0:03

Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind

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from how Stuffworks dot com.

0:12

Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is

0:15

Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and I want

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to start with a question that might sound kind of simple.

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Why generally do we

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not build statues of people

0:26

who are still alive? I

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know sometimes we do. You've got the Bronze Fonds.

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Yeah, and Henry Winkler is still out

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there. And I believe in New Zealand there is

0:35

a statue of Richard O'Brien as

0:37

riff Raff from the Rocky Art Picture

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Show. And of course there's the statue

0:42

of RoboCop, which I don't

0:44

know if I knew about this one. No way, maybe that doesn't

0:47

exist yet. Maybe that's only people want there

0:49

to be a statue of RoboCop in Detroit, or

0:51

does it exist. I'm not sure if that's been realized.

0:54

In any case, RoboCop lives on in all our

0:56

hearts forever, so they could never be a statue

0:58

of him. But even these are fictional

1:00

characters, even the Richard O'Brien. When is a picture of Richard

1:02

O'Brien as a fictional character? Yeah,

1:05

there are a few cases where people build statues

1:07

of people who are still alive. It

1:10

doesn't happen that often, and it always strikes

1:12

me as really just not

1:15

smart and distasteful.

1:18

I don't know if you get the same feeling, like if you just see

1:20

a statue of a living person,

1:22

It's like what, yeah,

1:25

I mean, because there are a few different factors

1:27

that coming to pay. First of all, if I'm asking someone

1:29

or commissioning a statue of myself,

1:32

there there's something you know, you're

1:34

just asking for charges of narcissism.

1:37

And uh, you know you think you're a golden

1:39

god or something because you're having this large

1:41

golden version of you erected

1:44

in town. No, I just think I'm a marble god.

1:47

Or on the other side too, is we've seen

1:50

enough. We've seen it. We've seen enough examples

1:52

of this throughout history, particularly in the fall of the Soviet

1:54

Union, to know that if there is a statue of you,

1:56

then that is something that someone can deface or

1:59

knock down. Uh, it's you're

2:01

just asking for it. Yeah. I would say.

2:03

One large exception to what I'm talking

2:05

about is in like dictatorships,

2:09

where yeah, there will be statues of a living

2:11

leader, but I mean, these are examples though,

2:13

where they should feel bad, but they

2:15

are removed from the guilt of feeling bad because

2:17

of the depravity of the system. Yeah.

2:19

But so then you agree with my intuition there

2:21

is is that the case you You just think, like when

2:24

you see a statue of a person who's still alive, it's

2:26

like, what, why would you do that? Yeah?

2:28

Because the other thing, too is maybe you're

2:30

gonna have a perfect likeness of that individual,

2:32

but it also may come off as a little creepy

2:35

because you're gonna see it like right next to

2:37

the person, or or it's it's easier

2:39

to compare the flesh to the statue and realize

2:41

that the statue is inaccurate. Yeah.

2:43

So what does the answer there tell us about

2:45

what purpose statues serve? I don't

2:47

know. Maybe we can come back to that. I got another

2:49

weird question. Why are

2:52

statues considered inherently

2:55

positive or honorific? Another

2:58

way of asking this is why do we

3:00

generally only create statues of

3:02

people we like? How come

3:04

we don't generally create statues

3:06

of people who we think we're evil and

3:09

destructive or shifty or you

3:11

know, just not honorable people?

3:13

And it's one of those things that's so ingrained

3:15

that it just seems obvious, Like, well, duh.

3:18

You know, you wouldn't put up a statute to honor

3:20

a bad person, But why do you

3:22

assume a statue carries

3:25

honor with it? You don't assume that about

3:27

other forms of media. You could make

3:29

a movie about a bad person and people

3:31

wouldn't assume that it was honoring that person.

3:33

You could write a book about a bad person

3:36

and people wouldn't assume that the book was honoring

3:38

that person. But if you were to build a statue

3:41

of that person, people would say, well, why

3:43

do you like this guy so much? Well, I

3:45

think a lot of this. I think we can answer a couple of questions

3:47

here by dealing with with the with the idea

3:49

of what happens when you

3:51

just direct a tombstone for someone. You

3:54

were creating something that

3:56

is not going to fade. I mean,

3:59

yes, it's going to fade, but but within

4:01

the context of a human lifetime, it

4:04

seems fixed. It seems

4:06

uh uh, you know, unmovable and incorruptible.

4:09

And so in to create a statue of an individual

4:13

is to create an immortal version

4:15

of them, uh like, impose

4:17

that person's legacy on physical space

4:20

right either after their death or

4:23

you know, in the case of say a mythological figure

4:25

or a figure of such deep history

4:27

that they're you know, far removed, like you don't have

4:30

photos of them, you just have tales of

4:32

them. It makes them more real, you

4:34

know. I mean, I I just wonder why.

4:36

I mean, it might it might be totally an accident

4:38

of history. Maybe it's just a coincidence

4:41

that Well, okay, so people used

4:44

to make statues of of leaders

4:46

who were to be honored, and statues of kings

4:48

and all that, and we just came to

4:50

associate statuary with honor

4:53

and honorific feelings. Well,

4:55

now I have to say there are of course protective

4:57

the idea of using horrifying but protect

5:00

dive entities, say in a tomb

5:02

or a temple, you can have essentially

5:04

it's a monster, it's something horrifying, but it's there

5:06

to ward off evil spirits. Well, right,

5:08

and that that comes into the religious

5:11

function of statutory So you've got statues

5:13

that where yeah, I was going to say

5:15

that you can imagine religious areas where

5:17

people have statues of demons and other unwelcome

5:20

supernatural entities, either

5:23

for instructive purposes, or

5:25

for protective purposes, you know, apotropaic

5:28

magic um, or just

5:30

to be scary. Uh So, yeah,

5:32

you can see religious reasons why people

5:34

put up statues of things judged to be

5:36

evil. But but could you imagine a scenario

5:39

where someone might say, look, we're not

5:41

putting up a statue of Richard Nixon, but

5:44

we'll put up multiple Richard Nixon statues

5:46

to protect the sacred ground, you

5:49

know, like like purely protective

5:51

evils. Uh if you will write

5:53

you what you bring up? Yet again, is

5:56

this assumption if I made a statue

5:58

of Richard Nixon, people would assume I

6:01

liked him. People would assume I

6:03

thought he was a good guy. Right. Would not

6:05

be the case if I wrote a book about him or

6:07

made a movie about him, I mean, depending on what the

6:09

contents were. Right, And again, this is

6:11

assuming it's just a statue of him and he's

6:13

not being say, crushed under the foot

6:16

of a Hindu deity or something like that.

