Literature Network » Rudyard Kipling

Fallen Idols.(treatment of religious artefacts)(Brief Article)

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From: The Nation
Date: 20010402
Author:Hitchens, Christopher

When Rudyard Kipling's British soldier caught his first glimpse of Burmese beauty, on the road to Mandalay, "I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,/An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot:/Bloomin' idol made o' mud--/Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd--/Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud!"

The lines came back to me when I read the recent statement from the architectural and cultural spokesman of the Taliban, who dismissed all the fuss about the destruction of Afghanistan's Buddhist heritage by saying that images ...

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