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Chinese Entrepreneur to Resurrect Bamiyan Buddha
A Chinese entrepreneur has begun a giant project in the heartland of Chinese Buddhism to resurrect one of the Bamiyan Buddhas recently destroyed by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban.
Life-size and with a new face, China's version of the destroyed Afghan Bamiyan Buddha is now under construction in Leshan, in southwest China's Sichaun province.
The huge project is the brainchild of Chinese entrepreneur Liang Siming. He began work a month after the Taliban blasted two towering sandstone Buddhas off the face of a cliff in the Afghan desert in March.
Liang and his team are determined to use age-old methods to create the 600-thousand-US-dollar Buddha.
There will be no rock blasting of the valley involved and the 37-metre high sculpture won't be finished until March next year.
Liang Siming said:"We created the Bamiyan Buddha to face mountains and a river, opposite it is a really wide open piece of land which is green with mountains and water. Of course, I believe that the Bamiyan Buddha will prefer this place far more than the desert."
The Bamiyan Buddha is located about one kilometre away from the world's largest ancient Buddha -the Leshan Big Buddha - which was built 12 centries ago and measures 71-metres tall.
Local sculpture experts say together with the Leshan Big Buddha, the Chinese version Bamiyan will live on for centuries.
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