6:18

Exactly right. That's another

6:20

great image because I think what we're talking about here, and

6:22

most of these examples, it's it's not a statue

6:24

of an individual of doing something as

6:26

much as is a statue of the individual,

6:28

just their identity, their presence, their existence.

6:31

Yeah, and so maybe for some inherent reasons

6:33

we haven't figured out, or maybe for reasons

6:36

of historical accident

6:38

or whatever, statue or I

6:40

think does have a religious

6:43

connotation, and therefore

6:45

it's no surprise that some of the grandest statues

6:47

in the world, of course are religious. Yeah,

6:49

if you look at it at a list of the largest

6:51

statues currently in the world, most

6:54

of them are going to be religious in

6:57

scope. You'll find a few historic individuals

6:59

in there, but really, like the top

7:02

the top ten list, are mostly Buddhists.

7:04

And today we're gonna be talking about

7:07

one of the grandest Buddhas that

7:10

you have statutes that you'll find out there, and

7:12

that is the uh Lissan

7:14

Grant, a giant Buddha or the Grand Buddha located

7:17

in southern Shishwan Province

7:19

in southwest China. So I thought

7:22

it was interesting that you wanted to do this episode,

7:24

Robert, What what what? What was it that drew you

7:26

to the Leshan Buddha. Well, I'd

7:28

seen images of it before, and

7:31

weirdly and weirdly enough to just

7:33

throw in an unintended plug for another podcast

7:36

but I was in the car and uh,

7:38

I was listening to the Wow in the World podcast,

7:41

which is uh an NPR

7:43

science education podcast for children,

7:46

and they had like a kid throwing in a

7:48

quick fact about something that they learned on a trip.

7:50

Right, so it's like a you know, a kid on the street

7:52

kind of situation. And the kid mentioned

7:55

the the leshaan giant Buddha,

7:57

and uh and it kind of reminded me of its existence

8:00

and and and one of the cool facts

8:02

about it that we'll get to in a bit and uh

8:04

yeah, And then I started looking into it a little more and said,

8:07

hey, well there's a whole episode here we should talk about

8:09

the lean giant Buddha. So if you are

8:11

at a computer right now and you

8:13

are listening to this episode where

8:16

you can google something, you should probably go ahead and google

8:18

a picture of it right to try to have

8:20

this in your mind if you've never seen it before. If

8:22

you can't do that, that's okay. We'll try to describe

8:24

it for you. Yeah, we'll definitely have some images

8:27

of it on the landing page for this episode

8:29

is Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. But it

8:31

looks like a giant Buddha

8:34

has has carved out

8:37

a niche in a mountain and

8:39

is seated there within the mountain.

8:42

So basically the the Buddha

8:44

is a mountain. The mountain is the Buddha to

8:47

to steal like a common slogan

8:49

from the region, and the Buddha is literally made

8:52

out of the mountain. Its carved out of the side of

8:54

the mountain. But in a way that you

8:57

know when when you when you I think for a lot of Western

9:00

it's just when you think of something carved out of mountain, you

9:02

think of our more local examples. You think Amount

9:04

Rushmore, maybe you think of Stone

9:06

Mountain here in Georgia, or you

9:08

think of Crazy Horse, right. But

9:11

this one, this is this one feels a lot

9:13

different from any of those examples because it's

9:16

it does feel it almost feels like

9:18

there was a Buddha in the mountain and they just carved

9:20

it out, like it was waiting there for

9:22

for all of this. Uh, this

9:25

sculpture work to free it. Absolutely,

9:27

those other things you mentioned, like Mount Rushmore

9:30

feel very much imposed on the

9:32

landscape. There were a thing laid over

9:34

the landscape. And I feel

9:36

like the Buddha in

9:38

in Lashan is either

9:41

it's like it emerged from the landscape

9:43

or is being absorbed by the landscape.

9:46

It almost feels like, yeah, you found it, Like it's

9:48

the like like it's a fossil Buddha. Yeah,

9:52

that's a great metaphor, dude, it is very much

9:54

like that. One thing we should say, though,

9:56

is Okay, so you imagine something that's carved

9:59

out of a mountain or uh, or might

10:01

be like a fossil, you're probably not thinking very

10:03

big. This thing is big. It's

10:05

huge. Yeah. It is seventy

10:08

one or two hundred and thirty three

10:10

feet tall, and it's it's you know, it's

10:12

in a seated position. It's not standing. I

10:14

actually I don't think I ran across any estimates

10:17

on how tall this Buddha would

10:19

be if it were standing full heights. Somehow should

10:21

have done the math on that missed opportunity.

10:23

If the Ghostbusters were to, you know, charge

10:25

it with enough ectoplasm and make it walk

10:28

around. Yeah that but that's somebody

10:30

else's research project. Will leave them to it. Now.

10:32

The other remarkable thing about it is that

10:34

this is a this is a very old statue.

10:37

Uh. This was this was a Tang dynasty

10:40

construction. So that's twelve hundred

10:42

years ago, and it is the largest

10:45

stone Buddha in the world, and

10:47

currently it's the tallest

10:49

statue in the world. UH. Number

10:51

one, by the way, is China's Spring

10:54

Temple Buddha at a towering one ty

10:57

eight ms or four hundred and twenty feet.

10:59

Now, how many of those top twenty or so

11:01

are Richard Nixon's um, Not none

11:03

of them actually, but several

11:05

of them are Buddhas or some of

11:08

Bodhisatva's And I think

11:10

in one particular particular note

11:13

is to fame Chinese

11:15

emperors. But but also

11:17

the vast majority of them are from

11:20

are from recent times. UH.

11:22

Of the taller statues in the world, all

11:25

of them were completed in the century.

11:28

The Grand Buddha, however, again was finished

11:30

in eight three CE.

11:33

And this thing looks old. As we said,

11:35

it's like a fossil. So it's

11:37

a cliff coming straight out of the river, just

11:39

shooting straight up out of the Dadu

11:42

River and away

11:44

from the it's like a red stone cliff.

11:46

You can see this orange tinge in the

11:48

white uh. And then back

11:50

away from the cliff, there is

11:53

this recession, UM.

11:55

And within the recession is I

11:57

don't know, you don't really see a throne or anything might

12:00

be hidden back there behind all of the growth

12:02

that's come out over the years. But you

12:04

you do see the figure of the Buddha seated

12:07

with his knees spread apart, his back

12:09

very straight, and his hands resting on

12:11

his knees, and the

12:13

entire statue, like we said, is carved into the side

12:15

of the mountain. We're seeding away from the cliff face. And

12:18

so the Buddha is looking out over

12:20

the river as if he's sort of like

12:22

lording over the waters, and the

12:24

waters are rushing by just underneath

12:26

his feet. How would

12:28

you describe his face, Robert, I would say it's

12:30

very calm. It's

12:32

calm, serene, almost

12:36

disinterested in a

12:38

way that he does remind me of a Y. M. C.

