Mystery of the third Buddha
Letter From Afghanistan
It is also the local people's last hope for reclaiming a bit of history. Omarakhan Massoudi, director of the Kabul museum, says he is "100 percent sure" that the statue exists and that the only reason the authorities did not try excavating it in the pre-Soviet era is because they did not have enough money. Now, though, they are thankful for that. "This Buddha was saved by accident," says archaeologist Mohammed Rasuli, who worked with Massoudi in the 1970s and has now rejoined the museum. "If we had excavated it, they would have destroyed it, too. We are lucky we did not excavate it at the time."
At the foot of the pile of rubble where the larger Buddha once stood, there is some black graffiti scrawled by the Taliban "Allah says he likes the things that are right and hates the wrong." Hussein Dad was here when the smashed bits of the Buddha came falling down, almost exactly one year ago. "I felt they were destroying our country, destroying our history," he says.
Even if the third Buddha is not excavated in his lifetime, he will pass his hope to future generations. "My children are still young, but I have told them this story. Just as our fathers and grandfathers told us, so we tell them."
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