Bamiyan: 175-foot high Buddha image, set in a vast trefoil niche
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Rowland, Benjamin
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Part of the great monastic establishment where the monasteries and temples are carved entirely from the face of the sandstone cliff, which is for more than a mile honeycombed with a great series of sanctuaries and assembly halls, The folds of the Buddha's robe were modelled on ropes attached to wooden dowels driven into the stone core, doubtless to reproduce on an enormous scale a late Gandhara statue in which the Buddha's robe is reduced to a series of strings clinging to the surface of the body, dated c. 500 A.D. Both stylistic and iconographic reasons for these large figures besides being to atract attention and command respect by gigantic dimensions, and to suggest superhumaness, thus, to indicate the Buddha as Mahapurusa, or as Brahma comprising all worlds within himself, Conception of Sakyamuni as Lokattara or Lord of the World, Great influence on the art of the Far East, eg, Yun Kang and Lung Men, and the great bronze Vairocana at Nara,
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Archives Series
Basham Collection
Date created
1953
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This image is provided for research purposes only and must not be reproduced without the prior permission of the Archives Program, Australian National University.
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