12:40

A lifeguard, Like

12:42

he's watching over the waters and

12:45

and I'm not sure how interested he is in mean,

12:47

not drowning. Yeah, this is

12:49

not one of the laughing Buddhas. And

12:51

we'll get into exactly what kind of Buddha he is in a

12:54

minute, but certainly that just the scale

12:56

of this thing is amazing from the photos. I have

12:59

not been to see this in person, and I

13:01

would love to hear from any of our listeners out there

13:03

who have because it is a huge tourist attraction.

13:06

Uh, People traveling to the area, you know,

13:08

go out of their way just to see this and the surrounding

13:11

historic temple and even you know natural

13:14

attractions in the area. But

13:16

you just you look at this and you just see how small

13:18

the individuals are and in comparison

13:21

to the feet to the toes of

13:23

the statute. Right, there are people standing

13:26

on the base where the Buddhist feet are and

13:28

they're not even as tall as the Buddhas

13:30

sandal. Right. Uh.

13:32

You know, I think for Western audiences

13:35

a specially, especially for American audiences, Like

13:37

when we think of a giant statue, of course we think of the Statue

13:39

of Liberty. But then how big would the statue

13:41

of Liberty be compared to the Sun

13:44

Buddha. Well, so there

13:46

are multiple ways you can measure the Statue of Liberty.

13:48

Now, if you measure the full thing, like

13:51

with the base up to the top of the

13:53

torch, it's bigger than the Leshan Buddha.

13:55

But if you just look at the copper part of the

13:58

statue from her heel to the top

14:00

of her head, Lady Liberty is

14:02

just over a hundred and eleven feet, so

14:04

if she put her arm down, you could stand

14:07

one Lady Liberty on the shoulders of another

14:09

one and still not be as tall as the Lashan

14:11

Buddha. Now it's it's always difficult

14:14

to gauge these things though, just as a viewer, because

14:16

you see Lady Liberty up there,

14:18

you know, No, you don't see any humans

14:21

really in reference to it, unless you're dealing

14:23

with the Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters

14:25

too. Otherwise it's easy to lose

14:28

lose, you know, scope of what it's

14:30

scale is, whereas with the Lassan

14:32

Buddha you tend to see individuals at

14:34

its base, so you have kind of a grounding and how

14:37

big it appears to be. So this

14:39

is supposed to be a Buddha, Robert, tell me about the Buddha,

14:41

all right, Well, yeah, we should break down exactly

14:44

what a buddha is. So wait, I thought

14:46

you should say something like, I can't tell you about

14:48

the Buddha. Uh, yeah,

14:50

I'm sure there's some class like like, you

14:52

know, if someone goes to tell you about the Buddha, don't

14:55

let them tell you about the Buddha sort of if you meet the Buddha

14:57

kill the Buddha kind of a thing. But

15:01

there are different Buddhists, and that's an important

15:03

thing to note. And it's easy to miss,

15:05

to to not be aware of if you just

15:07

kind of you see statues and you assume these

15:09

are all statues of the

15:11

same individual, historic

15:14

or mythical, and it's just different artistic

15:16

takes. And there are a

15:19

number of different artistic takes

15:21

on these Buddhists. But for starters,

15:23

you have what's known as the historical Buddha,

15:26

Siddharta Gottama, who lived in

15:28

the fifth century b c. Exact

15:30

century kind of varies depending on you

15:33

know, who's telling, but this would have been ancient

15:35

India. And the story is that he was

15:37

a prince, you know, lived a life of luxury, and

15:40

then he began to behold

15:43

the you know, the sorrow of the world, the suffering

15:46

in the world, and he abandoned his riches. He

15:48

became a monk in order to seek

15:50

enlightenment, and uh

15:53

his teachings then spread throughout most

15:55

of Asia and the centuries to follow. Now,

15:57

interestingly enough, it actually declined in India

16:00

self during the Middle Ages with the

16:02

rise of Islam, but it flourished elsewhere,

16:04

including in China, where it

16:07

made its way in there around a hundred

16:09

b C. And subsequently became an

16:11

integral part of Chinese culture, and

16:14

Buddhism today remains the fourth

16:16

largest religion in the world. Now, I think

16:19

I have to understand that throughout history,

16:21

at different times, the adoption of Buddhism

16:23

in China has been a controversial thing, right,

16:26

Like there were times when when

16:28

Chinese ruling dynasties were trying to

16:31

enforce other beliefs, like they

16:33

might say that people need to be Taoist

16:35

or people need to be Confucian. Right,

16:38

yes, certainly, because when you when you look at the history of China,

16:40

of course, you have essentially three key

16:42

world views that are you know, getting into

16:44

the mix. There you have you have Buddhism, you

16:46

have Taoism, and you have Confucianism and

16:49

UH. And it's kind of like

16:51

a continual you know, cocktail to what degree

16:53

or these uh these mesh

16:55

together in an in an individual

16:58

time, in an individual region. Now

17:00

to come back to the Shawan Buddha that what

17:02

makes this interesting is that the first Chinese Buddhist

17:04

temple was built in Sechuan Province

17:07

on the summits of Mount Emmy,

17:09

and this is the very area, the very region

17:12

in which the Grand Buddha was carved. Now,

17:14

maybe we should take a quick break and when we come back

17:17

we can get a little bit into the history of

17:19

how this Grand Buddha was constructed

17:22

more than years ago. Thank

17:28

alright, we're back. So,

17:30

uh, there's an origin story here, as

17:33

there always is. Yeah, and maybe we should

17:35

say as as many origins

17:37

if you go back far enough, there's a flood in the

17:39

story somewhere, except in this case,

17:41

it's more of a pattern of flooding, right, and

17:44

this is a historical fact

17:46

that's not just part of the mythology. The

17:49

central and southwest region of

17:51

China is prone to lots of flooding, right. Yeah.

17:53

I mean we ended up discussing some of this in our

17:55

Great Flood episode. We talked about Chinese

17:58

the Chinese variant of the grate flood

18:00

myth and the importance of of water

18:03

management and manipulation in Chinese

18:06

history. Yeah. So it's like a it's a humid uh

18:08

I think subtropical climate, but that they'll

18:11

have monsoon seasons, the rains

18:13

come in and there there will be heavy rains

18:15

that cause flooding in these planes areas.

