Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: I want to start with a question that might sound
Speaker 1: kind of simple. Why generally do we not build statues
Speaker 1: of people who are still alive? I know sometimes we do.
Speaker 1: You've got the Bronze Fonds. Yeah, and Henry Winkler is
Speaker 1: still out there. And I believe in New Zealand there
Speaker 1: is a statue of Richard O'Brien as riff Raff from
Speaker 1: the Rocky Art Picture Show. And of course there's the
Speaker 1: statue of RoboCop, which I don't know if I knew
Speaker 1: about this one. No way, maybe that doesn't exist yet.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's only people want there to be a statue
Speaker 1: of RoboCop in Detroit, or does it exist. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if that's been realized. In any case, RoboCop lives
Speaker 1: on in all our hearts forever, so they could never
Speaker 1: be a statue of him. But even these are fictional characters,
Speaker 1: even the Richard O'Brien. When is a picture of Richard
Speaker 1: O'Brien as a fictional character? Yeah, there are a few
Speaker 1: cases where people build statues of people who are still alive.
Speaker 1: It doesn't happen that often, and it always strikes me
Speaker 1: as really just not smart and distasteful. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you get the same feeling, like if you just
Speaker 1: see a statue of a living person, It's like what, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, because there are a few different factors that
Speaker 1: coming to pay. First of all, if I'm asking someone
Speaker 1: or commissioning a statue of myself, there there's something you know,
Speaker 1: you're just asking for charges of narcissism. And uh, you
Speaker 1: know you think you're a golden god or something because
Speaker 1: you're having this large golden version of you erected in town. No,
Speaker 1: I just think I'm a marble god. Or on the
Speaker 1: other side too, is we've seen enough. We've seen it.
Speaker 1: We've seen enough examples of this throughout history, particularly in
Speaker 1: the fall of the Soviet Union, to know that if
Speaker 1: there is a statue of you, then that is something
Speaker 1: that someone can deface or knock down. Uh, it's you're
Speaker 1: just asking for it. Yeah. I would say. One large
Speaker 1: exception to what I'm talking about is in like dictatorships,
Speaker 1: where yeah, there will be statues of a living leader,
Speaker 1: but I mean, these are examples though, where they should
Speaker 1: feel bad, but they are removed from the guilt of
Speaker 1: feeling bad because of the depravity of the system. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But so then you agree with my intuition there is
Speaker 1: is that the case you You just think, like when
Speaker 1: you see a statue of a person who's still alive,
Speaker 1: it's like, what, why would you do that? Yeah? Because
Speaker 1: the other thing, too is maybe you're gonna have a
Speaker 1: perfect likeness of that individual, but it also may come
Speaker 1: off as a little creepy because you're gonna see it
Speaker 1: like right next to the person, or or it's it's
Speaker 1: easier to compare the flesh to the statue and realize
Speaker 1: that the statue is inaccurate. Yeah. So what does the
Speaker 1: answer there tell us about what purpose statues serve? I
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe we can come back to that. I
Speaker 1: got another weird question. Why are statues considered inherently positive
Speaker 1: or honorific? Another way of asking this is why do
Speaker 1: we generally only create statues of people we like? How
Speaker 1: come we don't generally create statues of people who we
Speaker 1: think we're evil and destructive or shifty or you know,
Speaker 1: just not honorable people? And it's one of those things
Speaker 1: that's so ingrained that it just seems obvious, Like, well, duh.
Speaker 1: You know, you wouldn't put up a statute to honor
Speaker 1: a bad person, But why do you assume a statue
Speaker 1: carries honor with it? You don't assume that about other
Speaker 1: forms of media. You could make a movie about a
Speaker 1: bad person and people wouldn't assume that it was honoring
Speaker 1: that person. You could write a book about a bad
Speaker 1: person and people wouldn't assume that the book was honoring
Speaker 1: that person. But if you were to build a statue
Speaker 1: of that person, people would say, well, why do you
Speaker 1: like this guy so much? Well, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of this. I think we can answer a couple of
Speaker 1: questions here by dealing with with the with the idea
Speaker 1: of what happens when you just direct a tombstone for someone.
Speaker 1: You were creating something that is not going to fade.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, it's going to fade, but but within
Speaker 1: the context of a human lifetime, it seems fixed. It
Speaker 1: seems uh uh, you know, unmovable and incorruptible. And so
Speaker 1: in to create a statue of an individual is to
Speaker 1: create an immortal version of them, uh like, impose that
Speaker 1: person's legacy on physical space right either after their death
Speaker 1: or you know, in the case of say a mythological
Speaker 1: figure or a figure of such deep history that they're
Speaker 1: you know, far removed, like you don't have photos of them,
Speaker 1: you just have tales of them. It makes them more real,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, I I just wonder why. I mean,
Speaker 1: it might it might be totally an accident of history.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just a coincidence that Well, okay, so people
Speaker 1: used to make statues of of leaders who were to
Speaker 1: be honored, and statues of kings and all that, and
Speaker 1: we just came to associate statuary with honor and honorific feelings. Well,
Speaker 1: now I have to say there are of course protective
Speaker 1: the idea of using horrifying but protect dive entities, say
Speaker 1: in a tomb or a temple, you can have essentially
Speaker 1: it's a monster, it's something horrifying, but it's there to
Speaker 1: ward off evil spirits. Well, right, and that that comes
Speaker 1: into the religious function of statutory So you've got statues
Speaker 1: that where yeah, I was going to say that you
Speaker 1: can imagine religious areas where people have statues of demons
Speaker 1: and other unwelcome supernatural entities, either for instructive purposes, or
Speaker 1: for protective purposes, you know, apotropaic magic um, or just
Speaker 1: to be scary. Uh So, yeah, you can see religious
Speaker 1: reasons why people put up statues of things judged to
Speaker 1: be evil. But but could you imagine a scenario where
Speaker 1: someone might say, look, we're not putting up a statue
Speaker 1: of Richard Nixon, but we'll put up multiple Richard Nixon
Speaker 1: statues to protect the sacred ground, you know, like like
Speaker 1: purely protective evils. Uh if you will write you what
Speaker 1: you bring up? Yet again, is this assumption if I
Speaker 1: made a statue of Richard Nixon, people would assume I
Speaker 1: liked him. People would assume I thought he was a
Speaker 1: good guy. Right. Would not be the case if I
Speaker 1: wrote a book about him or made a movie about him,
Speaker 1: I mean, depending on what the contents were. Right, And again,
Speaker 1: this is assuming it's just a statue of him and
Speaker 1: he's not being say, crushed under the foot of a
Speaker 1: Hindu deity or something like that. Exactly right. That's another
Speaker 1: great image because I think what we're talking about here,
Speaker 1: and most of these examples, it's it's not a statue
Speaker 1: of an individual of doing something as much as is
Speaker 1: a statue of the individual, just their identity, their presence,
Speaker 1: their existence. Yeah, and so maybe for some inherent reasons
Speaker 1: we haven't figured out, or maybe for reasons of historical
Speaker 1: accident or whatever, statue or I think does have a
Speaker 1: religious connotation, and therefore it's no surprise that some of
Speaker 1: the grandest statues in the world, of course are religious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you look at it at a list of the
Speaker 1: largest statues currently in the world, most of them are
Speaker 1: going to be religious in scope. You'll find a few
Speaker 1: historic individuals in there, but really, like the top the
Speaker 1: top ten list, are mostly Buddhists. And today we're gonna
Speaker 1: be talking about one of the grandest Buddhas that you
Speaker 1: have statutes that you'll find out there, and that is
Speaker 1: the uh Lissan Grant, a giant Buddha or the Grand
Speaker 1: Buddha located in southern Shishwan Province in southwest China. So
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting that you wanted to do
Speaker 1: this episode, Robert, What what what? What was it that
Speaker 1: drew you to the Leshan Buddha. Well, I'd seen images
Speaker 1: of it before, and weirdly and weirdly enough to just
Speaker 1: throw in an unintended plug for another podcast but I
Speaker 1: was in the car and uh, I was listening to
Speaker 1: the Wow in the World podcast, which is uh an
Speaker 1: NPR science education podcast for children, and they had like
Speaker 1: a kid throwing in a quick fact about something that
Speaker 1: they learned on a trip. Right, so it's like a
Speaker 1: you know, a kid on the street kind of situation.
