Better late than never

Cambodia's Hindu Khmer kings decided to construct a new Hindu temple complex atop a 525-metre (1,722 ft) cliff known today as 'Pey Tadi,' in the Dângrêk Mountains, located in the present Preah Vihear province of Cambodia somewhere between 9^th and 11^th centuries. Most of the temple was constructed during the reigns of the Khmer kings Suryavarman I (1002–1050) and Suryavarman II (1113–1150). After the great Khmer empire of Cambodia began its slow decline, a new empire known as the Ayutthaya Kingdom, began to rise in the west or in what is called today as state of Thailand. Temple of Prasat Preah Vihear, being much to the northeast of the later capital of Khmers at Siem Reap also naturally fell to the Ayutthaya Kingdom.

In the Nineteenth century, after having established their control over Cambodia, the French forced a treaty on Kingdom of Siam (Thailand) known as the Franco-Siamese treaty of 1867. According to this treaty, Siam was forced to renounce suzerainty over Cambodia, with the exception of Battambang, Siem Reap, Banteay Meanchey and Oddar Meancheay provinces, which were then officially incorporated into the Kingdom of Siam. However, during the 1904 state visit of King Rama V of Siam to France, Siam agreed to cede the four provinces to France in exchange for regaining Thai sovereignty over Trat Province and Amphoe Dan Sai of Loei Province, which had been occupied by France.

In 1904, French and Siam had agreed to mark the border between Cambodia and Siam that would follow the natural watershed between the two countries. In 1907 the Thai-Cambodian border was actually mapped by the French as per this agreement. However, the final map showed Prasat Preah Vihear temple on the Cambodian side, though this deviated the 1904 agreement. Surprisingly, Siam accepted this map, probably due to oversight and only realised the error much later in 1930 and this is where the border row began.

The dispute was taken subsequently to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands, Which in 1962 awarded ownership of Prasat Preah Vihear Temple to Cambodia by a 9 to 3 vote, based on the 1907 map (correctly drawn or not.) mentioned above. However, the court ruled that only the temple belonged to Cambodia, and did not comment about the adjacent land to the north of the temple. The exact words that were used in this court order say: “Thai forces were obliged to withdraw from the temple or in its vicinity on Cambodian territory."

This court ruling brought up a new border dispute as Cambodia and Thailand interpreted the word 'vicinity' in different manners. Meanwhile in 2008, The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) put the temple, on its world heritage list in 2008 saying "an outstanding masterpiece of Khmer architecture, in terms of plan, decoration and relationship to the spectacular landscape environment". This gave a new dimension to the already simmering dispute.

Cambodia claimed that it was given 4.6 Km around the temple by 1962 judgment and again went back to the International Court of Justice in 2011, following several clashes between its army and Thai forces, to ask exactly what judges meant by "vicinity" in 1962.

After a wait of two years, International Court of Justice gave its verdict on 11th November 2013 to clarify what it meant by vicinity. Court did not give any new maps with the judgment, but said that the rocky plateau on which temple stands is bordered by steep slopes on most sides and by a border line drawn up in 1907 by a commission of French officials to the north. It gave an area of 1 sq. Km, which it considered as the area in the vicinity of temple to Cambodia, leaving rest of the plateau to Thailand. It asked the two countries to work out the border amongst themselves.

India has always taken keen interest in the matters concerning Preah Vihear temple just like other Cambodian temples in Siam Reap. India took up and started restoration work on famous Ta Prohm complex in 2006 with a project cost of Rs. 170 million. Years ago Cambodia had requested India to intervene in the Preah Vihear dispute and take over restoration work of this temple. However India had stayed away, reluctant to annoy Thailand.

Unhappy with India's reluctance, Cambodia's Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, met Chinese officials in the field of historic preservation, when he visited that country in December 2013. Earlier this year, the World Heritage Committee under UNESCO decided to set up the international coordination committee that would manage the temple of Preah Vihear. In July 2014 China announced that it was ready to take the lead in restoration and agreed to chair this coordination committee.

After Chinese entry into the coordination committee, India decided to shed its traditional hesitation for the first time and with deft diplomacy, negotiated for itself a co-chair's role in the body. India and China will now team up to coordinate the management of a famous Shiva temple of Preah Vihear situated on the border of Thailand and Cambodia.

28^th November 2014

Bamiyan Buddhas: a new controversy

Prior to 1998, single-most iconic symbol of rural and untouched Afghanistan, was a pair of giant Buddha statues that stood in their hillside niches near a beautiful rustic place, Bamiyan. An ancient traveller mentions that if heaven is to be ever found on Earth, it would be in Bamiyan only. The distant snow covered peaks from north and south, surrounding grayish-brownish mountain ranges with razor cut vertical cliffs from all sides and right in the middle a refreshing green river basin, which itself is at an height of 8000 feet, is how Bamiyan can be described. The river, the greenish-yellowish fields on both the banks, dotted with earthen forts make the landscape stunningly beautiful and picturesque and make it look as if a model has been laid out. It is said that whenever anyone entered the Bamiyan valley, his mind automatically felt detached from the problems of his world. This probably was the reason why Buddhist monks were attracted to Bamiyan in the first place.

