Monks at the monasteries lived as hermits in small caves carved into the side of the Bamyan cliffs. It was the site of several Buddhist monasteries, and a thriving center for religion, philosophy, and art. The Silk Road has been historically a caravan route linking the markets of China with those of the Western world. Commissioning īamyan lies on the Silk Road, which runs through the Hindu Kush mountain region in the Bamyan Valley. Panorama of the northern cliff of the Valley of Bamyan, with the Western and Eastern Buddhas at each end (before destruction), surrounded by a multitude of Buddhist caves. The smaller works of art are considered as an artistic synthesis of Buddhist art and Gupta art from India, with influences from the Sasanian Empire and the Byzantine Empire, as well as the Tokhara Yabghus. It is thought that these mostly dated from the 6th to 8th centuries CE, ending with the Muslim conquests of Afghanistan. The Buddhas were surrounded by numerous caves and surfaces decorated with paintings. Rows of holes held wooden pegs that stabilised the outer stucco. It is believed that the upper parts of their faces consisted of huge wooden masks. The lower parts of the statues' arms were constructed from the same mud-straw mix, supported on wooden armatures. This coating, the majority of which wore away long ago, was painted to enhance the expressions of the faces, hands, and folds of the robes the larger one was painted carmine red, and the smaller one was painted multiple colors. The main bodies were hewn directly from the sandstone cliffs, but details were modeled in mud mixed with straw, coated with stucco. Technically, both were reliefs: at the rear, they each merged into the cliff wall. The smaller statue is called "Shah Mama" ("Queen Mother"), identified as a female figure. The larger statue was named "Salsal" ("the light shines through the universe") and was referred as a male. The statues represented a later evolution of the classic Buddhist- Gupta blended style of ancient art in Afghanistan.
International and local opinion strongly condemned the destruction of the Buddhas. On orders from Taliban founder Mullah Omar, the statues were destroyed in March 2001, after the Taliban government declared that they were idols. Carbon dating of the structural components of the Buddhas has determined that the smaller 38 m (125 ft) "Eastern Buddha" was built around 570 CE, and the larger 55 m (180 ft) "Western Buddha" was built around 618 CE, which would date both to the time when the Hephthalites ruled the region.
The Buddhas of Bamiyan (or Bamyan) were two 6th-century monumental statues carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley of the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan, 130 kilometres (81 mi) northwest of Kabul at an elevation of 2,500 metres (8,200 ft).
Buddhas of Bamiyan (Tokharistan) Show map of Tokharistan
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