Speaker 1: And the kid mentioned the the leshaan giant Buddha, and
Speaker 1: uh and it kind of reminded me of its existence
Speaker 1: and and and one of the cool facts about it
Speaker 1: that we'll get to in a bit and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: And then I started looking into it a little more
Speaker 1: and said, hey, well there's a whole episode here we
Speaker 1: should talk about the lean giant Buddha. So if you
Speaker 1: are at a computer right now and you are listening
Speaker 1: to this episode where you can google something, you should
Speaker 1: probably go ahead and google a picture of it right
Speaker 1: to try to have this in your mind if you've
Speaker 1: never seen it before. If you can't do that, that's okay.
Speaker 1: We'll try to describe it for you. Yeah, we'll definitely
Speaker 1: have some images of it on the landing page for
Speaker 1: this episode is Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: But it looks like a giant Buddha has has carved
Speaker 1: out a niche in a mountain and is seated there
Speaker 1: within the mountain. So basically the the Buddha is a mountain.
Speaker 1: The mountain is the Buddha to to steal like a
Speaker 1: common slogan from the region, and the Buddha is literally
Speaker 1: made out of the mountain. Its carved out of the
Speaker 1: side of the mountain. But in a way that you
Speaker 1: know when when you when you I think for a
Speaker 1: lot of Western it's just when you think of something
Speaker 1: carved out of mountain, you think of our more local examples.
Speaker 1: You think Amount Rushmore, maybe you think of Stone Mountain
Speaker 1: here in Georgia, or you think of Crazy Horse, right.
Speaker 1: But this one, this is this one feels a lot
Speaker 1: different from any of those examples because it's it does
Speaker 1: feel it almost feels like there was a Buddha in
Speaker 1: the mountain and they just carved it out, like it
Speaker 1: was waiting there for for all of this. Uh, this
Speaker 1: sculpture work to free it. Absolutely, those other things you mentioned,
Speaker 1: like Mount Rushmore feel very much imposed on the landscape.
Speaker 1: There were a thing laid over the landscape. And I
Speaker 1: feel like the Buddha in in Lashan is either it's
Speaker 1: like it emerged from the landscape or is being absorbed
Speaker 1: by the landscape. It almost feels like, yeah, you found it,
Speaker 1: Like it's the like like it's a fossil Buddha. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great metaphor, dude, it is very much like that.
Speaker 1: One thing we should say, though, is Okay, so you
Speaker 1: imagine something that's carved out of a mountain or uh,
Speaker 1: or might be like a fossil, you're probably not thinking
Speaker 1: very big. This thing is big. It's huge. Yeah. It
Speaker 1: is seventy one or two hundred and thirty three feet tall,
Speaker 1: and it's it's you know, it's in a seated position.
Speaker 1: It's not standing. I actually I don't think I ran
Speaker 1: across any estimates on how tall this Buddha would be
Speaker 1: if it were standing full heights. Somehow should have done
Speaker 1: the math on that missed opportunity. If the Ghostbusters were to,
Speaker 1: you know, charge it with enough ectoplasm and make it
Speaker 1: walk around. Yeah that but that's somebody else's research project.
Speaker 1: Will leave them to it. Now. The other remarkable thing
Speaker 1: about it is that this is a this is a
Speaker 1: very old statue. Uh. This was this was a Tang
Speaker 1: dynasty construction. So that's twelve hundred years ago, and it
Speaker 1: is the largest stone Buddha in the world, and currently
Speaker 1: it's the tallest statue in the world. UH. Number one,
Speaker 1: by the way, is China's Spring Temple Buddha at a
Speaker 1: towering one ty eight ms or four hundred and twenty feet. Now,
Speaker 1: how many of those top twenty or so are Richard
Speaker 1: Nixon's um, Not none of them actually, but several of
Speaker 1: them are Buddhas or some of Bodhisatva's And I think
Speaker 1: in one particular particular note is to fame Chinese emperors.
Speaker 1: But but also the vast majority of them are from
Speaker 1: are from recent times. UH. Of the taller statues in
Speaker 1: the world, all of them were completed in the century.
Speaker 1: The Grand Buddha, however, again was finished in eight three CE.
Speaker 1: And this thing looks old. As we said, it's like
Speaker 1: a fossil. So it's a cliff coming straight out of
Speaker 1: the river, just shooting straight up out of the Dadu
Speaker 1: River and away from the it's like a red stone cliff.
Speaker 1: You can see this orange tinge in the white uh.
Speaker 1: And then back away from the cliff, there is this recession, UM.
Speaker 1: And within the recession is I don't know, you don't
Speaker 1: really see a throne or anything might be hidden back
Speaker 1: there behind all of the growth that's come out over
Speaker 1: the years. But you you do see the figure of
Speaker 1: the Buddha seated with his knees spread apart, his back
Speaker 1: very straight, and his hands resting on his knees, and
Speaker 1: the entire statue, like we said, is carved into the
Speaker 1: side of the mountain. We're seeding away from the cliff face.
Speaker 1: And so the Buddha is looking out over the river
Speaker 1: as if he's sort of like lording over the waters,
Speaker 1: and the waters are rushing by just underneath his feet.