No one precisely knows, when the Bamiyan Buddhas were carved out of the hillside. The archeologists now believe with the application of new carbon dating method that smaller image of the two was carved out in 507 CE and larger image was carved in 554 CE. In the year 632 CE, a learned Chinese monk made a journey by land from China to India in search of the original Buddhist scriptures and teachings. His name was Xuan Zang and he had believed that true Buddhist religion was being practiced only in India. He stayed at the Nalanda university, in present day Bihar state of India and had completed his learning of the true religion as per his belief. Every one knows this part of the history, yet very few understand that Xuan Zang's travelogues are perhaps our only guide books about the political, social and religious conditions of this region in those times. Xuan Zang had traveled to India by a route passing through present day Afghanistan. Being a Buddhist monk, he had considered that traveling through a particular region of present day Afghanistan was of paramount importance to him. This region was located to the south of the state of Bactria and part of the Hindukush mountain ranges and was known as Bamiyan. To visit Bamiyan and pay his respects to the Huge Buddha statues there, was of utmost importance to him. Xuen Zang has left detailed description about Bamiyan and the huge Buddha statues there in his travelogues.

As per Xuan Zang's description, there were three images of Buddha. Two standing images and a third image of sleeping Buddha at the base. This sleeping Buddha was 1000 feet long. This third image however finds no mention in subsequent history anywhere. The smaller standing image on left was 114 feet high and the taller image on right was 165 feet high. These images were not completely carved out of stone. Their shapes were roughly carved out and subsequently a cement formed by grinding earth, hay and horse's hair together with some binder was applied all over the rough images to give final shape to the image. A coat of paint was given over the cement coating layer. Afghanistan's extremely dry weather had ensured that this cement coating and the paint layer would have a long life that can survive for centuries. The larger Buddha image was painted in blood red colour, whereas the smaller image was painted in multicolours. Xuan Zang says that the smaller image was painted golden. The apparel worn by Buddha in these images had a distinct Greek touch. Experts have said that it was obviously seen that both images were influenced by the Gandhar, Greek and Persian sculpture. On both sides of the rock cut cave or shelter, in which the Buddha images were sculptured, there were many small cave like structures cut in the wall. Wall painting similar to Ajintha caves were painted on the walls of these caves. With this decoration, the Buddha images and the entire scene looked very majestic and grand.

The calm and quiet of the affluent Bamiyan was destroyed for the first time in 1272 when great conqueror Genghis Khan sent a small army led by his grandson to capture Bamiyan. In the ensuing battle, the grandson was hit by an arrow and died. After learning about this, Genghis Khan was so angry that he sent his army to Bamiyan with orders that no human or animal should survive the onslaught. The signs and remnants of the total ruin and destruction brought about, are still visble in form of some of the ruined forts. Luckily, Genghis Khan's soldiers were scared of touching the Buddha images and these were saved.

In the fifteenth century, then Amir of Afghanistan, Babur loved the beauty of Bamiyan and made efforts to bring back old glory to Bamiyan. However, since the silk route trade had diminished then, Bamiyan remained in the backgrounds. When Mughal king Aurangjeb came to power in Delhi, he tried to disfigure Bamiyan Buddhas. Luckily again his soldiers were not able to achieve much, except for slight disfigurement of the Buddha faces.

After these historic attempts to destroy the giant statues failed, Bamiyan Buddhas were left in relative peace till 1998, when another band of Muslim fanatics known as Taliban, captured power in Afghanistan and decided to demolish the Buddha statues. Taliban cadres were keen to destroy Bamiyan ever since 1998. Initially Taliban destroyed many small Buddha images carved in small caves on both sides of major Buddha images. The history lovers from all over world requested Afghanistan Taliban not to destroy Bamiyan Buddhas and make the world loose one of its historic monuments. This was of no avail. Finally in February 2001, Chief of Taliban in Afghanistan, Mulla Umar gave orders to destroy Bamyan Buddhas. In March 2001, Taliban planted powerful mines near the Buddha images and both the images were destroyed and big heaps of crushed stone and loose earth was all that remained of Bamiyan Buddhas.

In 2003, United nations declared Bamiyan as a world heritage site and efforts were started to save whatever remained at Bamiyan. This also means that any modifications to the face of the cliff would, in practice, have to be approved by UNESCO's Expert Working Group. A controversy has now arisen, whether to re build the giant statues or just maintain the caves or niches, in which giant statues once stood.

In 1970, before Taliban had destroyed the statues, Indian conservators had re-built the giant feet of the statues, to replace the missing originals. Last year, German conservators doing stabilisation work on the eastern niche, quietly began building pillars to support the stonework and protect visitors from potential collapse. However, what they had built looked looked much like the feet built earlier by Indians. When UNESCO discovered, what was happening, it immediately asked the Afghan government to order the work suspended.

Germans are however not convinced. German branch of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, was awarded the contract by UNESCO to do much of the conservation work on site. Michael Petzet, an archaeologist, is the president of this German organization. He says making no secret of his intent: "These feet, it was only the idea for the safety of the whole structure,and maybe in the future if the Afghan government wants to make a little bit more, they can build upon this."

