Challenges of the Copy: Images, Museums, and Relics

Sraman Mukherjee, HoD and Assistant Professor of the Visual Arts Department at Ashoka University, authored the article “Bamiyan Comes to Bangkok: Situating the Buddha of the Cave Museum at Wat Saket”. The piece traces the making of the Bamiyan Buddhas beyond the Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan since their protracted destruction by the erstwhile Taliban government in 2001. The methodology combines archival research with ethnographic exploration of this field of visual culture constituted by the destruction, and more significantly by the transnational remaking of Bamiyan Buddhas across shifting material media and forms.

Images, whether as sacred icons or monuments, play a crucial role in shaping and often disrupting communities of belonging. Scholars often see the destruction and recreation of these images as the most physically tangible ways of interacting with them. Dr Mukherjee’s interest in this field grew from working with museums and politics of heritage, and was furthered by exploring how Buddhist relics have moved across different geographical, political, and cultural locations, and how these shifts reshaped their materialities. These interests led him to explore the centrality of copies and replicas in Art History.

Dating back to the 6th and 7th centuries CE, the two colossal Buddha sculptures in the Bamiyan valley—one standing 175 feet tall (Western Buddha) and the other 120 feet tall (Eastern Buddha)—were carved directly on a mountainside. Over the rock surface, layers of stucco were used to shape their robes and ornaments. The Bamiyan and neighbouring Kakrak valleys once housed a large monastic complex with a stupa, several seated and reclining Buddha figures, and man-made caves decorated with frescoes and manuscripts. These remains are considered part of the ancient Gandhara (Greco/Helleno-Buddhist) art and civilization highlighting the region’s importance in premodern networks of trade, pilgrimage, exchange of art, and knowledge. The arrival of Islam in the 8th century CE did not immediately endanger the Buddhas. It was likely not until a brief attack in the 12th century CE that the sculptures’ faces were damaged.

The study of the Bamiyan Buddhas’ destruction is a well-developed and complex field. Since 2002, scholars like Finbarr Barry Flood, Jamal J. Elias, and Nile Green have argued against viewing the Taliban’s actions as a straightforward case of Islamic iconoclasm. Researchers such as Janice Leoshko, Kavita Singh, and Said Reza Huseini have highlighted the local context of the destruction, noting that the Buddhas were significant to the region’s Hazara minority, who saw the statues as part of their environment, local legends, and identity—believing them to represent the figures of Salsal and Shahmama. Kavita Singh has also shown how, in the immediate aftermath of the destruction in 2001, international heritage organizations like UNESCO and ICOMOS have tried to balance local and national sentiments in discussions about restoring one of the Buddhas, without compromising the site’s historical authenticity and “Outstanding Universal Value.” As a result, local sentiments and national plans for reconstruction remain indefinitely postponed.
Recreated images of the Bamiyan Buddhas continue to emerge, not only within the Bamiyan Valley but also in many places beyond it. These range from on-site temporary, high-tech 3D holographic projections to various tangible reconstructions, always beyond the territorial limits of Afghanistan, in different material media, form, and scale. These “copies” are always more complete in their details of figurations than the original ruined state of the Bamiyan Buddhas—even before their destruction by the Taliban in 2001. The existing research on these reconstructions is limited, except for an influential study by Birgit Mersmann, who examined the politics and aesthetics of creating new Bamiyan images at the Rambadagalla Temple in Sri Lanka (construction began in 2002) and the Oriental Buddha Park in Leshan in the Sichuan Province of the People’s Republic of China (where the controversial project initiated in late 2001). Inspired by Mersmann’s work, Dr. Mukherjee began exploring the aesthetics, politics, and rituals surrounding the creation of new Bamiyan Buddha images in Thailand—at Wat Thipsukhontharam in Kanchanaburi Province (2012) and at Wat Saket in Bangkok (inaugurated in 2017).

Dr. Sraman Mukherjee’s study focuses on the reconstruction of the monastic complex of Wat Saket in Bangkok as a site of long cumulative relics and focuses on one of its new Buddha statues, a 10-metre high glass fibre reinforced concrete Bamiyan Buddha image inside a man made grotto “Bamiyan Guha-Bamiyan Museum” at the base of the Wat’s and Bangkok’s only man-made mount, the “Golden Mount”, locally known as Phu Khao Thong. The Buddha of the cave-museum at Wat Saket is more complete in details of its figuration than any of the original pre-destroyed Bamiyan Buddhas. These recreated Bamiyan Buddhas have become symbols that reference the destroyed originals, appearing in different forms around the world. The creation of Wat Saket’s Bamiyan Buddha fits into broader transnational histories of similar projects that were planned, proposed, rejected, or built. It reflects on artistic decisions around materials, media, scale, and style, considering Thailand’s long and complex relationship with replication and circulation of Buddha images. The cave-museum at Wat Saket, featuring the 10-meter-high Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete Buddha, is a carefully curated space with controlled lighting and temperature. By examining this site in its interplay with other Buddha images, bringing the making of this image into dialogues with the making of the controversial Bamiyan Buddhist Manuscript Collection by the Norwegian collector, Martin Schøyen, the transnational exhibitions from this Manuscript Collection beginning in Thailand before travelling over countries across South and Southeast Asian countries, the “gift” of manuscript fragments from the Schøyen collection to Wat Saket and their displays, and relic galleries across museums in Thailand and India, Dr. Mukherjee explores how the space of the cave-museum challenges traditional boundaries between museum curation, education, aesthetic appreciation, and the complex and changing practices of ritual and leisure.
This has significant implications for understanding the evolving nature of museums, particularly the dissolving boundaries of museums and shrines. It encourages us to rethink museums as archives and spaces for Art History and History, as well as sites for ritual practices of communities of belonging and leisure. This perspective extends beyond museums in Thailand to those in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and India. It prompts a deeper exploration of the nuances of copying, its changing meanings for Art History, and the future of museums as archival, ethnographic, and experiential spaces. This article marks one of the beginnings of this exploration.

Edited by Dr Yukti Arora, Academic Communications, RDO, Ashoka University
Reference Article:
Bamiyan Comes to Bangkok: Situating the Buddha of the Cave Museum at Wat Saket
South Asian Studies, Volume 40, Number 1, 2 January 2024, pp. 80-107(28)