Bamiyan is only 145 miles north of Kabul and a motor-road, leads to it through the picturesque valleys of Kohdanan and Ghoraband. At a distance of about 110 miles from Kabul there is a deep ascent, named Shibar Pass, which is snow-capped in winter. About 19 miles ahead of this Pass, the road branches off, one to the right leads to Mazar-Sharif and Katghan, while the other to the left leads to Bamiyan. The road to Bamiyan runs parallel to the river of Barmiyan and girdles the range of hills. After six miles and old mud fort on a steep rock is called the city of Zahak-I*Msran.

From thenceforth, the valley widens and the city of caves, where once reclusive Buddhist monks would have lived in meditation, appears. This is the historic city of Bamiyan, lying at the foot of a reddish hills, some 9,000 feet above mean sea level, which also forms the dividing line between the gigantic mountain ranges - the Hindu Kush and the Koh-i-Baba. The valley of Bamiyan, sunk deep in the pleateau. is between 8,000 and 9,000 ft above sea mean sea level To the south is the snowcapped range of Kh-i-Baba range running to 16,000 to 17,000 feet. The passes the hilly ranges, valleys and the girdling river give Bamiyan the ideal backdrop to a Buddhist centre of learning and orectic and it was undoubtedly a glorious centre of Buddhism, that enveloped the entire Afghanistan, until Islamic invasions took over Afghanistan.

Little is left of the ancient city, being victimised by barbaric fundamentalists and still the capital exists, known now as Shahr-iGhulghols (City of Uproars). Gigantic statues of Buddha (53 and 35 metres in height) with smaller ones in different directions are carved out of the sedimentary rock on the sides of the Bamiyan gorge. These statues once coated with reinforcements to withstands the rigours of climatic changes in this hilly terrain, were a source of inspiration and religious fervour for the sore-footed weary pilgrim who, trotted over the land with just a sack tied to a walking stick and held on the shoulder, for there were no vehicles to travel but just a donkey to be their pack animal and cornpanion through the desolate human unfriendly terrain and weather gods.

Xuan Zang, who saw these stupendous monasteries and statues and other Buddhist artifacts in 630 AD said very laconically and implicitly, "The Golden Line Sparks on Every Side". The two masdove statues (175 ft and 125 ft in height) were begun in the second century AD under the patronage of Emperor Kanishka and the several others. probably in the fourth or fifth centuries AD. The niches of the Buddha statues carry, now marred, beautiful frescoes, giving the archaeologist a pointer as to the path arts of India found its way to Afghanistan and percolated it with Greek, Roman and Sassanian elements prior to it being it conveyed to China and Japan through Sinkiang.

The early Moslem writers (prior to the thirteenth century AD) speak in glorious terms. One writer, Yaquibi, describes it in detail and mention the frescoes that adorned the niches of the caves where statues of the Buddha were depoited. He says, the inhabitants called the big statue the "Red Buddha" and the smaller one the "Grey Buddha".

Early in the thirteenth century, the city of Barmiyan and all its inhabitants were swept off the face of the valley by Genghis Khan. the Mongol. The legend has it that his grandson, Mutugen, son of Jaghati, was killed in action during the siege of Bamiyan. When the town surrendered after a long and arduous battle. Genghis, the revengeful fiend of fundamentalism in its early dressing ordered that no living being, man or animal, was to be spared. The ruined town was named Mao - Baligh (The Bad Town).