Speaker 1: How would you describe his face, Robert, I would say
Speaker 1: it's very calm. It's calm, serene, almost disinterested in a
Speaker 1: way that he does remind me of a Y. M. C.
Speaker 1: A lifeguard, Like he's watching over the waters and and
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how interested he is in mean, not drowning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is not one of the laughing Buddhas. And we'll
Speaker 1: get into exactly what kind of Buddha he is in
Speaker 1: a minute, but certainly that just the scale of this
Speaker 1: thing is amazing from the photos. I have not been
Speaker 1: to see this in person, and I would love to
Speaker 1: hear from any of our listeners out there who have
Speaker 1: because it is a huge tourist attraction. Uh, People traveling
Speaker 1: to the area, you know, go out of their way
Speaker 1: just to see this and the surrounding historic temple and
Speaker 1: even you know natural attractions in the area. But you
Speaker 1: just you look at this and you just see how
Speaker 1: small the individuals are and in comparison to the feet
Speaker 1: to the toes of the statute. Right, there are people
Speaker 1: standing on the base where the Buddhist feet are and
Speaker 1: they're not even as tall as the Buddhas sandal. Right. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I think for Western audiences a specially, especially
Speaker 1: for American audiences, Like when we think of a giant statue,
Speaker 1: of course we think of the Statue of Liberty. But
Speaker 1: then how big would the statue of Liberty be compared
Speaker 1: to the Sun Buddha. Well, so there are multiple ways
Speaker 1: you can measure the Statue of Liberty. Now, if you
Speaker 1: measure the full thing, like with the base up to
Speaker 1: the top of the torch, it's bigger than the Leshan Buddha.
Speaker 1: But if you just look at the copper part of
Speaker 1: the statue from her heel to the top of her head,
Speaker 1: Lady Liberty is just over a hundred and eleven feet,
Speaker 1: so if she put her arm down, you could stand
Speaker 1: one Lady Liberty on the shoulders of another one and
Speaker 1: still not be as tall as the Lashan Buddha. Now
Speaker 1: it's it's always difficult to gauge these things though, just
Speaker 1: as a viewer, because you see Lady Liberty up there,
Speaker 1: you know, No, you don't see any humans really in
Speaker 1: reference to it, unless you're dealing with the Ghostbusters and
Speaker 1: Ghostbusters too. Otherwise it's easy to lose lose, you know,
Speaker 1: scope of what it's scale is, whereas with the Lassan
Speaker 1: Buddha you tend to see individuals at its base, so
Speaker 1: you have kind of a grounding and how big it
Speaker 1: appears to be. So this is supposed to be a Buddha, Robert,
Speaker 1: tell me about the Buddha, all right, Well, yeah, we
Speaker 1: should break down exactly what a buddha is. So wait,
Speaker 1: I thought you should say something like, I can't tell
Speaker 1: you about the Buddha. Uh, yeah, I'm sure there's some
Speaker 1: class like like, you know, if someone goes to tell
Speaker 1: you about the Buddha, don't let them tell you about
Speaker 1: the Buddha sort of if you meet the Buddha kill
Speaker 1: the Buddha kind of a thing. But there are different Buddhists,
Speaker 1: and that's an important thing to note. And it's easy
Speaker 1: to miss, to to not be aware of if you
Speaker 1: just kind of you see statues and you assume these
Speaker 1: are all statues of the same individual, historic or mythical,
Speaker 1: and it's just different artistic takes. And there are a
Speaker 1: number of different artistic takes on these Buddhists. But for starters,
Speaker 1: you have what's known as the historical Buddha, Siddharta Gottama,
Speaker 1: who lived in the fifth century b c. Exact century
Speaker 1: kind of varies depending on you know, who's telling, but
Speaker 1: this would have been ancient India. And the story is
Speaker 1: that he was a prince, you know, lived a life
Speaker 1: of luxury, and then he began to behold the you know,
Speaker 1: the sorrow of the world, the suffering in the world,
Speaker 1: and he abandoned his riches. He became a monk in
Speaker 1: order to seek enlightenment, and uh his teachings then spread
Speaker 1: throughout most of Asia and the centuries to follow. Now,
Speaker 1: interestingly enough, it actually declined in India self during the
Speaker 1: Middle Ages with the rise of Islam, but it flourished elsewhere,
Speaker 1: including in China, where it made its way in there
Speaker 1: around a hundred b C. And subsequently became an integral
Speaker 1: part of Chinese culture, and Buddhism today remains the fourth
Speaker 1: largest religion in the world. Now, I think I have
Speaker 1: to understand that throughout history, at different times, the adoption
Speaker 1: of Buddhism in China has been a controversial thing, right,
Speaker 1: Like there were times when when Chinese ruling dynasties were
Speaker 1: trying to enforce other beliefs, like they might say that
Speaker 1: people need to be Taoist or people need to be Confucian. Right, yes, certainly,
Speaker 1: because when you when you look at the history of China,
Speaker 1: of course, you have essentially three key world views that
Speaker 1: are you know, getting into the mix. There you have
Speaker 1: you have Buddhism, you have Taoism, and you have Confucianism
Speaker 1: and UH. And it's kind of like a continual you know,
Speaker 1: cocktail to what degree or these uh these mesh together
Speaker 1: in an in an individual time, in an individual region.
Speaker 1: Now to come back to the Shawan Buddha that what
Speaker 1: makes this interesting is that the first Chinese Buddhist temple
Speaker 1: was built in Sechuan Province on the summits of Mount Emmy,
Speaker 1: and this is the very area, the very region in
Speaker 1: which the Grand Buddha was carved. Now, maybe we should
Speaker 1: take a quick break and when we come back we
Speaker 1: can get a little bit into the history of how
Speaker 1: this Grand Buddha was constructed more than years ago. Thank alright,
Speaker 1: we're back. So, uh, there's an origin story here, as
Speaker 1: there always is. Yeah, and maybe we should say as
Speaker 1: as many origins if you go back far enough, there's
Speaker 1: a flood in the story somewhere, except in this case,
Speaker 1: it's more of a pattern of flooding, right, and this
Speaker 1: is a historical fact that's not just part of the mythology.
Speaker 1: The central and southwest region of China is prone to
Speaker 1: lots of flooding, right. Yeah. I mean we ended up
Speaker 1: discussing some of this in our Great Flood episode. We
Speaker 1: talked about Chinese the Chinese variant of the grate flood
Speaker 1: myth and the importance of of water management and manipulation
Speaker 1: in Chinese history. Yeah. So it's like a it's a
Speaker 1: humid uh I think subtropical climate, but that they'll have
Speaker 1: monsoon seasons, the rains come in and there there will
Speaker 1: be heavy rains that cause flooding in these planes areas.