18:18

Refresh me a little bit on the on the Chinese flood

18:20

myth Robert. Oh, well, you're talking about the story

18:22

of You the Great, Yeah, where essentially you

18:24

just have you have this this flood

18:27

that occurs and uh and who

18:29

is going to who's going to

18:31

deal with it? How are we going to to solve this problem?

18:34

Instead of the creation of an arc or

18:36

you know, a great boat, you have You

18:38

the Great who uses uh,

18:40

you know, the knowledge of canal systems

18:43

and drainage systems as a way

18:45

to to manage the flooding.

18:47

Oh, that's a much better solution than a boat,

18:49

right, Yeah, that like works for more than one

18:52

group of people. Yeah, I think so. I think there's

18:54

probably something culturally telling about

18:56

about that as well. Like it's a it's a very

18:58

it's a particularly Chinese uh take

19:01

on the problem, but also ties in with

19:03

very real world issues

19:06

of the day, which would have been um, you know,

19:08

seasonal flooding. Yeah. So there is seasonal

19:10

flooding in this area that sometimes the

19:12

rivers will swell and this can be a danger

19:14

to the people who work in the in or around the

19:17

river. Um. And this

19:19

this ties into where the Buddha came from.

19:22

That's right, So that the origin story, the basic

19:24

version goes as follows. You have

19:26

a Buddhist monk named Hi Tongue and

19:28

he conceives this this project

19:30

around seven thirteen CE.

19:33

So his idea is, look, we have we

19:35

have really turbulent waters out here

19:37

on the Dadu River. Uh, it's

19:40

really rough on on boatman

19:43

navigation. People are drowning. Uh,

19:45

it's it's it's influenced by by

19:47

these seasonal floods. If

19:49

we're we're to build a Buddha

19:52

here, then that would bring like

19:54

fortune to the area, Like that would bring a calming

19:56

influence on

19:58

on these turvy went waters where

20:01

you ultimately have the confluence

20:03

of of three different rivers, the Nanjang,

20:05

the dad and the Queen Ye

20:08

rivers. Yeah, And in reading about

20:10

this, I came across what

20:12

appears to be some kind of popular legend

20:14

about Hi Tong's quest to get the Buddha build

20:17

This was good, so I had to repeat it, but I

20:19

want to, but I want to stress this is the

20:21

best I can synthesize from scattered

20:23

and discrepant telling. So this is probably

20:25

probably legendary, might not even be an

20:27

old legend. Who knows if this was created

20:30

recently, but here's what people are saying. So

20:33

Hi Tong in this story knew that

20:35

it would cost a lot of money to get the Buddha

20:37

built, and he traveled

20:39

far and wide soliciting alms for

20:42

the construction, and slowly, over

20:44

time he built up a fund. He managed

20:46

to get together enough money for the stone works

20:48

and the carving. But at some point in

20:50

the project, Hi Tong was called to an

20:52

audience with a corrupt government official

20:55

with a Richard Nixon, you know who

20:57

told him Hi Tong, it's

21:00

time to hand over the funds, and

21:02

Hi Tong said, I'd rather give up my eyes

21:04

than give up the Great Buddha. And

21:07

when the corrupt official pressed him to give him

21:09

the money, Hi Tong gouged out

21:11

his own eyes, or one of his own eyes and

21:13

threw them at the officials feet, and

21:15

supposedly this got the guy to leave him alone.

21:18

Now again with my morning.

21:20

I've seen various versions of this story told

21:23

and retold across sources, but I can't

21:25

locate an authoritative original source

21:27

from this. So I'm going to file this under probably

21:30

legendary, whether it's an old legend,

21:32

or a recent creation is unclear,

21:35

and I think that even if it is, even if it is

21:37

a recent addition to

21:39

the legend, uh, this will be something that

21:42

ties into our further discussions

21:44

of the Buddha here in a bit. Okay,

21:46

now, earlier I talked to what

21:49

we mentioned sud hard to got him as the historic Buddha,

21:51

and I alluded to the existence of other Buddhas

21:54

that are that are important as well.

21:57

So let's go ahead and get that out of the way.

21:59

Uh, this is not a statue

22:01

the grand Buddha here is not a statue of

22:04

Gottama. So it's not trying

22:06

to be a depiction of that historical

22:08

guy. Correct. So while

22:10

Gottama is the historic Buddha, Buddhism

22:13

recognized as many different Buddhists. For

22:15

instance, in uh their Veda

22:17

Buddhism, there twenty seven Buddhist who

22:19

preceded Gotama. Then you also

22:22

have other important Buddhis like the medicine Buddha is

22:24

tremendously important. If you've

22:26

ever been to the

22:27

the met in New York,

22:30

in their Asian section, they have an enormous

22:33

mural on the wall and it depicts the medicine

22:35

Buddha and then we have the

22:38

Buddha that is actually depicted here, and

22:40

that is my Trea, the

22:42

Buddha of the future. Oh boy,

22:44

yeah, this is a really exciting Buddha.

22:47

And some of you might remember some mention

22:49

of my Trea from the self Embalming

22:52

Buddhist Monks episode we did a while back,

22:54

and that that has to do with a Japanese practice,

22:57

but it also involved my Trea.

23:00

So according to some traditions, my

23:02

Trea is going to come to Earth five

23:05

point six billion years in the future. And

23:07

until then, whoa whoa five point six

23:10

billions. Yes, is there's

23:12

still gonna be an Earth in five point six billion

23:14

years, there's gonna be something that

23:17

my Treya can visit. So I don't know, you

23:20

can go kind of sci fi crazy with this in a minute,

23:22

like maybe we're all living on a on a spaceship

23:24

a colony ship at that point, but my trayer

23:26

will find us. That's that's my read

23:28

on it, well the future exactly.

23:31

So until he's needed,

23:33

he's gonna reside in the in

23:35

in a in a in a heaven, a sort of a

23:39

a Buddhist heaven that's set aside

23:41

from my reality and h and you

23:43

can sort of think of him as a Buddha

23:45

messiah. Yeah, I suppose, and that he'll

23:47

he'll eventually bring Dharma back to a

23:49

far future world that is mostly forgotten

23:52

it. So it's pretty exciting.

23:54

My trey of factors into a number of different artistic

23:57

depictions. So if you go to a museum of am

24:00

zem of of Buddhist art or or or

24:02

Asian art, there's a very good chance you will

24:04

encounter my trea at least a few

24:06

times. What is the most commonly depicted

24:08

Buddha? Do you know? You

24:11

know it's gonna it's gonna depend. I

24:13

think, like I've I have

24:15

to admit that when I was when I was younger, I definitely

24:18

fall into the category of thinking there was just a Buddha,

24:20

and you would see of sometimes Buddha is

24:23

is, you know, fat and happy, and sometimes Buddha

24:25

is starved and and kind of

24:27

a solemn looking. Uh. But

24:30

they're gonna be They're gonna

24:32

be different emphasis and different cultures.

