistan from the 6th century B.C. to the 11th century A.D.</b>, according to Fida Ullah Sehrai, an expert on Buddhist archaeology and former director of the Peshawar Museum.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->This archaeologist 'Sehrai' has indirectly admitted to what exactly ended Buddhism: 11th century is more than a mere indicator, it marks the occasion as well. Islam.
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->