Speaker 1: Refresh me a little bit on the on the Chinese
Speaker 1: flood myth Robert. Oh, well, you're talking about the story
Speaker 1: of You the Great, Yeah, where essentially you just have
Speaker 1: you have this this flood that occurs and uh and
Speaker 1: who is going to who's going to deal with it?
Speaker 1: How are we going to to solve this problem? Instead
Speaker 1: of the creation of an arc or you know, a
Speaker 1: great boat, you have You the Great who uses uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the knowledge of canal systems and drainage systems
Speaker 1: as a way to to manage the flooding. Oh, that's
Speaker 1: a much better solution than a boat, right, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: like works for more than one group of people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. I think there's probably something culturally telling
Speaker 1: about about that as well. Like it's a it's a
Speaker 1: very it's a particularly Chinese uh take on the problem,
Speaker 1: but also ties in with very real world issues of
Speaker 1: the day, which would have been um, you know, seasonal flooding. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there is seasonal flooding in this area that sometimes
Speaker 1: the rivers will swell and this can be a danger
Speaker 1: to the people who work in the in or around
Speaker 1: the river. Um. And this this ties into where the
Speaker 1: Buddha came from. That's right, So that the origin story,
Speaker 1: the basic version goes as follows. You have a Buddhist
Speaker 1: monk named Hi Tongue and he conceives this this project
Speaker 1: around seven thirteen CE. So his idea is, look, we
Speaker 1: have we have really turbulent waters out here on the
Speaker 1: Dadu River. Uh, it's really rough on on boatman navigation.
Speaker 1: People are drowning. Uh, it's it's it's influenced by by
Speaker 1: these seasonal floods. If we're we're to build a Buddha here,
Speaker 1: then that would bring like fortune to the area, Like
Speaker 1: that would bring a calming influence on on these turvy
Speaker 1: went waters where you ultimately have the confluence of of
Speaker 1: three different rivers, the Nanjang, the dad and the Queen
Speaker 1: Ye rivers. Yeah, And in reading about this, I came
Speaker 1: across what appears to be some kind of popular legend
Speaker 1: about Hi Tong's quest to get the Buddha build This
Speaker 1: was good, so I had to repeat it, but I
Speaker 1: want to, but I want to stress this is the
Speaker 1: best I can synthesize from scattered and discrepant telling. So
Speaker 1: this is probably probably legendary, might not even be an
Speaker 1: old legend. Who knows if this was created recently, but
Speaker 1: here's what people are saying. So Hi Tong in this
Speaker 1: story knew that it would cost a lot of money
Speaker 1: to get the Buddha built, and he traveled far and
Speaker 1: wide soliciting alms for the construction, and slowly, over time
Speaker 1: he built up a fund. He managed to get together
Speaker 1: enough money for the stone works and the carving. But
Speaker 1: at some point in the project, Hi Tong was called
Speaker 1: to an audience with a corrupt government official with a
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon, you know who told him Hi Tong, it's
Speaker 1: time to hand over the funds, and Hi Tong said,
Speaker 1: I'd rather give up my eyes than give up the
Speaker 1: Great Buddha. And when the corrupt official pressed him to
Speaker 1: give him the money, Hi Tong gouged out his own eyes,
Speaker 1: or one of his own eyes and threw them at
Speaker 1: the officials feet, and supposedly this got the guy to
Speaker 1: leave him alone. Now again with my morning. I've seen
Speaker 1: various versions of this story told and retold across sources,
Speaker 1: but I can't locate an authoritative original source from this.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to file this under probably legendary, whether
Speaker 1: it's an old legend, or a recent creation is unclear,
Speaker 1: and I think that even if it is, even if
Speaker 1: it is a recent addition to the legend, uh, this
Speaker 1: will be something that ties into our further discussions of
Speaker 1: the Buddha here in a bit. Okay, now, earlier I
Speaker 1: talked to what we mentioned sud hard to got him
Speaker 1: as the historic Buddha, and I alluded to the existence
Speaker 1: of other Buddhas that are that are important as well.
Speaker 1: So let's go ahead and get that out of the way. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is not a statue the grand Buddha here is
Speaker 1: not a statue of Gottama. So it's not trying to
Speaker 1: be a depiction of that historical guy. Correct. So while
Speaker 1: Gottama is the historic Buddha, Buddhism recognized as many different Buddhists.
Speaker 1: For instance, in uh their Veda Buddhism, there twenty seven
Speaker 1: Buddhist who preceded Gotama. Then you also have other important
Speaker 1: Buddhis like the medicine Buddha is tremendously important. If you've
Speaker 1: ever been to the the met in New York, in
Speaker 1: their Asian section, they have an enormous mural on the
Speaker 1: wall and it depicts the medicine Buddha and then we
Speaker 1: have the Buddha that is actually depicted here, and that
Speaker 1: is my Trea, the Buddha of the future. Oh boy, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a really exciting Buddha. And some of you
Speaker 1: might remember some mention of my Trea from the self
Speaker 1: Embalming Buddhist Monks episode we did a while back, and
Speaker 1: that that has to do with a Japanese practice, but
Speaker 1: it also involved my Trea. So according to some traditions,
Speaker 1: my Trea is going to come to Earth five point
Speaker 1: six billion years in the future. And until then, whoa
Speaker 1: whoa five point six billions. Yes, is there's still gonna
Speaker 1: be an Earth in five point six billion years, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be something that my Treya can visit. So I
Speaker 1: don't know, you can go kind of sci fi crazy
Speaker 1: with this in a minute, like maybe we're all living
Speaker 1: on a on a spaceship a colony ship at that point,
Speaker 1: but my trayer will find us. That's that's my read
Speaker 1: on it, well the future exactly. So until he's needed,
Speaker 1: he's gonna reside in the in in a in a
Speaker 1: in a heaven, a sort of a a Buddhist heaven
Speaker 1: that's set aside from my reality and h and you
Speaker 1: can sort of think of him as a Buddha messiah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I suppose, and that he'll he'll eventually bring Dharma back
Speaker 1: to a far future world that is mostly forgotten it.
Speaker 1: So it's pretty exciting. My trey of factors into a
Speaker 1: number of different artistic depictions. So if you go to
Speaker 1: a museum of am zem of of Buddhist art or
Speaker 1: or or Asian art, there's a very good chance you
Speaker 1: will encounter my trea at least a few times. What
Speaker 1: is the most commonly depicted Buddha? Do you know? You
Speaker 1: know it's gonna it's gonna depend. I think, like I've
Speaker 1: I have to admit that when I was when I
Speaker 1: was younger, I definitely fall into the category of thinking
Speaker 1: there was just a Buddha, and you would see of
Speaker 1: sometimes Buddha is is, you know, fat and happy, and
Speaker 1: sometimes Buddha is starved and and kind of a solemn looking. Uh.
