6 days ago
Bamiyan-style 80ft tall Buddha statue at Thai temple in Sarnath damaged in lightning strike
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Varanasi: Some parts of the top of an 80-foot-tall Bamiyan-style Buddha statue, installed on the Thai temple campus in Sarnath in memory of the statue destroyed by Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, were damaged in a lightning strike in the early hours of Sunday.
The temple said it would ensure repair of the damaged statue in a month.
Thai temple caretaker Bhikkhu Mangliko said on Sunday that lightning struck the statue of Lord Buddha at the Thai Buddhist Temple in Sarnath, causing some damage. The broken part was preserved and the sculptors who were called in assured that it would be repaired within a month, he added. The district witnessed massive lightning on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday.
The region saw 67 mm of rainfall as recorded by the Indian Meteorological Department.
Lightning struck the top part of the statue around 4:30 am and some parts of the statue fell to the ground. At the Thai Buddhist temple in Sarnath, built in 1933, the Buddha statue was sculpted in the style of the two giant Buddha statues in Afghanistan, carved on Bamiyan cliffs in the 1st century. Replica of the Bamiyan Buddha statue was constructed at the Thai temple between 2001 and 2011.
The 80ft statue depicts Lord Buddha in a standing posture. Despite a lightning conductor installed behind it, the damages were caused.
