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THE AFGHAN DISCOVERY OF BUDDHA: CIVILIZATIONAL HISTORY AND THE NATIONALIZING OF AFGHAN ANTIQUITY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Nile Green*
Affiliation:
Nile Green is a Professor of History in the Department of History, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, Calif.; e-mail: green@history.ucla.edu

Abstract

Through their interactions with French archaeologists from around 1930, Afghan historians formulated a new official historical identity for Afghanistan based on its pre-Islamic past. This article provides the first analysis of this process by tracing the emergence of the new historiography through the career of its chief promoter, Ahmad ʿAli Kuhzad, as curator of the National Museum (founded 1931) and director of the Afghan Historical Society (founded 1942). Through placing Kuhzad in these official institutional settings and reading his major works, the article shows how traditional Persianate historiography was challenged by an imported and amended version of world civilizational history. In the decades after independence in 1919, this new historical vision allowed the young Afghan nation-state to stake its civilizational claims on an international stage. In these previously unexcavated historiographical strata lie the roots of the Taliban's iconoclasm, which are revealed as a dialogical response to the state cultural institutions that remade Afghanistan as Aryana.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

NOTES

Author's note: Such are the vicissitudes of recent Afghan history that primary materials are scattered and poorly preserved. For providing the sources on which this essay is based, I am therefore extremely grateful to the custodians of the library of the National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul; the library of the Musée Guimet, Paris; the Arthur Paul Afghanistan Library at the University of Nebraska, Omaha; the British Library, London; and the NYU Afghanistan Digital Library. An earlier version of this paper was presented in May 2016 as part of the Leon B. Poullada Lectures at Princeton University. My sincere thanks to Cyrus Schayegh for the invitation. I am also indebted to the three anonymous IJMES readers and to Ali Mousavi and Warwick Ball for their helpful comments.

1 Translation: ALEXANDRE: Do you have storytellers, legends of your heroes, songs of warriors? How do you recount them? SANAK: Certainly! We have many heroes and many legends.

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12 Individual memoirs of French cultural activity in Afghanistan during the decades covered here are collected in Anon., Une ambassade à Kaboul (Kabul: Ambassade de France en Afghanistan, 2008), 9–120.

13 Foucher, Alfred, L'art gréco-bouddhique du Gandhâra: étude sur les origines de l'influence classique dans l'art bouddhique de l'Inde et de l'Extrême-Orient, 2 vols. (Paris: Éditions Leroux, 1905)Google Scholar. Foucher's early involvement with DAFA is meticulously documented in Fenet, Annick, Documents d'archéologie militante: La mission Foucher en Afghanistan (1922–1925) (Paris: Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 2010)Google Scholar. See also Olivier-Utard, Politique et archéologie, 91–139. On Foucher's field records, see Fenet, Annick, “Les archives Alfred Foucher (1865–1952) de la Société asiatique (Paris),” Anabases 7 (2008): 163–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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15 Foucher, Alfred, “Notes sur l'itinéraire de Hiuan-tsang en Afghanistan,” Études asiatiques publiées à l'occasion du 25e anniversaire de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient (Paris-Bruxelles: Éditions G. van Oest, 1926), 257–84Google Scholar.

16 On Barthoux's career, see Tarzi, Zemaryallaï, “Jules Barthoux: le découvreur oublié d'Aï Khanoum,” Comptes-rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 140 (1996): 595611 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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18 For surveys of European (and to a lesser extent Muslim) interest in Bamiyan in the preceding centuries, see Centlivres, Pierre, Les Bouddhas d'Afghanistan (Paris: Favre, 2001)Google Scholar; and Morgan, Llewelyn, The Buddhas of Bamiyan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), chap. 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Fussman, Gérard, “Daniel Schlumberger (1904–1972),” Bulletin de l'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient 60, 1 (1973): 411–22Google Scholar.

20 On the Society's ideological profile after Kuhzad stepped down, see Nawid, “Writing National History.”

21 Godard, André, Godard, Y., and Hackin, Joseph, Les antiquités bouddhiques de Bamiyan [Mémoires de la Délégation Archéologique Francaise en Afghanistan, henceforth MDAFA, vol. 2] (Paris-Bruxelles: Éditions G. van Oest, 1928)Google Scholar. For the factors behind the slow pace of publication, see Olivier-Utard, Politique et archéologie, 75–79. The earliest DAFA publication was an overview of a brief surface inspection at Bamiyan. See Foucher, Alfred, “Notice archéologique sur la vallée de Bamiyan,” Journal Asiatique 102, 2 (1923): 352–68Google Scholar.