Speaker 1: But they're gonna be They're gonna be different emphasis and
Speaker 1: different cultures. And then sometimes things we meant casually think
Speaker 1: of as being Buddhas are actually bodhisattvas, which is kind
Speaker 1: of you know, a notch lower or and then sometimes
Speaker 1: their their depictions of important you know, monk figures. But
Speaker 1: I know that you do encounter my Trea, the medicine Buddha,
Speaker 1: and and uh, the historic Buddha got him a quite
Speaker 1: a bit, so the Grand Buddha. Here this depiction of
Speaker 1: my Trea. It it is eventually completed ninety years after
Speaker 1: it started. By that point, Hi Tong has has died.
Speaker 1: And uh, and the story about the blinding, even if
Speaker 1: that didn't happen exactly as as the story indicates, it
Speaker 1: does seem that there were there were points where funding
Speaker 1: stalled out, where work ceased, and thus this uh, this
Speaker 1: long process of actually finishing the statue. But of course,
Speaker 1: now that it's finished, we really do have kind of
Speaker 1: uh would you call it a sort of wonder of
Speaker 1: the world on our hands. Yeah. I mean that's important
Speaker 1: thing to keep in mind of when you because we
Speaker 1: often think of what that the Seven Wonders of the
Speaker 1: world um ancient or the ancient world. And of course
Speaker 1: they were based on knowledge of the ancient world by
Speaker 1: by individuals at the time, which tended to exclude anything
Speaker 1: that was happening in Asia. It was it was confined
Speaker 1: to a different region of the world and in a
Speaker 1: number of those things aren't even around anymore. They're even
Speaker 1: questions about whether some of them existed to begin in
Speaker 1: with UM, I have long thought we should just we
Speaker 1: should do an episode or a series of episodes on
Speaker 1: each of the seven Wonders of the Ancient World and
Speaker 1: discuss like what they what they were, slash are, what
Speaker 1: happened to them and UH and and why people were
Speaker 1: so invested in them at at the time. But but
Speaker 1: that's for another episode. Yeah, but if you were to
Speaker 1: to actually take in the Wonders of the world and
Speaker 1: UH and do a complete you know, overview and take
Speaker 1: in all regions of the Earth, I feel like the
Speaker 1: Lea Shawn Budda would would would have to be on
Speaker 1: there because it's a tremendous work of sculpture and the
Speaker 1: body content actually contains a drainage system to prevent weathering
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, So there are spiral coils and
Speaker 1: cross drainage systems like built into its surface that helped
Speaker 1: to drain water away from it. And again this is
Speaker 1: because this is an area that is UM is frequented
Speaker 1: by seasonal flooding, tremendous rainfall is a very temporary climate. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: if high Tong Skull was to calm the angry river
Speaker 1: gods and put a Buddha in there to pacify the
Speaker 1: hateful waters of the river in the rain season, did
Speaker 1: it work. Well? That's one of the really fascinating aspects
Speaker 1: of this story is that, according to too many, it
Speaker 1: did work. Now, how did it work? Well, That's that's
Speaker 1: where it gets interesting. That if it actually worked in
Speaker 1: calming the waters beneath its gaze, the likely reason for
Speaker 1: this is probably because you had over the decades, you
Speaker 1: have all of this excavation, and this is dumping so
Speaker 1: much surplus rock into the river hollows below that it
Speaker 1: actually has an effect on the flow of the river.
Speaker 1: Like you're you're remaking the mountain, your remake, You're remaking
Speaker 1: the environment surrounding the mountain, and in doing so, you're
Speaker 1: remaking the river. You're sort of inadvertently um altering the
Speaker 1: flow of the river. Huh. Now, I have some skepticism
Speaker 1: there because the river is huge. I mean, it's if
Speaker 1: you see pictures of it as a gigantic waterway. So
Speaker 1: I would think it would take a great amount of
Speaker 1: deposits to change the river fundamentally. I can believe more
Speaker 1: that it would change like local areas of the river. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: And I think that when I think the individuals that
Speaker 1: are making that that argument are are definitely focusing like
Speaker 1: on the filling in of the hollows within the river
Speaker 1: and and affecting the very localized nature of it. I
Speaker 1: think if you get into anything beyond that, then you're
Speaker 1: getting into kind of magical mythic thinking. You know, we
Speaker 1: built a statue so big that the surplus rock, you know,
Speaker 1: change the earth. All right. So when we first started
Speaker 1: out this episode, we asked the question why would you
Speaker 1: build a statue? And the best answer I think we
Speaker 1: would come up with is you want you want this
Speaker 1: idea or this person to u to last forever, to
Speaker 1: to live forever. And so in building the Grand Buddha,
Speaker 1: the ideas, yeah, this is gonna be around for a
Speaker 1: long time. Maybe it's even gonna be long enough, uh
Speaker 1: that the actual Maitrea can visit it and say, hey,
Speaker 1: that's me up there. But as it turns as the
Speaker 1: I don't think the statute is gonna make it five
Speaker 1: billion years. I don't. I don't think it is either,
Speaker 1: because because that's the thing about any kind of stone work,
Speaker 1: any kind of sculpture, is that, yes, they do tend
Speaker 1: to last longer than living human beings. But in is
Speaker 1: when you when you start having this thing live within
Speaker 1: geologic time. Uh, you know, don't expect a whole lot
Speaker 1: because you have all of these eroding effects in the
Speaker 1: natural world, and they're not going to leave your statue
Speaker 1: alone just because it's not technically a mountain anymore. Right,
Speaker 1: I mean, there used to be continents in places where
Speaker 1: there now are not continents, and vice versa. Uh. The earth,
Speaker 1: the face of the Earth is constantly changing, and so
Speaker 1: while a stone statue might last a very long time,
Speaker 1: probably much longer than many other creations of humankind, it's
Speaker 1: not gonna last forever. Right. You're gonna have you gonna
Speaker 1: have wind, You're gonna have rain, You're gonna have also
Speaker 1: an issue with the the sculptures are gonna have you know,
Speaker 1: plant life growing in and on it, in it around it,
Speaker 1: which I would now say is one of the coolest
Speaker 1: features of the Grand Buddha. You see pictures of it.
Speaker 1: It's not only receding into the mountains, so in this
Speaker 1: hollow in the cliff face, but it's also got all
Speaker 1: this green coming out around it, So it's being absorbed
Speaker 1: by the landscape in more way than one. It's sinking
Speaker 1: into the mountain or emerging from a recess in the mountain,
Speaker 1: but it's also emerging from the biosphere almost or sinking
Speaker 1: into the biosphere. Oh yeah, I mean it adds the natural,
Speaker 1: natural wonder of it. But at the same level, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like having a bunch of the English ivy
Speaker 1: grow up the side of your house. On one level
Speaker 1: it looks really nice, but on the other you have
Speaker 1: plants like growing on and into your your stonework. Um.