Brendan Cassar, Chief of Cultural Heritage, is the UNESCO's culture specialist in Afghanistan. He disagrees with what Michael Petzet says. In support of his argument, Casser says:

"Our priority has been to stabilise iconic elements of the World Heritage site that are unstable. The point is, a very small percentage of the surface remains, some pieces are the size of a car and some a grain of sand." In addition, the type of sandstone from which the Buddhas were carved is highly unstable. He feels that one can not go to step 10 unless steps 1 to 9 are addressed, to make a good restoration. There is also a problem of availability of funds. Pledges from donors to fund even the basic work have fallen short by at least $700,000.

Afghanistan Government wants that at least the smaller statue of the two should be re-built. According to Abdul Ahad Abassi, head of monuments for the Afghan culture ministry, the Government has formally requested that the smaller Buddha be rebuilt, and UNESCO's World Heritage Committee is studying the issue. Abdullah Mahmoodi, of the Bamiyan Tourism Association says: “I say rebuild one of them to attract tourists, particularly from Buddhist countries like Japan and South Korea. One ( empty niche) should remain like that to remind people what the Taliban did. The best way to protect our monuments is to make them valuable again."

With opinions so passionately split, Bamiyan Buddhas are unlikely to re-emerge from the heaps of rubble.

25^th March 2014

Western Ghat Mountains of India on UNESCO World Heritage List

For a person like me, who has been brought up and has lived most of his life in city of Pune, cradled in the foothills of Sahyadri or Western Ghat mountains, the decision by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO to include 39 locations from Western Ghat mountains in the World Heritage list is like sweet music to my ears. Having spent many wonderful evening of my childhood and youth days, trekking and wandering in the foothills near Pune, it is no secret that I love these mountains.

After the adoption of the 1972 Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, UNESCO started listing natural or man made sites on the surface of this earth as World heritage sites so as to list the full spectrum of our world’s cultural and natural treasures. Many ancient temples and monuments from India are already included in this list. However not many natural wonders from India and particularly from the south, were included in this list. Last week, The World Heritage Committee, meeting at St. Petersburg in Russia, decided to inscribe 39 serial sites of the Western Ghats on the World Heritage List. Representatives from 17 nations, Algeria, Cambodia, Columbia, Estonia,, Ethiopia, Iraq, Japan, Malaysia, Mali, Mexico, Qatar, Russia, Senegal, Serbia, South Africa, the UAE and Thailand, voted strongly in favour of Western Ghat Sites.

The official UNESCO document now describes Western Ghat mountains as,

“ Older than the Himalaya mountains, the mountain chain of the Western Ghats represents geomorphic features of immense importance with unique biophysical and ecological processes. The site’s high montane forest ecosystems influence the Indian monsoon weather pattern. Moderating the tropical climate of the region, it presents one of the best examples of the monsoon system in the planet. The site also has an exceptionally high level of biological diversity and endemism. It is recognized as one of the world’s eight “hottest hotspots” of biological diversity. The forests of the site include some of the best representatives of non-equatorial tropical evergreen forests anywhere and are home to at least 325 globally threatened flora, fauna, bird, amphibian, reptile and fish species.”

Western Ghat mountains have been given this great honour based on two criteria.

1. To be outstanding examples representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals;

2. To contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation.

The UNESCO lists four sites from Maharashtra as World Heritage sites besides 35 others from Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka states. These are

1. Kas Plateau Property: 1142 Ha

2. Koyna Wildlife Sanctuary Property: 42355 Ha

3. Chandoli National Park Property: 30890 Ha

4. Radhanagari Wildlife Sanctuary Property: 28235 Ha

Getting these names included in the UNESCO list would be a great boost to maintain ecology and environment of these places and surrounding areas from over greedy mining mafia, big builders and exploiters. Inclusion of Kas Plateau is particularly noteworthy as for last few years , this natural wonder is being turned into a tourist destination.

Getting the Western Ghat mountains on World heritage list was no easy task and is actually a successful culmination of a six-year-long campaign of India for getting the sites inscribed on the list. India had been campaigning for the inscription since 2006 and had submitted a dossier for nomination of 39 sites in the Western Ghats spread over Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre in Paris in 2010.

As per Operational Guidelines of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, India’s nomination for Western Ghat sites was first reviewed by IUCN experts and subsequently by IUCN Technical Evaluation Mission also, who visited India for field evaluation. Based on field evaluation, the IUCN recommended to the World Heritage Committee to ‘defer’ the consideration of the Western Ghats last year. Indian team made concerted efforts and met the members of the 21-nation World Heritage Committee to highlight the merits of India’s proposal for inscription of the Western Ghats on the list. It was the Russian delegation, which proposed an amendment and included the word ‘inscription’ against the IUCN recommendation of ‘deferral.’ Indian delegation deserves full credit no doubt.

This inscription of Western Ghats in the World Heritage list is significant, when Madhav Gadgil committee report about Western Ghats still remains undecided. It clearly gives a big boost to committee's proposal to divide the Western Ghats into ecologically sensitive zones and ban all commercial activities from critical zones.

3 June 2012