22 Barthoux, Jules, Les Fouilles de Hadda, 3 vols. [MDAFA 4 and 6] (Paris-Bruxelles: Éditions G. van Oest, 1930–33)Google Scholar; Hackin, Joseph with Hackin, Ria, Recherches archéologiques à Bégram (Chantier no.2, 1937), 2 vols. [MDAFA 9] (Paris: Les Éditions d'art et d'histoire, 1939)Google Scholar.

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24 Among the rich scholarship on colonial Indian archaeology, see Guha, Sudeshna, Artefacts of History: Archaeology, Historiography and Indian Pasts (Delhi: Sage, 2015)Google Scholar; Guha-Thakurta, Tapati, Monuments, Objects, Histories: Institutions of Art in Colonial and Postcolonial India (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Mitter, Partha, Much Maligned Monsters: A History of European Reactions to Indian Art (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977)Google Scholar.

25 On the museum's history, see Centlivres, Les Bouddhas, 70–78; and Tissot, Francine, Kaboul, le passé confisqué: Le musée de Kaboul, 1931-1965 (Suilly-la-Tour: Findakly, 2002), 911 Google Scholar.

26 A good sense of the DAFA-excavated objects on display at the museum during this period is given in Dupree, Ann, Dupree, Louis, and Motamedi, A. A., A Guide to the Kabul Museum: The National Museum of Afghanistan (Kabul: Government Press, 1964)Google Scholar, based on a 1961 French original.

27 Centlivres, Les Bouddhas, 71.

28 Ibid., 72.

29 On Ottoman and Iranian developments, see Bahrani, Zainab, Çelik, Zeynep, and Eldem, Edhem, eds., Scramble for the Past: A Story of Archaeology in the Ottoman Empire, 1753–1914 (Istanbul: SALT, 2011)Google Scholar; Mousavi, Ali, Persepolis: Discovery and Afterlife of a World Wonder (Boston: De Gruyter, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nasiri-Moghaddam, Nader, “Archaeology and the Iranian National Museum: Qajar and Early Pahlavi Cultural Policies,” in Culture and Cultural Politics under Reza Shah: The Pahlavi State, New Bourgeoisie and the Creation of a Modern Society in Iran, ed. Devos, Bianca and Werner, Christoph (London: Routledge, 2014)Google Scholar; and Shaw, Wendy, Possessors and Possessed: Museums, Archaeology, and the Visualization of History in the Ottoman Empire (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2003)Google Scholar. The museums of colonial Russian Central Asia (which opened at Samarqand in 1874 and Tashkent in 1876) appear to have had no direct influence on Afghanistan. On those museums, see Gorshenina, Svetlana and Rapin, Claude, De Kaboul à Samarcande: les archéologues en Asie centrale (Paris: Gallimard, 2001), 3839 Google Scholar.

30 On Tarzi, DAFA, and the museum, see Olivier-Utard, Politique et archéologie, 23.

31 On the Kabul Literary Society, see Green, Nile, “Introduction: Afghan Literature between Diaspora and Nation,” in Afghanistan in Ink: Literature between Diaspora and Nation, ed. Green, Nile and Arbabzadah, Nushin (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 1417 Google Scholar. On literary nationalism more fully, see Ahmadi, Wali, Modern Persian Literature in Afghanistan: Anomalous Visions of History and Form (London: Routledge, 2008)Google Scholar.

32 Gregorian, Vartan, “Mahmud Tarzi and Saraj-ol-Akhbar: Ideology of Nationalism and Modernization in Afghanistan,” Middle East Journal 21, 2 (1967): 345–68Google Scholar, citation at 348.

33 Habibi, Abd al-Hayy, “A Glance at Historiography and the Beginning of the Historical Society of Afghanistan,” Afghanistan 21, 2 (1968): 119 Google Scholar.

34 The charter is translated in ibid., 17–19.

35 Ibid., 18.

36 For the richest case study regarding India, see Chakrabarty, Dipesh, The Calling of History: Sir Jadunath Sarkar and His Empire of Truth (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 For graduation figures, see Olivier-Utard, Politique et archéologie, 35.

