LESHAN, CHINA, October 5, 2001: After the destruction of its most famous archaeological monuments — the giant stone figures known as the Bamiyan Buddhas — by the Taliban-controlled government in Afghanistan, one of the buddhas is rising again in Western China. A team of 300 workmen are carving a replica figure into a cliff face in Schuan. The Chinese project aims to recreate the Afghan buddha the way it used to be before its erosion and destruction. The figure will be 120 feet high, the same as the smaller of the two Afghan statues. The Afghan statue is the brainchild of a Chinese businessman, Liang Simian, who runs a Buddha theme park near Leshan. Professor He Ining, one of the sculpture professors who is advising the project, says the lower part of the face matches the original, but the detail had to be recreated from scratch as had the whole upper part of the face, using Afghan Buddha busts of the same period.
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