John Gimblett is a Welsh European, living and working in the UK. He has been writing and publishing for 25 years, in numerous anthologies, magazines, books and pamphlets. He has travelled extensively in India and Southeast Asia, as well as most points between Lisbon and Beijing, Donegal and Moscow, Tangier and Ephesus.

Note. On March 1, 2001, the Taliban militia began systematically destroying two giant rock carvings of buddha at Bamiyan, in central Afghanistan, both of which were more than 1,500 years old, and World Heritage sites. There has been global condemnation of this vandalism, including chastisement from the only three nations to recognise the Taliban "government," namely Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. The Egyptian government has declared that this act is not justified by Islamic law, as is claimed by the fundamentalist Taliban. Several hundred other religious sculptures have already been destroyed in this purge, many of which formed the basis of the collection of the National Museum in Kabul. Offers by the U.S. and India to purchase and preserve these sculptures and rock carvings for the world and in the name of the Afghan people have been rejected by the Taliban. Om mani padme hum. Bamiyan.           Om mani padme hum. 1.          1222 Genghis Khan defaced struck the largest stone statue in the world, at Bamiyan, curled a blind fist thick as a dust speck caught in it. 2.          632 More than one can count on two hands of monasteries, more than ten times           that priests left wandering apricot orchards, nothing but footprints breaking dry frost of a morning *     *     *     * Hsuan-tsang                     Xuanzang Ch'en I San-tsang                     Mu'cha tip'o                               Moksadeva                     Yuan-tsang 20, with stealth and a half-world of strength saw it all in an                     instant. In India, the Holy Kingdom of buddhism, was seized on a river by pirates who, indebted to Durga made to have the monk sacrificed, diminished to no more than sleep. Hsuan-tsang reined in a storm, quaked the pirates, who begged for forgiveness. Decreed freedom.                     And the monk, still fresh from Bamiyan carried buddhas as strips of soft memory back to Bodh-gaya. 3.          2001                     "For tonight the teeming world gives                      birth to the world everlasting."                                                             Rumi, 'Shamsi Tabriz'. In a firing of any weapon they have to hand at the figures, in a stockpiling at the feet of buddha gunpowder, in a mortar bombardment at the heart at the folds of his robe, in the blast of a gun metal cannon man can undo but never erase.                     "Thou wert dust and art a spirit, thou                      wert ignorant and art wise."                                                             - ibid. 4. His face has been taken. The serene smile withdrawn, pulled                     in-wards, to the heart. Still as - what? - rock? Warm as a sun borne mountain, "How can there be laughter, how can there be pleasure, when the whole world is burning?" brimming with a fire kept fierce by a silence. 5. 125' 174' four feet dwarfing. 6.                     "The fool who thinks he is wise,                      he indeed is the real fool."                                                             Dhammapada.                                                             "Regression into medieval barbarism."                                                             Indian govt. spokesman. And the karma you draw will define you, blacken your heart. 7. Once carved roughly and refined over time into what they became for millennia now the carving's removed from the mountain leaving the mountain fused with the idea of buddha. Leaving the buddha fused with the idea of mountain. All things return to the earth, yellow leaves hang on the tree of life. 8. "All that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth glorifieth Allah."                                                             Koran, Surah LIX. *     *     *     *     *     *