Huge stone statues in Bamian, Afghanistan, popularly believed to be images of the Buddha, carved out of the side of mountains. Archeologists believe them to be more than one thousand years old. They were destroyed by the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban government in March 2001, on the ground that they were idolatrous, despite the worldwide protest of many governments and civic organizations.

Helena P. BLAVATSKY, in The Secret Doctrine, wrote that these statues were not of the Buddha, but were carvings during the fourth ROOT RACE and depicted the height of human beings during the early periods of mankind. There are five statues of varying sizes. The largest, 175 feet tall, is said to represent the etherial first root race. The second, 120 feet tall, depicts the second root race. The third, 60 feet high, represents the third root race or the Lemurians, while the fourth, 27 feet high, is for the fourth root race or the Atlanteans. The fifth statue is somewhat larger than a tall man of modern times, and this depicts the size of the fifth root race humanity (SD II:339-40).

These statues are but the relics about the human giants of the earlier races. The large stone heads of Easter Islands are similar records of these giants.

V.H.C.

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