Art and Archaeology of Afghanistan Its Fall and Survival

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Reviews of Books 229

geopolitical narratives that place China and Russia at the centre of a new international competition for

influence within the South Asian and Indian Ocean regions, with Nepal and Sri Lanka highlighted as

critical strategic sites. More problematically, Chapman’s approach to South Asia is somewhat traditional

(classical) in its approach and adopts none of the ‘critical geopolitics’ scholarship that have come to

prominence in the last decade or so. In particular, there is clear scope for an engagement with popular representations of geopolitics within the South Asian context, whether through novels, film, music,

radio or television. I note that the author claims only one work of fiction in the bibliography, which

is surprising given the long tradition of geopolitical commentary and critique in South Asian writing.

Further, with the recent production of films such as J. P. Dutta’s Border (1997), Refugee (2000) and Line

of Control (2003), a critical engagement with South Asian cinema might have been opportune.

Notwithstanding these critical reflections, Chapman’s book is a welcome and valuable presence.

It reminds us of the power of regional studies in connecting human (social, cultural, political) and

physical (topographical, climactic) processes, while providing a genuinely impressive introduction to

South Asia’s shifting political geographies. It may be the product of nearly forty years of work in South

Asia but its contemporary relevance remains clear. I only hope that when The Geopolitics of South Asia

is commissioned for a fourth edition – as surely it will be – that the author treats recent developments

in critical geopolitical scholarship as deftly as he surely will the evolving geopolitics of South Asia.

Alasdair PinkertonRoyal Holloway, University of London

Art and Archaeology of Afghanistan Its Fall and Survival A Multi-Disciplinary Approach.

By Juliette van Krieken-Pieters. pp. xxi, 412. Leiden, Brill, 2006.

doi:10.1017/S1356186309990587

Afghanistan’s rich and diverse heritage of material culture reflects its long and complex history of

invasion, settlement and empire. The destruction of the two monumental standing Buddhas in the

valley of Bamiyan in March 2001 by the Taliban epitomises the difficulty of preserving this. Partly

in response, Juliette van Krieken-Pieters, whose background is in art history and cultural heritage

law and protection, has put together this volume with contributions from experts in Afghan art and

archaeology and heritage issues.

The book is divided into four parts. The first deals with Afghanistan’s cultural heritage in general

and efforts to protect it. Brendan Cassar and Ana Rosa Rodriguez Garcia discuss the contribution

made by the Society for the Preservation of Afghanistan’s Cultural Heritage (SPACH) founded in

Islamabad in 1994. Christian Manhart reviews UNESCO’s activities in Afghanistan since the fall of theTaliban government. Carla Grissmann describes what happened after 1979 to the now restored Kabul

Museum and its exceptional collections, which as she points out, span fifty millennia. The museum

was evacuated twice, before being destroyed and looted in 1993. However, thanks to the dedication

of the staff, a substantial part of the collection has survived, though many items have subsequently

turned up in art markets abroad, and some major pieces were smashed by the Taliban early in 2001.

Warwick Ball’s chapter reviews the impact of war, looting, neglect, and environmental pressures, and

industrial development on Afghanistan’s principal archaeological sites. He emphasises, however, that

important new discoveries have been made in recent years, such as a vast new Buddhist monastic ‘city’

at Kharwar, south of Kabul in Logar.

In the second part the focus is on specific historical periods, artistic styles, and locations. Nancy Hatch

Dupree usefully reviews the preservation of prehistoric sites and artefacts. Viktor Sarianidi describes a



230 Reviews of Books

royal necropolis in the Kara Kum desert. Gerda Theuns de Boer and Ellen M. Raven discuss a newly

restored collection of late nineteenth-century photographic prints of Gandharan Buddhist images,

reliefs and architectural fragments from the ‘Indo-Afghan’ borderland. Kosaku Maeda’s chapter looks

at the mural paintings in the niches where the two colossal Buddhas of Bamiyan stood until 2001; the

painting of the Sun God on the ceiling of the eastern one, now mostly destroyed, was, he suggests,unique in Buddhist iconography. Nadia Tarzi describes the excavations Dr Zemaryalai Tarzi has been

conducting in Bamiyan since 2004. At the time of writing he had found a monastery; subsequently in

2008 parts of a 19 metre reclining Buddha have been revealed. Sadly no trace has yet been found of

the remains of the massive reclining Buddha some 300 metres long, described by the Chinese monk

Xuan Zang who visited Bamiyan in about 630 CE. Moving on to Islamic monuments, David Thomas

and Alison Gascoigne report on their investigation of robber holes around the iconic minaret of Jam,

designated Afghanistan’s first World Heritage Site in 2002. Finally in this section Jolyon Leslie reviews

two restoration projects in Kabul, the Mughal emperor Babur’s grave in the Baghe Babur and the

mausoleum of the late eighteenth-century Durrani ruler Timur Shah.

The third part explores some of the issues relating to the protection and custody of immovable and

movable cultural items which recent events in Afghanistan have highlighted. Focusing on movable

objects, Lyndel V. Prott looks at some of the ways in which these might be protected in time of

conflict, for instance by removing them to a ‘place of safety’, as happened with the contents of the

Prado in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. A chapter by the editor explores some of the dilemmas

thrown up by events in Afghanistan. She asks whether the Bamiyan Buddhas should be reconstructed,

for instance, concluding that they should not. She also looks at the question of whether it can ever be

right to buy stolen or illicitly-exported cultural items, even with the intention of returning them to

their country of origin when conditions improve, as SPACH for instance has been doing.