38 On the school's laïcité and broader policies, see ibid., 23. However, Benoit (“Modern Education,” 53, 58) claims the students also received classes on religion by local mullahs.

39 The photograph appears in Godard, André, Godard, Madame, and Hackin, Joseph, Asar-i Atiqah-i Buda'i-yi Bamiyan, trans. ʿAli Khan, Ahmad [Kuhzad], 2 vols. (Kabul: Anjuman-i Adabiyat-i Kabul, 1315/1936)Google Scholar, unpaginated image. Note that this and subsequent works by Kuhzad were dated according to the Afghan calendar.

40 Habibi, “A Glance,” 11.

41 On his appointment as director, see ibid., 12–13.

42 The complex and staggered publication history of Siraj al-Tawarikh is described in R.D. McChesney, “‘The Bottomless Inkwell’: The Life and Perilous Times of Fayz Muhammad ‘Katib’ Hazara,” in Afghan History through Afghan Eyes.

43 Hazara, Mulla Fayz Muhammad Katib, Nizhadnama-yi Afghan (Kabul: Shirkat-i Kitab-i Shah Muhammad, 1379/2000)Google Scholar. Note that in 1933 the text was first published in Iran, not in Afghanistan itself. On the earlier Mughal works of Afghan history, see Green, Nile, “Tribe, Diaspora and Sainthood in Afghan History,” Journal of Asian Studies 67 (2008): 171211 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 Olivier-Utard, Politique et archéologie, 118; translated by Nile Green.

45 Ahmad ʿAli Kuhzad, Impiraturi-yi Kushan (Kabul: Matbaʻa-yi ʻUmumi/Anjuman-i Adabi, 1316/1937); Kuhzad, Bigram (Kabul: Matbaʻa-yi ʻUmumi/Anjuman-i Adabi, 1317/1938); and Kuhzad, Maskukat-i Qadim-i Afghanistan (Kabul: Matbaʻa-yi ʻUmumi/Anjuman-i Adabi, 1317/1938).

46 Kuhzad, Bigram, 2. On early European scholarship on the Kushans, see Cribb, Joe, “Rediscovering the Kushans,” in From Persepolis to the Punjab: Exploring Ancient Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, ed. Errington, Elizabeth and Curtis, Vesta Sarkhosh (London: British Museum Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

47 Kuhzad, Bigram, 2–4.

48 Ibid., 21–29; Hackin, Ria and ʿAli Kohzad, Ahmad, Légendes et coutumes afghanes (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1953), 2539 Google Scholar.

49 Kuhzad, Bigram, 31–34. For earlier French translations of Chinese accounts of Afghanistan on which Kuhzad apparently drew, see Olivier-Utard, Politique et archéologie, 50–51.

50 Kuhzad, Bigram, 46–62. Kuhzad appears to have been drawing, inter alia, on Wilson, H.H., Ariana Antiqua: A Descriptive Account of the Antiquities and Coins of Afghanistan; with a Memoir on the Buildings called Topes, by C. Masson (London: East India Company, 1841)Google Scholar.

51 Kuhzad, Bigram, 63–76.

52 Ibid., 77–86.

53 Ibid., 96–108.

54 Though he did not cite it, from his numismatic studies Kuhzad may have been familiar with Masson's article: Masson, Charles, “Memoir on the Ancient Coins Found at Beghram [sic], in the Kohistan of Kabul,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 3 (1834): 153–75 and 5 (1836): 1–29, 537–47Google Scholar.

55 Kuhzad, Bigram, 99–100.

56 Ibid., 101–6. Kuhzad later reiterated his presence at the discovery: ʿAli Kohzad, Ahmad, “New Archaeological Enquiries at Begram,” East and West 7, 3 (1956): 244–46, citation at 244Google Scholar.

57 Kuhzad, Bigram, 106. Subsequent scholarship would disagree with Hackin's attribution of the ivories to the Gupta era. On Hackin's comparative dating method, see Olivier-Utard, Politique et archéologie, 128.

