AFGHAN DIARY " Buddha and the Silk Route"

“If it is true that all along the silk route there were always Buddhists settlements then there should be many more apart from the ones near Bamyan.Have you been able to find any other?”

Among the several queries that my father posted every week this was one which immediately caught my attention.

Buddhism in Afghanistan I had read had a long history. Many of the Iranian fore bearers of Pashtuns, including the Scythians followed Buddhism until the arrival of Islam. Infact there has been an active Afghan Buddhist website since 2000.

When I asked my friends in Afghanistan however they couldn’t give me a clue beyond a tentative possibility of some cave dwellings in Shegnon.Hafizi, our venerable translator and our local guide, shook his silven head and said he had heard that quite like the ones in Bamyan there were similar cave dwellings near Segnon, possibly occupied by Buddhist monks at some point of time.There were no other single evidence of Buddhism having flourished in these parts at one time.

I followed the map to track down modern cities of Afg along the Silk Route. Where Segnon was, I sill had no idea but considering it was somewhere in northern Badakshan the possibility of it being along the silk route was very much there. Modern day Bamiyan and Mazār-e Sharīf were both along the main silk route too as was Chārīkār just north of Kābul, and the northern centres of Kondoz and Feyẕābād (Faizabad). Kabul Kandahar and Heart were probably on the connecting routes.

It send a chill up my spine to imagine how precisley 2107 years ago ,along the network of these very routes trade developed gradually between China and Asia and then moved gradually to Europe. How merchants on horse backs and donkeys travelled miles and miles, over days and months and years attimes to bring the rich and precious silk of China to this far away landlocked country, tucked within the mountains .And In return they carried away their precious gems and dry fruits. After the discovery of a sea route from Europe to Asia in the late 15th century, these land routes were gradually abandoned. But the best maintained roads of Afg today are still the ones that connect Kabul to Mazār-e Sharīf.

The Buddhist monks would have traveled along this route as they spread the message of peace and made their homes along the caves of these mountains and ravines I imagined.

But no! Buddhism was introduced to Afghanistan two hundred years before the silk route came into existence. Soon after Alexander’s death, Yüechi, who founded the Kushan dynasty, with its capital in Peshawar, spread Buddhism around these parts. However it was only under Kanishka, another hundred years later that Buddhism reached a new height and literally so, in the world’s largest figures of Buddha (175 ft and 120 ft tall) carved along the cliffs of Bamyan.

Around the same time trade flourished and the silk route became a prominent thoroughfare for exchanging, commodities, culture and religion.
It took another 600 years for Islam to come I recalled and make its permanent home here. Eleven centuries later thereafter saw the unfortunate destruction of the Bamyan Buddha under the Taliban regime.

What miffed me therefore was the total absence of any Buddhist relic whatsoever in and around Badakshan( wherever I could travel). After having flourished for nearly 800 years, under great rulers like Kanishka and Ashoka it was more than strange that not a single Afgan could remember ay association with this great religion.Infact its messages in Ashoka’s edicts, were supposed to have been spread as far as Kandahar, one of the most volatile regions of Afghanistan today.


Who could be the earliest destroyers of the Buddhist stupas, edicts and monuments of Afghanistan then was my next query. Soon I tumbled upon the trail to a barbaric past that not only erased the memories of Buddhism from the history of Afghanistan but gradually struck away from its collective memory all teachings of bonhomie and peace. It imbued instead a tradition of angst and volatility, prone to war and devastation, looting and plundering, and meaningless destruction.

Religion may be the strongest common bond among Afghanistan’s various ethnic groups today but the inter religion conflict is the biggest source f insecurity among Afghnas today.Not a single soul from northern Afghnaistan would volunteer to travel southwards. They are so weary of the fundmentalist Pashtun Sunnis. The Pashtuns who make up about two-fifths of Afghanistan’s population are all Sunni Muslims while others are Shia and Ismaili. Southern Afg is largely inhabited by these people who claim their sole right over Afg today. An insignificant 1 % or less than that comprise Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis, and Jews all scattered here and there. Among them there may be a few Buddhists too who can be counted on the finger tips, most of the religious minority havinf fled or migrated( under the Taliban regime) for fear of persecution.

Going back to their history of violence and intolerance the first to destroy Buddhist culture and leave the country in ruins were the White Huns. They came from Central Asia and looted and plundered the country and tore away into their peaceful wellbeing. More than quarter of a century later when Arabs introduce Islam here in 652 the country was in total shamble desperately in need for peace and some direction. While Islam was to give them that mooring and bind them together to become a stronger civilisation peace however would continue to elude this beautiful country of fighters and survivors.

Mohammed Ghazni and Afghanistan was to become the centre of Islamic power and civilisation by the 10th century. With little tolerance for any other religion Ghazni too left no stones unturned to establish Islam as the only religion. When Ghorid came in 1140 - 1215, Ghazni was captured and burnt. I imagine with a such large scale destruction it is but obvious the last vestiges of Buddhist culture soon turned to ashes. It didn't stop there though. The treacherous Timur came in next … and so continues the endless saga of horror and violence and the story of a beautiful country with happy, gregarious, fun loving people lost to the handiwork of destiny.