Speaker 1: Now another important factor here, as we mentioned how many
Speaker 1: a lot of people go to it as a popular
Speaker 1: tourist destination. Uh I was reading in a Lonely Planet
Speaker 1: guide for China that if you're gonna visit the Grand Buddha,
Speaker 1: it's best not to even try to go on a
Speaker 1: weekend or a holiday because the stairs around it becomes
Speaker 1: so packed with tourists that you can't even move. It
Speaker 1: just comes to a standstill. Now, of course, anytime you've
Speaker 1: got lots of people visiting something, that's going to be
Speaker 1: a risk to the preservation of the people touching things. People.
Speaker 1: Hopefully they're not gonna be able to touch too much
Speaker 1: of it here because you can't get out there and
Speaker 1: climb on his nose. Um. But yeah, I mean somehow
Speaker 1: exposure to people, I think it's gonna start wearing at
Speaker 1: you and human erosion takes place. Another thing I just
Speaker 1: have to mention now that you you talked about tourists
Speaker 1: surviving is I watched a homemade video on YouTube that
Speaker 1: I found of a family visiting the Buddha at a
Speaker 1: time when there was intense flooding in the river just
Speaker 1: under it, so like the waters were rushing by and
Speaker 1: they were rising up to just below the platform where
Speaker 1: the Buddhist feet are, and this family paid somebody to
Speaker 1: get them out to the statue even though it was
Speaker 1: dangerous weather and it was flooding, And there's this video
Speaker 1: on YouTube of them just walking around with almost nobody there. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is apparently not the usual scene on a on
Speaker 1: a weekend at the Grand Buddha. Now, on top of
Speaker 1: natural erosion human erosion, there's also the added threat of pollution,
Speaker 1: which will we'll get into a little bit more in
Speaker 1: a bit. But yeah, you have with the with the
Speaker 1: with the the rise and continued rise of industrialized human civilization.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have both natural and man made the features
Speaker 1: of the earth that are going to be affected by
Speaker 1: by by all the resulting pollution. Yeah, in particular, there's
Speaker 1: a there's like a blackening that occurs on some of
Speaker 1: these statues. So you'll have your you know, your your
Speaker 1: your statue of of of a Buddha, and then over time,
Speaker 1: like there's like a blackening of the nose as if
Speaker 1: you know, as if the nose is rotting away or something,
Speaker 1: and you know, at the very least it's it's not
Speaker 1: maybe not the artist's intention or the for the sculpture.
Speaker 1: I hate to see that happen to this great old
Speaker 1: work of art. But that's also kind of cool. So
Speaker 1: I was, I was reading about preservation UH for this
Speaker 1: UH for this Buddha and other like sacred sites, various
Speaker 1: UH sculptures in China. There was an article titled Conservation
Speaker 1: of Ancient Sites on the Silk Road, Proceedings of an
Speaker 1: International Conference on Conservation of Grotto Sites, and this was
Speaker 1: These were symposium proceedings by one Neville Agnew. This was
Speaker 1: published in nineteen seven, so it's a it's a slightly
Speaker 1: older overview, but it still has a lot of important details.
Speaker 1: So in particular concerning the Grand Buddha, he mentions that
Speaker 1: that this sculpture benefited from multiple restorations over the years,
Speaker 1: so we're not really seeing the original version of it, right,
Speaker 1: That's something to keep in mind. So just going back
Speaker 1: to the earliest traces that that he reverences in his article,
Speaker 1: So if you go back to the Queen dynasty, that's
Speaker 1: the sixty six through nineteen twelve documents indicated the sculpture
Speaker 1: was heavily damaged at the time, so it had cavities
Speaker 1: in the face, kind of like the Sphinx or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just it had it had you know, the
Speaker 1: upkeep had not prevented the face from kind of crumbling
Speaker 1: apart in places. And then by the time you come
Speaker 1: to the Republic of China era that's nineteen twelve and
Speaker 1: ninety nine, photos show that it had been inaccurately restored.
Speaker 1: So they fixed this is a problem where their holes
Speaker 1: in the face. Then you fix the face and well,
Speaker 1: now the face looks a little different than it did before.
Speaker 1: Then by the nineteen sixties you have significant maintenance that's
Speaker 1: taking place. It's altering the nose, the eyes of the
Speaker 1: mouth and the lower jaw of the Buddha, and Agnew
Speaker 1: argues that in light of all of this, it might
Speaker 1: perhaps be better not to restore the Buddha at all.
Speaker 1: Like if you were if you're essentially each time you're
Speaker 1: restoring it, you're kind of making it a little different,
Speaker 1: You're making it new each time. Like are you actually
Speaker 1: preserving an ancient statue or you are you, you know,
Speaker 1: keeping up a modern statue that's sort of based on
Speaker 1: the base of something old. Yeah, I think that's a
Speaker 1: common question in restoration. Actually, I mean you're always going
Speaker 1: to have deterioration, and is it better to allow things
Speaker 1: to deteriorate and let people see them in that state
Speaker 1: or two falsely alter them to restore them. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean which is more authentic? Yeah, Like, for instance,
Speaker 1: in the West, Uh, the Parthenon is an example of this.
Speaker 1: So the Parthenon is severely damaged, but there's there's a
Speaker 1: history to that damage. You can and I mean it's
Speaker 1: a fascinating history in terms of who has who has
Speaker 1: ownership at a given time, the very the violence that's
Speaker 1: been that that has occurred there, etcetera. We could get
Speaker 1: into the whole history and another another podcast. But but
Speaker 1: there is, you know, an ongoing discussion. Well, do you
Speaker 1: do you completely restore the Parthenon and then create create
Speaker 1: this kind of new thing that is based on the
Speaker 1: old model and certainly an attempt to to rebuild the
Speaker 1: old Parthenon? Or do you maintain what's currently there and
Speaker 1: tell the story of how we got there. My my
Speaker 1: answer would be anybody out there listening, if I can
Speaker 1: make the decision, you believe it how it is, but
Speaker 1: then you build a copy of it somewhere else. So
Speaker 1: like with the parthen On, we've got the Parthenon in
Speaker 1: Nashville tells yes. And I think that's not a bad approach.