24:35

And then sometimes things we meant casually

24:38

think of as being Buddhas are actually bodhisattvas,

24:41

which is kind of you know, a notch lower or

24:43

and then sometimes their their depictions of important

24:45

you know, monk figures. But

24:48

I know that you do encounter my Trea, the

24:50

medicine Buddha, and and uh, the

24:52

historic Buddha got him a quite

24:54

a bit, so the Grand Buddha.

24:56

Here this depiction of my Trea.

24:59

It it is eventually completed

25:01

ninety years after it started. By that point,

25:04

Hi Tong has has died. And

25:07

uh, and the story about the blinding, even

25:09

if that didn't happen exactly

25:12

as as the story indicates, it does

25:14

seem that there were there were points where

25:16

funding stalled out, where work ceased,

25:19

and thus this uh, this long process

25:22

of actually finishing the statue. But

25:25

of course, now that it's finished, we really

25:27

do have kind of uh would

25:29

you call it a sort of wonder of the world on

25:31

our hands. Yeah. I mean that's important thing

25:33

to keep in mind of when you because we often

25:36

think of what that the Seven Wonders of the world

25:38

um ancient or the ancient world. And of

25:40

course they were based on knowledge

25:43

of the ancient world by

25:45

by individuals at the time, which tended

25:47

to exclude anything that was happening

25:49

in Asia. It was it was

25:52

confined to a different region of the world and

25:54

in a number of those things aren't even around anymore.

25:57

They're even questions about whether some of

25:59

them existed to begin in with UM,

26:01

I have long thought we should just we should do an episode

26:03

or a series of episodes on each

26:05

of the seven Wonders of the Ancient World

26:07

and discuss like what they what they

26:09

were, slash are, what happened

26:12

to them and UH and and why

26:15

people were so invested in them at at the time.

26:17

But but that's for another episode. Yeah, but

26:19

if you were to to actually take in the

26:22

Wonders of the world and UH and

26:24

do a complete you know, overview

26:26

and take in all regions of the Earth, I

26:28

feel like the Lea Shawn Budda would would would

26:30

have to be on there because it's a tremendous work

26:32

of sculpture and the body content actually

26:35

contains a drainage system to

26:37

prevent weathering to a certain

26:40

extent, So there are spiral coils

26:42

and cross drainage systems like built

26:44

into its surface that helped

26:47

to drain water away from it. And

26:49

again this is because this is an area that is

26:51

UM is frequented by seasonal

26:54

flooding, tremendous rainfall

26:56

is a very temporary climate. Okay,

26:59

well, if high Tong Skull was to

27:01

calm the angry river gods and

27:04

put a Buddha in there to pacify the

27:07

hateful waters of the river in

27:09

the rain season, did it work.

27:12

Well? That's one of the really fascinating

27:14

aspects of this story is that, according

27:17

to too many, it did work. Now,

27:20

how did it work? Well, That's that's where it gets interesting.

27:23

That if it actually worked in calming

27:25

the waters beneath its gaze,

27:28

the likely reason for this is probably because

27:31

you had over the decades, you have all of this

27:33

excavation, and this is dumping so

27:35

much surplus rock into

27:37

the river hollows below that it

27:40

actually has an effect on the flow

27:42

of the river. Like you're you're remaking the

27:44

mountain, your remake, You're remaking

27:47

the environment surrounding

27:49

the mountain, and in doing so, you're remaking

27:51

the river. You're sort of inadvertently um

27:54

altering the flow of the river. Huh.

27:56

Now, I have some skepticism there because the

27:58

river is huge. I mean, it's if

28:00

you see pictures of it as a gigantic

28:03

waterway. So I would think it would

28:05

take a great amount of

28:07

deposits to change the river fundamentally.

28:09

I can believe more that it would change like

28:11

local areas of the river. Yeah.

28:14

Um, And I think

28:17

that when I think the individuals

28:19

that are making that that argument are

28:21

are definitely focusing like on the filling

28:23

in of the hollows within the river and

28:25

and affecting the very localized nature

28:28

of it. I think if you get into anything beyond

28:30

that, then you're getting into kind of magical mythic thinking.

28:33

You know, we built a statue so big that the

28:35

surplus rock, you know, change

28:37

the earth. All right. So when

28:39

we first started out this episode, we asked the question why would

28:41

you build a statue? And the

28:43

best answer I think we would come up with is you want

28:46

you want this idea or this person

28:48

to u to last forever, to to

28:51

live forever. And so in

28:53

building the Grand Buddha, the ideas, yeah,

28:55

this is gonna be around for a long time. Maybe it's

28:57

even gonna be long enough, uh that the

29:00

actual Maitrea can visit it

29:02

and say, hey, that's me up there. But as

29:05

it turns as the I don't think the statute

29:07

is gonna make it five billion years. I don't. I don't think

29:09

it is either, because because that's the thing about

29:11

any kind of stone work, any kind of sculpture,

29:14

is that, yes, they do tend

29:16

to last longer than living human

29:18

beings. But in is when

29:20

you when you start having this thing live within

29:22

geologic time. Uh, you

29:24

know, don't expect a whole lot because you

29:26

have all of these eroding effects

29:29

in the natural world, and they're not going to leave

29:31

your statue alone just because it's not technically

29:33

a mountain anymore. Right, I mean, there

29:36

used to be continents in places where

29:38

there now are not continents, and vice

29:40

versa. Uh. The earth, the face of the Earth

29:42

is constantly changing, and so

29:45

while a stone statue might last

29:47

a very long time, probably

29:49

much longer than many other creations of

29:51

humankind, it's not gonna last forever. Right.

29:54

You're gonna have you gonna have wind, You're gonna have rain,

29:57

You're gonna have also an

29:59

issue with the the sculptures are gonna have you know,

30:01

plant life growing in and on it,

30:03

in it around it, which I would now say is one

30:05

of the coolest features of the Grand Buddha.

30:08

You see pictures of it.

30:10

It's not only receding into the mountains,

30:12

so in this hollow in the cliff

30:14

face, but it's also got all this

30:16

green coming out around it, So

30:19

it's being absorbed by the landscape in more

30:21

way than one. It's sinking into the mountain

30:23

or emerging from a recess in the mountain,

30:25

but it's also emerging from the

30:28

biosphere almost or sinking into

30:30

the biosphere. Oh yeah, I mean it adds the natural,

30:32

natural wonder of it. But at the same level,

30:35

it's kind of like having a bunch of the English ivy grow

30:37

up the side of your house. On one level it looks

30:39

really nice, but on the other you have plants

30:41

like growing on and into your your

30:43

stonework. Um. Now another

30:46

important factor here, as we mentioned how many a

30:48

lot of people go to it as a popular tourist destination.

