Caves and Murals in Bamiyan
: as compared with the cave temples in India and Kucha

Dr. Akira Miyaji
Professor Emeritus at Nagoya University, Japan

November 9^th, 2013

MWU held a lecture inviting Professor Emeritus Akira Miyaji of Nagoya University as lecturer titled “Caves and Murals in Bamiyan - as compared with the cave temples in India and Kucha - The lecture began with tracing the flow of the history of ancient cities of Afghanistan that had changed themselves under the influence of the countries of east and west or south and north. And, religion of each period before the present status of the remains was introduced. Prof. Miyaji also commented on the prosperity of the city after the introduction of Buddhism, Buddhist art, which developed amalgamating the Hellenism and Gandhara culture, and the shift in object of worship from Buddhist stupa to statue.

Then Prof. Miyaji introduced cave temples of Buddhism, as well as that of Hinduism and Jainism in India with especial detailed commentary of the structure and way of use, decorative art and murals of the Buddhist cave temples in Ajanta, India. And making reference to the outline and history of the Bamiyan site, Afghanistan, Prof. Miyaji picked up on the structure of caves and the murals of Bamiyan and illustrated the influence of India, Persia or Gandhara as seen on the iconographies as well as the differences of murals between that of Bamiyan and Ajanta. Iconography and coloration of murals of the Caves of Kizil and Dun Huang in China were also introduced in comparison with the Bamiyan counterpart. Prof. Miyaji’s detailed commentary on the subjects from wide-ranging regions from Europe to west, central and south Asia was copious and enlightening. It was a precious opportunity for us to look at the architecture from the different viewpoint of art history.