Speaker 1: You know, you you you let it be as it is,
Speaker 1: and let time take it and let's see what time
Speaker 1: has done do it, but then you do your best
Speaker 1: to create a model of what it would have been
Speaker 1: like in another place. Now, I will point out that
Speaker 1: with the Grand Buddha in the late ninety nineties, you
Speaker 1: did see an increased focus on the best ways to
Speaker 1: restore the Buddha, but do so in ways that we're
Speaker 1: both scientifically and historically sound, So essentially reaching the point
Speaker 1: where you realize, Okay, what can we do that will
Speaker 1: you know, maintain what we have, help protect it, restore
Speaker 1: areas that are damaged, but also be true to the
Speaker 1: history of the sculpture. So in uh intwo thousand one,
Speaker 1: according to to Reuter's News, there was actually a two
Speaker 1: fifty million one or the thirty three point six million
Speaker 1: restoration project that took place at the Buddha. But by
Speaker 1: two thousand seven, the nose it actually blackened again due
Speaker 1: to pollution, and concerns over pollution actually prompted local government,
Speaker 1: the local government to shut down factories and power plants
Speaker 1: close to the statue to help maintain it, which I
Speaker 1: think is a positive movement, like people realizing, look, if
Speaker 1: we we have to we have to actually cut down
Speaker 1: on the we have to tackle the pollution problem if
Speaker 1: we we want these these artifacts to to remain presentable.
Speaker 1: I feel like that is not usually the solution you
Speaker 1: hear is shutting down heavy industry to protect uh, you know,
Speaker 1: heritage monuments or or the environment. Well, uh, the Reuter's article,
Speaker 1: you know, touches on the fact that this, you know,
Speaker 1: this was not an isolated problem. Was the state was
Speaker 1: encountering this with with numerous you know, sacred and important
Speaker 1: historical sites, various shrines, etcetera. But hey, it's still there.
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's still open, and it is a popular
Speaker 1: touristist destination. And based on what I was reading, you know,
Speaker 1: you can spend a good half day there looking at
Speaker 1: an additional sites, temples, and the natural environment is is
Speaker 1: supposedly a really pleasant as well. Yeah, if you see
Speaker 1: pictures of it, one of the things you'll notice is
Speaker 1: this tiny narrow staircase carved into the cliff side beside
Speaker 1: the Buddha going up the side of it, So I
Speaker 1: guess people can get up higher to be near its face. Um,
Speaker 1: and it. I mean, one thing that's clear is how
Speaker 1: many people want to come see this, this beautiful work
Speaker 1: of art. But also they're so tiny and they look
Speaker 1: so precarious when you see these long shots of the
Speaker 1: giant Buddha. Not that the Buddha would do this, but
Speaker 1: you can imagine it would just sort of like swing
Speaker 1: its hand up and like knock hundreds of people in
Speaker 1: the river. Well, you know, you can't help but think
Speaker 1: of that when you see a colossal stone tighten uh
Speaker 1: in the lightness of a man. All Right, We're gonna
Speaker 1: take one more break and we come back. I just
Speaker 1: have a few additional thoughts about, to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: the Grand Buddha, but also just this idea of of
Speaker 1: remaking the earth and then what happens when we do so.
Speaker 1: I think one of the most compelling aspects of the
Speaker 1: gram Buddha is that we see the mountain transformed into
Speaker 1: a human lightness, and in doing so there are all
Speaker 1: these ramifications to the natural environment. So there's the the
Speaker 1: alleged alteration of the river, the alteration of drainage on
Speaker 1: the mountain, and of course you know, these are just
Speaker 1: small and specific examples of what human beings have done
Speaker 1: just across the UH, the anthropathy and epoch. The idea
Speaker 1: that since the rise of of of agricultural really but
Speaker 1: certainly in the industrial age as well, we have just
Speaker 1: reshaped the earth and in doing so we have changed
Speaker 1: the natural environment. That makes me wonder, I mean, how
Speaker 1: do how the boot plays into that metaphor what do
Speaker 1: you think is the general UH? And you might not
Speaker 1: know the answer, but what what do you think is
Speaker 1: the general environmental outlook of Buddhism? Is there a coherent one? Well?
Speaker 1: I know, for a fact. I think I might have
Speaker 1: mentioned this on a previous episode, but there was there
Speaker 1: was a wonderful New York Times article that came out
Speaker 1: in recent weeks about the resurgence of religious interest in
Speaker 1: China specifically. So it's people turning not not just to Buddhism,
Speaker 1: but also Daoism and Confucism and in sort of reclaiming uh,
Speaker 1: culturally important Chinese religious models, they're also taking on environmental causes.
Speaker 1: So they are they are finding and an environmental message
Speaker 1: in Buddhism, in Taoism, in Confucianism, and then becoming active
Speaker 1: with that within uh, with within you know, within China
Speaker 1: and UH and and arguing for uh, you know, environmental
Speaker 1: protective measures. It's hard not to see the Buddha as
Speaker 1: somehow more harmonious with nature in this in this depiction
Speaker 1: than something say like Mount Rushmore, because as we mentioned
Speaker 1: of the way the greenery tends to surround it, like green,
Speaker 1: maybe just moss and stuff like that is creeping into
Speaker 1: some of the surfaces on the statue. But you can
Speaker 1: also just see these tree branches and the forest beyond
Speaker 1: trying to creep in and surround the Buddha like a
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like when you see the cartoon where
Speaker 1: snow White is surrounded by chirping birds and things, it's
Speaker 1: like the the very life of the forest itself is
Speaker 1: coming in to hug and honor the Buddha. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: it reminds me of something we I guess it was
Speaker 1: the episode of Biophilia where we talked about some of this.
Speaker 1: You know, I think you can my read on on
Speaker 1: it is that if you if you look to any
Speaker 1: major religion, I think you can find environmental trends within it,
Speaker 1: environmental messages within it. But as with any religion, it
Speaker 1: depends on who's handling it right, who's who's who's manipulating
Speaker 1: it in some cases, or who is delivering the message
Speaker 1: of it. And and therefore any faith can take a
Speaker 1: you know, a less environmental form. Yeah, the the dominion
Speaker 1: over the earth mentality versus the harmony with the earth
Speaker 1: mentality or the preservation of the earth mentality. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's very possible someone out there is making Buddhist
Speaker 1: arguments for for the removal of environmental regulations. But but
Speaker 1: I have not personally run across it. If you have
Speaker 1: run across the listener send it in because I would
Speaker 1: love to have that that that added perspective. But in
Speaker 1: terms of just reshaping the earth, and it's worth pointing
Speaker 1: out that, yeah, all major powers have done it and
Speaker 1: continue to do it, so you know, we can look
Speaker 1: to examples of reshaped mountains and damned rivers here in
Speaker 1: the United States. But I but I also can't help
Speaker 1: but think of the Zai Pin Poo damn, which is
Speaker 1: actually located in Sichuan Province as well. And this was
Speaker 1: this is a large scale damn that some scientists have.
