User:Hakimorfan/sandbox

The main Buddha in the Bamiyan valley, 240 kilometers northwest of the Afghan capital Kabul, before total destruction by the Taliban. The 53 meter Buddha was the largest statue in the world. With its strategic location at the intersection of roads to Persia, India, Tarim basin, and China, it developed an art style with a fusion of Iranian, Indian, Gandharan and local style into an independent mode of its own. This style of Buddhist art traveled eastward and was quickly adopted at Kizil, Xinjiang and ultimately Dunhuang. Buddhism reached the height of its power in the 8th and 9th centuries in Afghanistan before it fell to the Arabs.