chinese miners to dynamite ancient temple in Afghanistan

[phantom59]

A two millennia Buddhist site covering 4500 square metre monastery in Afghanistan's Mes Aynak hill,A mining project worth $3 billion is awarded to china Metallurgical Group Corp by the Afghan government which plans to dynamite the ancient monastery Archaeologists are hoping to draw international support to save the historical site which will provide new information about how Buddhism flourished in the region and coexisted with Islam during one era.

“The monastery flourished from as early as the 2nd century BC until at least the 6th century AD although it may have continued as a settlement until as late as the 9th century AD” said Phillipe Marquis, head of the French Archaeologists’ team in Afghanistan.

He proposed a view saying “copper mining and the monastery can coexist by creating a protected archaeological area that eventually could generate tourism income” for the war torn country who are in desperate need of foreign revenues.

Marquis further added that “ Karzai President of Afghnaistan is the one who can say no” and abort the annihilation of the ancient monastery.

[Mr. G]

Link: http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx ... rom+mining

[ronnewmexico]

A difficult issue certainly..

We have the Afghan government soliciting the Chinese owned company to do mining, thusly destroying Buddhists artifacts that may have anthropological importance and religious significance to Buddhists.

And I being of spiritual inclination fault on the side of preserving the area and doing no mining.

But I know fully well.... Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries on earth with many living a barely survivable existance. And know many could very well benefit with employement and shared resource stream from a successful mining endeavor

I living comfortably in a warm home with plenty of food to eat and things to entertain, being thusly by circumstance biased....fault for the favor of the mine. I forget not being hungry nor begging for food to eat in great contrast to present circumstance.

But that's just me and my personal opinion....

[Luke]

Oh my god...

I can't even begin to imagine the bad karma one would create by blowing up a Buddhist temple...

The article said that French archaeologists who had been working at the sight succeeded in delaying the demoliton. Is there any more unified, international movement to petition Hamid Karzai to find an alternative solution? Perhaps a compromise could be reached which would preserve some of the temple for study and tourism, but also allow some mining (although as a Buddhist, I would of course prefer no mining there at all)?

I wonder if the Chinese people are aware that their government's mining project will be completely destroying a Buddhist temple?! Their news agencies rarely tell them the whole truth. Maybe some of you here who speak Chinese could get the message out on Chinese language forums and blogs which many people who live in China read a lot. Not all of the people in China are materialistic atheists who hate religion. I'm sure some of them would care if they knew about this. Are there any Buddhist or Buddhist-friendly government officials in the PRC?

The people in Taiwan would certainly care. I wonder if this story has appeared on any Taiwanese news sites?

May the power of the Dharma keep that site safe from desecration!

[ronnewmexico]

This is not a government mining project of China....it is a private company awarded the contract by the Afghan government. The Chinese government has little to do with it.

The effects of karma are hard to determine.
Would those in Afghanisthan with only the opportunity to gain money from poppy cultivation for heroin manufacturer, due to no mining jobs, be also generating significant negative karma from those who ingest those products and die or thieve to get some more, or abandon family children and friends due to effect...I would guess so.

So this is very complex, and is not equilivent to the bombing of the Buddhists statues in Afghanistan years ago by the Taliban.

As a aside....many Buddhists not believing in a creator god nor any god of inherantly existant property consider themselves atheists, yet also consider themselves and are considered by others quite religious.
Religion is simply not equated with theism. A theism is non or without theism by literal defination. A qualifying in the latin derivitive of English as a negative or non when added to a word. The term in english derives from the mid 17th century and was coined in relationship to the only known religions of the day in england which were theist religions. So it quite certainly refers to theism, and that is only a type of religion not all religions.