58 The 1938 Musée Guimet exhibition poster is reproduced in Hiebert, Fredrik and Cambon, Pierre, ed., Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World (London: British Museum Press, 2011), 148Google Scholar. The Guimet had, however, opened its Hadda room in February 1929. See Olivier-Utard, Politique et archéologie, 105n215. Kuhzad later maintained his association with Begram, taking a close interest in the excavations by Roman Ghirshman in the 1940s and in English-language scholarship. See Kohzad, A. A., “Begram in the Light of [a] Recent Work Entitled ‘New Archaeological Enquiries at Begram,’East and West 7, 3 (1956), 244–46Google Scholar.

59 ʿAli Kuhzad, Ahmad, “Aryana ya Afghanistan Qabl az Islam,” Kabul 9, 11 (1939)Google Scholar.

60 Ahmad ʿAli Kuhzad, Aryana (Kabul: Nashriyat-i Mudiriyat-i ʻUmumi-i Taʾrikh, 1321/1942–43).

61 On the journal's foundation, see Habibi, “A Glance,” 11–12.

62 On state centralization of historical book and journal production from the mid-1930s, see Grevemeyer, Jan-Heeren, Afghanistan: sozialer Wandel und Staat im 20. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Express Edition, 1987), 288 Google Scholar.

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64 On the history of the party, see Bezhan, Faridullah, “Nationalism not Islam: The ‘Awaken Youth’ Party and Pashtun Nationalism,” in Afghanistan's Islam: From Conversion to the Taliban, ed. Green, Nile (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2016)Google Scholar.

65 Kohzad, Mohamad Nabi, “The Opening of the Salon d'Automne in Kabul,” Afghanistan 4 (1946): 3034 Google Scholar.

66 Ibid., 30.

67 Ibid., 32.

68 ʿAli Kohzad, Ahmad, Alexandre en Afghanistan: pièce en quatre actes (Kabul: Imprimerie Générale, 1946)Google Scholar.

69 On the theater, see Green, “Introduction,” 19.

70 Kuhzad, Taʾrikh-i Afghanistan. See n. 63 for the details of each volume.

71 Ahmad ʿAli Kuhzad, Tayan (Kabul: Anjuman-i Taʾrikh, 1327/1948).

72 Ahmad ʿAli Kuhzad, “Anahita: Rabbat al-Naw‘-yi Amu Darya,” Aryana 2, 5 (Jawza 1323/May 1944), 16–21; Khuzad, “Qadimtarin Ma‘bad-i Bamiyan,” Aryana 2, 6 (Saratan 1323/June 1944); Kuhzad, “Kashf-i Mutun-i Qadima-yi Sanskrit dar Bamiyan,” Aryana 2, 7 (Asad 1323/July 1944). The manuscripts had earlier been the subject of an article by the Indologist Sylvain Lévi (1863–1935), to whom they had been shown for identification by Hackin. See Lévi, Sylvain, “Notes sur des manuscrits sanscrits provenant de Bamyan (Afghanistan) et de Gilgit (Cachemire),” Journal Asiatique 220, 1 (1932) : 145 Google Scholar.

73 On the scholarly Muslim challenge to “pharaonism” in 1940s Egypt, see Reid, Donald Malcolm, Contesting Antiquity in Egypt: Archaeologies, Museums, and the Struggle for Identities from World War I to Nasser (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2015), chap. 10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74 The references to the Pashutan Sunjata (?) and Clement are in Kuhzad, “Anahita,” 17 and 20. I have been unable to identify the former text: my transliteration of the title is based on Kuhzad's Persian spelling.

75 Ibid., 18.

76 Gorshenina and Rapin, De Kaboul à Samarcande, 146; Olivier-Utard, Politique et archéologie, 85–86, 92–94.

77 Ibid., 93.

78 Benoit, “Modern Education,” 56; Annick Fenet, “Archaeology in the Reign of Amanullah: The Difficult Birth of a National Heritage,” in Afghan History through Afghan Eyes, 147.

79 Nizami, Khwaja Hasan, Safarnama-i Afghanistan (Lahore: Atish Fishan, repr. 2007 [1931]), 45 Google Scholar.

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82 Flood, Finbarr B., Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval “Hindu–Muslim” Encounter (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), 2636 Google Scholar; Flood, “From Icon to Coin: Potlatch, Piety, and Idolatry in Medieval Islam,” Images, Ritual and Daily Life: The Medieval Evidence, ed. Jaritz, Gerhard (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2012), 163–72Google Scholar.