30:52

Uh I was reading in a Lonely

30:54

Planet guide for China that if

30:56

you're gonna visit the Grand Buddha,

30:58

it's best not to even try to go on a weekend

31:01

or a holiday because the stairs

31:03

around it becomes so packed with tourists

31:05

that you can't even move. It just comes to a standstill.

31:08

Now, of course, anytime you've got lots of people visiting

31:10

something, that's going to be a risk to the

31:13

preservation of the people touching things.

31:15

People. Hopefully they're not gonna be able to touch

31:17

too much of it here because you can't get out

31:20

there and climb on his nose. Um.

31:22

But yeah, I mean somehow exposure

31:24

to people, I think it's gonna start wearing

31:26

at you and human

31:29

erosion takes place. Another thing I just

31:31

have to mention now that you you talked

31:33

about tourists surviving is I

31:35

watched a homemade

31:37

video on YouTube that I found

31:39

of a family visiting the Buddha at

31:41

a time when there was intense flooding

31:43

in the river just under it, so like

31:45

the waters were rushing by and they were rising

31:48

up to just below the platform where

31:50

the Buddhist feet are, and this

31:52

family paid somebody to get them

31:54

out to the statue even though it

31:57

was dangerous weather and it was flooding, And

31:59

there's this video on YouTube of them just walking

32:01

around with almost nobody there. Yeah.

32:04

Yeah, that is apparently not the usual

32:06

scene on a on a weekend at the Grand Buddha.

32:09

Now, on top of natural erosion human

32:11

erosion, there's also the added

32:13

threat of pollution, which will we'll get into a little

32:15

bit more in a bit. But yeah, you have with

32:18

the with the with the the rise

32:20

and continued rise of industrialized

32:23

human civilization. You're gonna

32:26

have both natural

32:28

and man made the features of the earth that

32:30

are going to be affected by by

32:32

by all the resulting pollution. Yeah, in

32:34

particular, there's a there's like a blackening

32:37

that occurs on some of these statues. So you'll have your

32:39

you know, your your your statue of of

32:42

of a Buddha, and then over

32:44

time, like there's like a blackening of the nose

32:46

as if you know, as if the nose is rotting

32:48

away or something, and you know,

32:50

at the very least it's it's not

32:53

maybe not the artist's intention or

32:55

the for the sculpture. I hate to see

32:57

that happen to this great old work of art. But

32:59

that's also kind of cool. So

33:01

I was, I was reading about preservation

33:05

UH for this UH for this Buddha and other

33:08

like sacred sites, various

33:11

UH sculptures in China. There was

33:13

an article titled Conservation of Ancient

33:15

Sites on the Silk Road, Proceedings of

33:17

an International Conference on Conservation

33:20

of Grotto Sites, and this was These were symposium

33:22

proceedings by one Neville Agnew.

33:25

This was published in nineteen seven,

33:27

so it's a it's a slightly older

33:30

overview, but it still has a lot of important

33:32

details. So in particular

33:35

concerning the Grand Buddha, he mentions that

33:37

that this sculpture benefited from multiple

33:40

restorations over the years,

33:42

so we're not really seeing the original version

33:44

of it, right, That's something to keep in mind. So

33:47

just going back to the earliest traces

33:49

that that he reverences in his article, So

33:51

if you go back to the Queen dynasty, that's the sixty

33:54

six through nineteen twelve documents

33:56

indicated the sculpture was heavily damaged

33:59

at the time, so it had cavities in

34:01

the face, kind of like the Sphinx or

34:03

something. Yeah, it was just it had it

34:05

had you know, the upkeep had not prevented

34:07

the face from kind of crumbling apart in places.

34:10

And then by the time you come to the Republic

34:12

of China era that's nineteen twelve and ninety

34:15

nine, photos show that it had

34:17

been inaccurately restored. So they

34:20

fixed this is a problem where their

34:22

holes in the face. Then you fix the face and well, now

34:24

the face looks a little different than it did before. Then

34:27

by the nineteen sixties you have significant

34:30

maintenance that's taking place. It's altering the

34:32

nose, the eyes of the mouth and the lower jaw of

34:35

the Buddha, and Agnew

34:37

argues that in light of all of this, it might

34:40

perhaps be better not to restore the Buddha at

34:42

all. Like if you were if you're essentially

34:45

each time you're restoring it, you're kind of making it a

34:47

little different, You're making it new each time.

34:49

Like are you actually preserving

34:52

an ancient statue or you are

34:55

you, you know, keeping up a modern

34:57

statue that's sort of based on the base of

35:00

something old. Yeah, I think that's

35:02

a common question in restoration.

35:04

Actually, I mean you're always going to

35:06

have deterioration, and is it better

35:08

to allow things to deteriorate and

35:11

let people see them in that state or

35:13

two falsely alter

35:16

them to restore them.

35:18

Well, you know, I mean which is more authentic?

35:21

Yeah, Like, for instance, in the West, Uh,

35:24

the Parthenon is an example

35:26

of this. So the Parthenon is severely

35:28

damaged, but there's there's a history

35:30

to that damage. You can and I mean it's a fascinating

35:33

history in terms of who has

35:35

who has ownership at a given time, the

35:37

very the violence

35:39

that's been that that has occurred

35:42

there, etcetera. We could

35:44

get into the whole history and another another

35:46

podcast. But but there is, you know, an

35:48

ongoing discussion. Well, do you do you completely restore

35:50

the Parthenon and then create create this kind

35:53

of new thing that is based on the old model

35:55

and certainly an attempt to to rebuild

35:57

the old Parthenon? Or do you maintain

36:00

what's currently there and tell the story of

36:02

how we got there. My

36:04

my answer would be anybody out

36:06

there listening, if I can make the decision,

36:09

you believe it how it is, but then

36:11

you build a copy of it somewhere else.

