Did you know?
The Bamiyan Buddhas are famous throughout the world.
Did you know that the Bamiyan Buddhas had a gold covering until 9th century? They were adorned with precious gems.
Did you know that the Bamiyan Buddhas were built by a HINDU king?
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Who built Bamiyan Buddha?
There lies a painting of the king who sponsored the construction of Bamiyan Buddhas inside Bamiyan caves.
The name of the king who built Bamiyan Buddhas was Narendraditya Khingila(6th-7th century CE).
He was the same king who worshiped Gardez Ganesha
Khingila consecrated a temple for Ganesha in Gardez, Afghanistan.
The temple has not survived.
However, the Ganesha image has been moved out of Gardez and is now at Pir Rattan temple, Kabul (the same temple whose priest is Pandit Rajesh Kumar, the last Hindu of Afghanistan)
When Xuanzang visited Bamiyan (c. 629 CE) , the Buddhas were standing in full glory.
Xuanzang describes the larger standing Buddha as follows
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"It is 140-150 meters high. It is of a dazzling gold color. It is resplendent with ornamentations of precious substances"
During this period, the clothes of Buddha were very brightly colored. The larger buddha was clothed in red and the smaller Buddha in white.
And this coloring survived until recently.
This is why Muslims named larger Buddha as "Surkh But"(red idol) and the smaller as "Khing But"