83 Kuhzad, “Sanʿat-i Yunani,” 21, 24.

84 Ibid., 22–23.

85 Ibid., 21.

86 ʿAli Kuhzad, Ahmad, “Danishmand-i Faransawi-yi Zhuzif Hakin,” Aryana 3, 9 (Qaws 1324/November 1945): 816 Google Scholar. The article was based on an obituary in the Paris Review, the publication of which was delayed until after the liberation of France due to Hackin's opposition to the Vichy regime.

87 ʿAli Kuhzad, Ahmad, Surkh Kutal: Atashkada-yi Surkh Kutal dar Kushan-shahr (Kabul: Anjuman-i Taʾrikh-i Afghanistan, Asad 1333/August 1954)Google Scholar. On Schlumberger's excavations there, see Olivier-Utard, Politique et archéologie, 197–207.

88 Kuhzad, Surkh Kutal, 1. Cf. Iranian nationalist claims to Zoroaster detailed in Ringer, Monica, “Iranian Nationalism and Zoroastrian Identity: Between Cyrus and Zoroaster,” in Iran Facing Others: Iranian Identity Boundaries and Modern Political Culture, ed. Amanat, Abbas and Vejdani, Farzin (New York: Palgrave, 2012)Google Scholar.

89 Kuhzad, Surkh Kutal, 1.

90 Ibid., 4–5.

91 The Schlumberger section is numbered separately as ibid., 1–21.

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95 Kohzad, L'Afghanistan, 45–53.

96 Ibid., 35–40. On Tucci's career and politics, see Benavides, Gustavo, “Giuseppe Tucci, or Buddhology in the Age of Fascism,” in Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism, ed. Lopez, Donald S. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

97 Pazhvak, Abd al-Rahman [sic], Aryana (Ancient Afghanistan) (London: Afghanistan Information Bureau, 195– [sic])Google Scholar.

98 Pazhwak's contributions to Aryana included a short story based on a folktale about two lovers, which he also included in his Aryana book. See Pazhwak, ʿAbd al-Rahman, “Shiftigan ‘Dalaram,’” Aryana 3, 11 (Qaws 1324/December 1945): 10–16Google Scholar; and Pazhwak, Aryana, 117–21. On his wider literary and political career, see Chaled Malekyar, “The Poetry and Prose of Pazhwak: A Critical Look at Traditional Afghanistan,” trans. Nushin Arbabzadah, in Afghanistan in Ink, 141–61.

99 Ahmad ʿAli Kohzad, Tayüan (Kabul: Afghan Historical Society, 1337/1958).

100 On the interplay between international diplomacy and the Iranian creation of a “Silk Road” historiography in Persian, see Green, Nile, “From the Silk Road to the Railroad (and Back): The Means and Meanings of the Iranian Encounter with China,” Iranian Studies 48 (2015): 165–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

101 Olivier-Utard, Politique et archéologie, 223–24.

102 Habibi, “A Glance,” 13. On the arrival of American, Danish, Italian, and Japanese research teams, see Olivier-Utard, Politique et archéologie, 169–71. I have corrected the version of Ziai's given-name (ʿAbd al-Rahim) provided by Olivier-Utard.

103 Goode, Negotiating.

104 Toynbee, Arnold, Afghanistan as a Meeting Place in History (Kabul: Afghan Historical Society, 1960)Google Scholar. Toynbee also published his own memoir, depicting the visit as a passage through classical Greek rather than Islamic geography. See Toynbee, Between Oxus and Jumna (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961)Google Scholar, esp. chaps. 16 and 17.

105 On Toynbee's world historical model, see Lang, Michael, “Globalization and Global History in Toynbee,” Journal of World History 22 (2011): 747–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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107 Scott's Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue, 162nd edition (New York: Scott Publishing Company, 2006), 1:218–48.

108 On the geopolitical circumstances surrounding the airline's foundation, see Van Vleck, Jenifer, “An Airline at the Crossroads of the World: Ariana Afghan Airlines, Modernization, and the Global Cold War,” History and Technology 25 (2009): 324 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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110 Habibi, “A Glance,” 12–13. I am grateful to Dr. Zaman Stanizai for information about the radio program.

111 ʿAli Kuhzad, Ahmad, Kanishka (Kabul: Mudiriyat-i ʻUmumi-yi Taʾrikh, 1325/1946)Google Scholar.

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