Speaker 1: You know, they've connected the dots here between it's massive
Speaker 1: reshaping of the earth and some deadly earthquakes that have
Speaker 1: occurred in the region. Really, I'm always curious about the
Speaker 1: extent to which people can actually uh trace human behavior
Speaker 1: to the causation of earthquakes. I'm not saying I never
Speaker 1: believe it happens, but I'm always curious, like, how, how,
Speaker 1: how with how much confidence can we really say that
Speaker 1: something we did caused an earthquake? Do you think scientists
Speaker 1: are pretty certain here? Well, it's something we could definitely
Speaker 1: discuss in a in a later episode, like really break
Speaker 1: it apart. I mean, the scientists who are who are
Speaker 1: who are arguing that this is taking place. Uh. But
Speaker 1: so what we're talking about here is I'm sure they
Speaker 1: know better than I do. I don't mean to cast
Speaker 1: out on that. Well, it's it's not a it's not
Speaker 1: a fringe science by any sense, any sense, but it is. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's known as reservoir induced size mesticity. Okay. So the
Speaker 1: the idea is that you have rapid changes in water
Speaker 1: pressure or caused by flood, seasonal flood, changes in reservoir levels,
Speaker 1: and this can activate already shaky ground and trigger an earthquake. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, the most famous example of this is that
Speaker 1: the three gorgeous damn in China, the huge thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is a massive So you end up with
Speaker 1: a of course, the way Damn's work, I think everybody's
Speaker 1: familiar with this. You dam or river and you end
Speaker 1: up with water on one side, reservoir of water, and
Speaker 1: that's you control the flow. Yeah, and that's that's a
Speaker 1: massive amount of water. It's a massive change. I mean
Speaker 1: it's a change in mass and uh. And so the
Speaker 1: idea with the three gorges here is that this this
Speaker 1: reservoir ends up setting on two major fault lines and uh,
Speaker 1: and that that can actually affect seismic activity. So it's
Speaker 1: not it's not a situation where it you can't really
Speaker 1: say it alone is causing the earthquake, but it is
Speaker 1: influencing the factors that that are at play in the
Speaker 1: causation of earthquakes. That's the argument. And well, tentatively I
Speaker 1: believe it. I was speaking out of ignorance. No, no no, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the kind of thing we could take
Speaker 1: apart in a later episode, for sure. But in the
Speaker 1: case of the Zaiping Poo damn, this is a three
Speaker 1: hundred and fifteen million ton water reservoir, and it lies
Speaker 1: about five fifty yards from a fault line uh and
Speaker 1: three miles from the epicenter of the Sichuan earthquake that
Speaker 1: killed at least reported eighty thousand people in two thousand eight.
Speaker 1: And that those stats are according to the Telegraph food
Speaker 1: for for thought. Nobody's blaming this in the Buddha, don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, But and and I naturally, I don't
Speaker 1: want I don't want to argue that there's a one
Speaker 1: to one comparison to be made between uh, you know,
Speaker 1: carving a sculpture out of a mountain and creating a
Speaker 1: you know, a massive reservoir via the construction of a damn.
Speaker 1: But I think they both demonstrate this human ability and
Speaker 1: desire to to remake the world and then how we
Speaker 1: end up rediscovering the fragility of the world in the
Speaker 1: process and realizing that, Yeah, when you when you change
Speaker 1: the shape of a mountain, that's gonna have an impact.
Speaker 1: When you create this massive reservoir, it's going to have
Speaker 1: an impact because in the case of of of a
Speaker 1: massive reservoir created via dam you also have to count
Speaker 1: in pollution because you have water flowing into areas that
Speaker 1: we're not uh previously submerged, and that might mean you
Speaker 1: are introducing uh, existing pollutants into the water. You have
Speaker 1: can have landslides, mud slides, weather changes, you have this
Speaker 1: uh what's called is the lake effect, so decreasing rainfall
Speaker 1: in the area around the reservoir. Uh, there's a decrease
Speaker 1: there while there's an increase in rainfall in the surrounding
Speaker 1: mountain regions. On top of that, you can have drought,
Speaker 1: you can have a species loss, and you can have
Speaker 1: the loss of historical relics as you know, in an
Speaker 1: area that was you know, previously above water is now
Speaker 1: below water on you know, for the life of the dam. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's something I've rarely even considered as a consequence of
Speaker 1: damming rivers. We actually have a how Stuff Works dot
Speaker 1: Com article on the topic, so have to link to
Speaker 1: that as well on the landing page for this episode.
Speaker 1: It's stuff to blow your mind dot Com. All right,
Speaker 1: So there you have it, a little you know, introduction
Speaker 1: into I think one of the more remarkable UH statues
Speaker 1: in the world, one that I have not seen in person,
Speaker 1: but one day I would. I would very much like to.
Speaker 1: Maybe I can convince UH work to send me there.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought this up, Robert. I I've I
Speaker 1: didn't really know anything about the statue going in, and
Speaker 1: I think it's a fascinating work of art, and I
Speaker 1: too would like to see it one day. So how
Speaker 1: about you out there again? We'd love to hear from
Speaker 1: anyone who has UH, who has actually ventured out and
Speaker 1: and seen the Grand Buddha in person. What were your impressions,
Speaker 1: What do you think of the surrounding area, What do
Speaker 1: you think about other massive works of sculpture, you know,
Speaker 1: bet a freestanding sculpture or something carved out of the
Speaker 1: side of a mountain. What kind of effect did it
Speaker 1: have on you? I'm wondering what great works of art
Speaker 1: are going to be, you know, great great sculptures that
Speaker 1: exist today or will exist soon, are going to be
Speaker 1: visited by tourists in another years. Like, what's the Grand
Speaker 1: Buddha that was built recently? Huh? I guess the Grand
Speaker 1: Buddha of the future. But not the Buddha of the future,
Speaker 1: not the Ma Trea. Okay, sorry, I'm being confusing. What
Speaker 1: what what's the sculpture out there today that people are
Speaker 1: going to be coming to with this much intensity more
Speaker 1: than a thousand years from now. Well, there are some
Speaker 1: very large statues in the United States that I don't
Speaker 1: think get a lot of press because they're just such
Speaker 1: recent constructions. I want to say, there's a it's a
Speaker 1: in Florida. There is a pegasus battling a dragon. And
Speaker 1: it's why I want to say, it's like the second
Speaker 1: or third largest statue in the United States. But it's
Speaker 1: not historic. It's it's a very recent creation and it's
Speaker 1: just a dragon in a pegasus. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe people will grow more attached to it and and
Speaker 1: it will. It will become like a something we're truly
Speaker 1: proud of, and we'll start putting it on money or something.
Speaker 1: But for the time being, I guess you know, the
Speaker 1: Statue of Liberty, amount rushmore of these are still going
Speaker 1: to be the big attractions here in the United States
Speaker 1: until we build that five thousand foot Nixon we've been
Speaker 1: talking about. So head on over to Stuff to Blow
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