36:13

So like with the parthen On, we've got the Parthenon in

36:15

Nashville tells yes. And I

36:17

think that's not a bad approach. You know, you

36:20

you you let it be as it is, and let

36:22

time take it and let's see what time has

36:24

done do it, but then you do your best to

36:26

create a model of what it would have been

36:29

like in another place. Now,

36:31

I will point out that with the Grand Buddha in

36:33

the late ninety nineties, you did see an increased

36:36

focus on the best ways to restore

36:38

the Buddha, but do so in ways that we're

36:40

both scientifically and historically

36:43

sound, So essentially reaching

36:45

the point where you realize, Okay, what can

36:47

we do that will you know, maintain

36:49

what we have, help protect

36:51

it, restore areas that are damaged, but also be

36:54

true to the history

36:56

of the sculpture. So

36:59

in uh intwo thousand one, according

37:01

to to Reuter's News, there was actually

37:04

a two fifty million one or the thirty

37:06

three point six million restoration project

37:09

that took place at the Buddha. But by two

37:11

thousand seven, the nose it actually blackened

37:14

again due to pollution, and concerns

37:16

over pollution actually prompted local

37:18

government, the local government to shut

37:21

down factories and power plants close to

37:23

the statue to help maintain it,

37:25

which I think is a positive movement,

37:27

like people realizing, look, if

37:29

we we have to we have to actually cut

37:31

down on the we have to tackle the pollution problem

37:34

if we we want these these

37:37

artifacts to to remain presentable.

37:39

I feel like that is not usually the

37:41

solution you hear is shutting

37:44

down heavy industry to protect uh,

37:47

you know, heritage monuments or or

37:50

the environment. Well, uh, the Reuter's

37:52

article, you know, touches on the fact that this, you know,

37:54

this was not an isolated problem. Was

37:56

the state was encountering this with with

37:58

numerous you know, sacred

38:01

and important historical sites, various

38:03

shrines, etcetera. But hey,

38:05

it's still there. It's uh, it's still

38:07

open, and it is a popular touristist

38:09

destination. And based on what

38:11

I was reading, you know, you can spend a good half day

38:13

there looking at an additional

38:15

sites, temples, and the natural environment

38:18

is is supposedly a really pleasant as well.

38:20

Yeah, if you see pictures of it, one

38:23

of the things you'll notice is this

38:25

tiny narrow staircase carved into

38:27

the cliff side beside the Buddha going

38:30

up the side of it, So I guess people can get up higher

38:32

to be near its face. Um,

38:35

and it. I mean, one thing that's clear

38:37

is how many people want to come see this, this beautiful

38:39

work of art. But also they're

38:42

so tiny and they look so

38:44

precarious when you see these long shots

38:46

of the giant Buddha. Not

38:49

that the Buddha would do this, but you can imagine

38:51

it would just sort of like swing its hand up

38:53

and like knock hundreds of people

38:55

in the river. Well, you know, you

38:57

can't help but think of that when you see a colossal

39:00

stone tighten uh in the lightness

39:02

of a man. All Right, We're gonna take

39:04

one more break and we come back. I just have a

39:07

few additional thoughts about, to

39:09

a certain extent, the Grand Buddha, but also just this idea

39:12

of of remaking the earth and

39:14

then what happens when we do so.

39:20

I think one of the most compelling aspects of the

39:22

gram Buddha is that we see

39:24

the mountain transformed into a human

39:26

lightness, and in doing so there are all these

39:29

ramifications to the natural

39:31

environment. So there's the the alleged alteration

39:34

of the river, the alteration of drainage

39:36

on the mountain, and of course you know, these

39:38

are just small and specific examples of what

39:41

human beings have done just

39:43

across the UH, the anthropathy

39:46

and epoch. The idea that since

39:48

the rise of of of agricultural really

39:50

but certainly in the industrial age as well, we have

39:52

just reshaped the earth and in doing

39:54

so we have changed the natural environment.

39:57

That makes me wonder, I mean, how do how the boot

40:00

plays into that metaphor what do

40:02

you think is the general UH?

40:04

And you might not know the answer, but what what

40:06

do you think is the general environmental outlook

40:09

of Buddhism? Is there a coherent one? Well?

40:12

I know, for a fact. I think I might

40:14

have mentioned this on a previous episode,

40:16

but there was there was a wonderful New York Times

40:18

article that came out in recent

40:20

weeks about the resurgence

40:23

of religious interest in China

40:25

specifically. So it's people turning not

40:27

not just to Buddhism, but also Daoism and

40:30

Confucism and in sort

40:32

of reclaiming uh, culturally

40:34

important Chinese religious

40:37

models, they're also taking on environmental

40:39

causes. So they are

40:42

they are finding and an environmental

40:44

message in Buddhism, in Taoism,

40:47

in Confucianism, and then becoming

40:49

active with that within uh, with

40:51

within you know, within China and

40:54

UH and and arguing for uh,

40:56

you know, environmental protective measures. It's

40:59

hard not to see the Buddha as

41:01

somehow more harmonious with

41:04

nature in this in this depiction

41:06

than something say like Mount Rushmore,

41:09

because as we mentioned of the way the greenery

41:11

tends to surround it, like green, maybe

41:14

just moss and stuff like that is creeping

41:16

into some of the surfaces on the statue.

41:18

But you can also just see these tree branches and

41:20

the forest beyond trying to

41:22

creep in and surround the Buddha like

41:24

a I don't know, Like when you see the

41:27

cartoon where snow White is surrounded

41:29

by chirping birds and things, it's

41:31

like the the very life of the

41:33

forest itself is coming in to hug

41:35

and honor the Buddha. Yeah. Well,

41:38

it reminds me of something we I guess it

41:41

was the episode of Biophilia where we talked about

41:43

some of this. You know, I think you can my

41:45

read on on it is that if you if you look to any

41:47

major religion, I

41:49

think you can find environmental trends

41:52

within it, environmental messages within it. But

41:55

as with any religion, it depends on who's

41:57

handling it right, who's who's

42:00

who's manipulating it in some cases, or who

42:03

is delivering the message of it. And

42:05

and therefore any

42:08

faith can take a you know, a

42:10

less environmental form. Yeah,

42:12

the the dominion over the earth mentality

42:15

versus the harmony with the earth mentality

42:18

or the preservation of the earth mentality. Yeah,

42:20

I mean, it's it's very possible

42:22

someone out there is making Buddhist arguments

42:25

for for the removal

42:27

of environmental regulations. But

42:30

but I have not personally run across it. If you

42:32

have run across the listener send it in

42:34

because I would love to have that

42:36

that that added perspective. But

42:38

in terms of just reshaping the earth, and

42:41

it's worth pointing out that, yeah, all major

42:43

powers have done it and continue to do

42:45

it, so you know, we can look to examples

42:47

of reshaped mountains and damned rivers

42:49

here in the United States. But

42:51

I but I also can't help but think of

42:53

the Zai Pin Poo damn, which

42:56

is actually located in Sichuan Province

42:58

as well. And this was

43:00

this is a large scale damn that some scientists

43:03

have. You know, they've connected the dots here between

43:06

it's massive reshaping of the earth and

43:09

some deadly earthquakes that have occurred in the region.