This is followed appropriately by a chapter by Atle Omland focusing on the ownership of a sizeable

and extremely important group of early Buddhist manuscripts of Afghan origin which were acquired

in the 1990s by a Norwegian businessman, Martin Schøyen. Omland reviews the arguments whichhave been put forward to justify Schøyen’s ownership of these manuscripts, he remains unconvinced

by these. In the following chapter Francesco Francioni and Fedrico Lenzerini suggest that that the

destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas was unique in the history of state-sponsored destruction of cultural

heritage. They argue that it should be regarded as a crime under international law, and as a violation

of human rights.

Part Four puts the Afghan case in the global context. Jos Van Beurden looks at the worldwide

problem of looting, theft and smuggling of cultural heritage, and identifies five methods which have

been used to reduce the misappropriation of artefacts from Angkor Wat. The chapter by Kurt Siehr

explores the idea of ‘safe havens’ for endangered cultural objects. In the last chapter Fabio Maniscalco

reviews international instruments and strategies for the protection of cultural property in war areas.Finally sixty-four excellent colour and black and white plates portray a range of artefacts and sites

referred to in the text, as well as illustrating the extent of the destruction in the Kabul Museum.

Krieken-Pieters largely succeeds in her aim of informing us about the range of activities being

undertaken in cultural heritage field in Afghanistan. It should be noted that the country’s Islamic

heritage is dealt with in less detail than its Buddhist one. Ball refers to damage suffered by the Timurid

monuments in and around Herat in recent times (p. 40); a chapter on this for example might have

helped to produce a more balanced survey. As regards the lessons for the protection of cultural heritage

that can be learned from the Afghan experience, there was scope for a more sustained reflection on

these, particularly, given that so much attention is paid to it in this book, on the train of events that

led up to the Bamiyan Buddhas’ destruction. A final chapter pulling together the different threads and

setting out the main conclusions would also have been helpful.



Reviews of Books 231

Nevertheless the breadth and variety of topics explored in this book is impressive. The result may

be a somewhat disparate collection of individual contributions, some of less scholarly interest than

others, rather than a systematic survey of the state of the archaeology and material cultural heritage of

Afghanistan and its study, and a sustained exploration of the legal and ethical issues around its protection.

Nevertheless the book may be recommended to archaeologists, and historians of Afghanistan, ancientand modern, and of Buddhism, as well as to anyone concerned with the legal and ethical controversies

around the protection and ownership of cultural property, The former will appreciate most of the

chapters in parts one and two; for the latter parts three and four will be of most interest.

Hugh BeattieThe Open University

The Dharma’s Gatekeepers: Sakya Pan. d. ita on Buddhist Scholarship in Tibet. By Jonathan C.

Gold. pp. 267. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008.

doi:10.1017/S1356186309990599

This book is a study of the Gateway to Learning (mKhas Pa ‘Jug Pai’i sGo), a thirteenth-century Tibetan

introduction to Buddhist scholarship and the complexities of understanding translations of scripture

from Sanskrit. The author was Sa sKya Pan. d. ita, the fourth of the ‘venerable supreme masters’ of

Sa sKya monastery in central Tibet. Sa sKya flourished in the first half of the thirteenth century

and is best known historically for his encounter with the Mongolian Prince Godan (or Kadan) who

granted Sa sKya monastery temporal authority over central Tibet. Sa sKya Pan. d. ita composed five

major works of which mKhas Pa ‘Jug Pa’i sGo is one. Parts of this work have already been studied and

translated in David Jackson, The Entrance Gate for the Wise (Section III): Sa-skya Pan. d . ita on Indian and

Tibetan Traditions of pram¯ an. a and philosophical debate (Wien, Arbeitskreis f ur Tibetische und BuddhistischeStudien, Universitat Wien, 1987). The book under review provides a translation of the Introduction and

Chapters 1 and 2 of Sa sKya’s work. Gold has, however, omitted the parts of Chapter 1 that paraphrase

Dan. d. in’s literary theoretical work K avyadar sa because this is available in Sanskrit and English. Gold

notes rightly that dealing with Sanskrit literary theory and how this was handled by Sa sKya would

have required a substantial expansion of his volume. The translation is provided in an appendix, the

main part of the book being a discussion of the general context of the Gateway. Sa Skya’s work is, in

essence, a textbook on the skills required of a good scholar. Gold’s purpose in studying the first two

chapters is to explain Sa sKya’s philosophy of scholarship as it pertains to composition and exposition,

the subjects of Chapters 1 and 2 in the Gateway. Jackson’s book, cited above, deals with Chapter 3

and the questions surrounding debate. Jackson also provides a valuable survey of Sa sKya’s education,career and literary output. Together, the books of Jackson and Gold are indispensable for the study of

literary discourse and Tibetan Buddhism.

The key issue for Sa sKya was the integrity of Buddhist teachings and the necessity for all scholars

to defend the dharma from corruption using Indian traditions of grammar, literature and philosophy.

Because the source texts dealt with complex philosophical and religious issues, a decision was made

in the early dynastic period to develop a special translation or dharma language that accurately and

precisely reflected the source materials from India and elsewhere. Translators were supposed to “stick

to the rules” and not invent new terminologies. This was done to guarantee the authenticity and

precision of translation into Tibetan. The dharma language was to be used only for translating originals,

not to create new texts. If new texts were written in the language of translation, they were effectively

forgeries. The historical problem faced by Sa sKya was the fact that Indic literature had been subject to

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Art and Archaeology of Afghanistan Its Fall and Survival