{"id":980,"date":"2011-07-18T12:10:48","date_gmt":"2011-07-18T12:10:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/?p=980"},"modified":"2011-07-25T06:13:31","modified_gmt":"2011-07-25T06:13:31","slug":"books-afghanistan-lost-civilization-a-tribute-the-vanished-buddhas-of-bamiyan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/2011\/07\/18\/books-afghanistan-lost-civilization-a-tribute-the-vanished-buddhas-of-bamiyan\/","title":{"rendered":"Books: Afghanistan: Lost Civilization: A Tribute the Vanished Buddhas of Bamiyan"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am reading the fascinating book Afghanistan: Lost Civilization: A Tribute the Vanished Buddhas of Bamiyan <\/em>(\uc544\ud504\uac00\ub2c8\uc2a4\ud0c4 \uc783\uc5b4\ubc84\ub9b0 \ubb38\uba85: \uc9c4 \ubc14\ubbf8\uc580 \ub300\ubd88\uc744 \uc704 \ud55c\u00a0 \ud5cc\uc0ac) by Ju-hyeong Lee (\uc774\uc8fc\ud615). This book relates the compelling story of Afghanistan\u2019s struggle to maintain its cultural identify in the face of a constant geopolitical struggles. The book is quite well written and in reflects a rather Korean perspective on Afghanistan\u2019s position as a \u201croundabout\u201d in a series of routes to power for empires. The descriptions of both daily life and ancient history for Afghanistan are quite moving.<\/p>\n

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A central theme in the book is the destruction of Buddhist culture by the Taliban, an act with great resonance for Koreans because Korea sees its cultural continuity with the rest of Asia through the prism of the Silk Road. The Silk Road trade route was critical to early pan-Asian Buddhist culture. The destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban government stands out in the narrative. The Buddhas of Bamiyan were two statues carved in the side of cliff in the Bamyan Valley which were designated as idols by the Taliban government and destroyed by dynamite in 2001. The statutes dated back to the sixth century and were universally recognized as the height of Gandara art in central Asia by experts.<\/p>\n

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Professor Lee teachers Buddhist art at Seoul National University and is an expert on central Asia. His book deserves to be translated into English, but the prospects for such translation are not great. Some bits of Korean contemporary culture are trickling out into the world in English versions, but the scholarly and artistic aspects of Korea today are not given a high priority. Moreover, there are not that many people who can do the work. After all, a translation of Afghanistan: Lost Civilization: A Tribute the Vanished Buddhas of Bamiyan <\/em>( would have to be of the highest quality to have any chance of finding a global audience and the number of people who do such work could fit in a small room.<\/p>\n

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At the same time, I do sense that we are on the cusp of what I have designated as the \u201cIntellectual Korean Wave\u201d (\uc9c0\uc801 \uc778 \ud55c\ub958) in a recent interview with EBS. The Korean wave so far has consisted of pop songs, soap operas, movies and fashion. In essence, the Korean Wave is defined as the hip and dynamic youth (and increasingly older) culture of Korea that has swayed Japan, China, Central and Southeast Asia. But increasingly the world of books, high art and culture are making themselves felt. Although most books for sale in the subway station are not that original, there is much coming out in Korea that deserves to be translated, and translated carefully, into in English, how long it will take to start doing so, I do not know. But such a step is essential for Korea\u2019s development.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Emanuel Pastreich<\/p>\n

Circles and Squares<\/a><\/p>\n

July 17, 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am reading the fascinating book Afghanistan: Lost Civilization: A Tribute the Vanished Buddhas of Bamiyan (\uc544\ud504\uac00\ub2c8\uc2a4\ud0c4 \uc783\uc5b4\ubc84\ub9b0 \ubb38\uba85: \uc9c4 \ubc14\ubbf8\uc580 \ub300\ubd88\uc744 \uc704 \ud55c\u00a0 \ud5cc\uc0ac) by Ju-hyeong Lee (\uc774\uc8fc\ud615). This book relates the compelling story of Afghanistan\u2019s struggle to maintain its cultural identify in the face of a constant geopolitical struggles. The book is quite … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9296425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10990001],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-today-in-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9296425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}