43:11

Really, I'm always curious about the

43:13

extent to which people can actually

43:17

uh trace human behavior

43:19

to the causation of earthquakes. I'm

43:21

not saying I never believe it happens, but

43:23

I'm always curious, like, how, how,

43:26

how with how much confidence can we really say

43:28

that something we did caused an earthquake?

43:30

Do you think scientists are pretty certain here? Well,

43:33

it's something we could definitely discuss in a

43:35

in a later episode, like really break it apart.

43:37

I mean, the scientists who are who are who

43:39

are arguing that this is taking place.

43:41

Uh. But so what we're talking about here is I'm sure they know

43:43

better than I do. I don't mean to cast out on that.

43:46

Well, it's it's not a it's not a fringe

43:48

science by any sense, any sense,

43:50

but it is. Uh. It's known as reservoir

43:52

induced size mesticity.

43:55

Okay. So the the idea

43:57

is that you have rapid changes in water

43:59

pressure or caused by flood, seasonal

44:02

flood, changes in reservoir levels,

44:05

and this can activate already shaky

44:07

ground and trigger an earthquake. So,

44:09

for instance, the most famous example

44:11

of this is that the three gorgeous

44:13

damn in China, the huge thing. Yeah,

44:16

so this is a massive So you end up with a

44:18

of course, the way Damn's work, I think everybody's familiar

44:20

with this. You dam or river and you end up with water

44:23

on one side, reservoir of water,

44:26

and that's you control the flow. Yeah, and that's that's

44:28

a massive amount of water. It's a massive change.

44:30

I mean it's a change in mass and

44:32

uh. And so the idea with the three gorges

44:34

here is that this this reservoir

44:37

ends up setting on two major fault lines and

44:40

uh, and that that can actually affect

44:42

seismic activity. So it's not it's not

44:44

a situation where it you can't

44:46

really say it alone is causing the earthquake,

44:49

but it is influencing the factors

44:51

that that are at play in the

44:53

causation of earthquakes. That's the argument.

44:57

And well, tentatively I believe it. I was speaking

44:59

out of ignorance. No, no no, no, I mean, it's

45:01

the kind of thing we could take apart in a later episode,

45:03

for sure. But in the case

45:05

of the Zaiping Poo damn, this is a

45:09

three hundred and fifteen million ton water

45:12

reservoir, and it lies

45:14

about five fifty yards from a

45:16

fault line uh and three miles

45:18

from the epicenter of the Sichuan

45:21

earthquake that killed at least reported

45:23

eighty thousand people in two thousand eight.

45:26

And that those stats are according to the Telegraph

45:29

food for for thought. Nobody's blaming this in

45:31

the Buddha, don't get me wrong, But

45:33

and and I naturally, I don't want I don't want

45:35

to argue that there's a one to one comparison

45:38

to be made between uh, you know, carving

45:40

a sculpture out of a mountain and creating

45:42

a you know, a massive reservoir via

45:44

the construction of a damn. But I think they both

45:47

demonstrate this human ability and

45:49

desire to to remake the world

45:52

and then how we end up rediscovering

45:54

the fragility of the world in the process

45:56

and realizing that, Yeah, when you when you change

45:59

the shape of a mountain, that's gonna have an impact.

46:01

When you create this massive reservoir, it's

46:03

going to have an impact because in the case of

46:06

of of a massive reservoir

46:08

created via dam you also have to count

46:10

in pollution because you have water flowing into

46:12

areas that we're not uh

46:15

previously submerged, and that might

46:17

mean you are introducing uh,

46:20

existing pollutants into the water. You

46:23

have can have landslides, mud slides,

46:25

weather changes, you have this uh what's

46:27

called is the lake effect, so decreasing rainfall

46:30

in the area around the reservoir.

46:33

Uh, there's a decrease there while there's an increase

46:35

in rainfall in the surrounding mountain regions.

46:38

On top of that, you can have drought, you can have a

46:40

species loss, and you can have

46:42

the loss of historical relics as you

46:44

know, in an area that was you know, previously above

46:47

water is now below water on you

46:49

know, for the life of the dam. Yeah,

46:51

that's something I've rarely even considered as a

46:53

consequence of damming rivers. We

46:56

actually have a how Stuff Works dot Com article

46:59

on the topic, so have to link to that as well

47:01

on the landing page for this episode. It's

47:03

stuff to blow your mind dot Com. All

47:05

right, So there you have it, a little you know, introduction

47:08

into I think one of the more remarkable

47:11

UH statues in the world, one that I

47:13

have not seen in person, but one day I would. I would

47:15

very much like to. Maybe I can convince UH

47:18

work to send me there. I'm

47:20

glad you brought this up, Robert. I I've I

47:23

didn't really know anything about the statue going in,

47:25

and I think it's a fascinating work

47:27

of art, and I too would like to see it one day.

47:31

So how about you out there again? We'd

47:33

love to hear from anyone who has UH, who

47:35

has actually ventured out and and seen

47:37

the Grand Buddha in person. What were your impressions,

47:40

What do you think of the surrounding area, What

47:42

do you think about other massive works

47:44

of sculpture, you know, bet a freestanding

47:46

sculpture or something carved out of the side of a mountain.

47:49

What kind of effect did it have on you? I'm

47:51

wondering what great works

47:54

of art are going to be, you know,

47:56

great great sculptures that exist today

47:58

or will exist soon, are going

48:01

to be visited by tourists in another years.

48:05

Like, what's the Grand Buddha that

48:07

was built recently? Huh?

48:11

I guess the Grand Buddha of the future. But

48:13

not the Buddha of the future, not the Ma Trea.

48:15

Okay, sorry, I'm being confusing. What

48:18

what what's the sculpture out there today that people

48:20

are going to be coming to with this much

48:22

intensity more than a thousand

48:24

years from now. Well, there are some very large statues

48:27

in the United States that I don't think get a lot

48:29

of press because they're just such recent constructions.

48:32

I want to say, there's a it's

48:35

a in Florida. There is a

48:38

pegasus battling a dragon. And

48:40

it's why I want to say, it's like the second or

48:43

third largest statue in the United States. But

48:46

it's not historic. It's it's a

48:48

very recent creation and it's

48:50

just a dragon in a pegasus. So I don't

48:52

know, maybe people will grow more attached to it and

48:55

and it will. It will become like a something

48:57

we're truly proud of, and we'll start putting it on money

48:59

or something. But for

49:01

the time being, I guess you know, the Statue of Liberty,

49:04

amount rushmore of these are still going to be the big

49:06

attractions here in the United States until we

49:08

build that five thousand foot Nixon we've been talking

49:10

about. So head on over

49:12

to Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's the mothership.

49:14

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50:09

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