ISLAMABAD: Monsoon rains that have ravaged human populations in the plains of Punjab have made even ruins to cry for help.

Archaeologists say the ancient Greek and Buddhist ruins at Jandial and Julian near Taxila have suffered visible water damage in the torrential rains.

Artifacts from the sites – classified as World Heritage Sites by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) – are safe in the Taxila Museum but the historic structures where they were found over almost 100 years of digging are showing signs of crumbling.

Indeed, down the Museum Road, lie the ruins of the ancient city of Sirkup, where a part of the walls of the 2,000-year-old Greek temple in Jandial has collapsed.

“Wide and deep cracks running on the surface of the temple portend the fall a larger portion of roughly 25 metres of the wall,” said an archaeologist at the Taxila Museum.

And at the 5th century monastery at Jaulian, the legendary ‘healing Buddha’ looks facing potentially irreparable water damage as does the Buddhist Monastery in Taxila of the same period.

Last week’s heavy rainfall knocked down a ten-foot long section of the four-foot wide limestone and sand wall of the 100BC Jandial Greek Temple.

Greek and Buddhist ruins at Jandial and Julian have suffered damage

A few minutes drive away at the Jaulian site, small stucco Buddhist Stupas and figures face the same threat.

Jaulian is most famous for its unique Healing Buddha – a seated figure with a hole at the navel from the Gandhara period. As the legend goes, the roughly three-foot high Buddha, fixed in a wall, cures a devotee of illnesses by putting his or her finger in the navel, or merely calling out Buddha’s name.

“It is so much revered that most State guests from the Buddhist-populated countries, like Thailand and Japan, are brought here to say their prayers,” said Muhammad Taj, a guide at the Julian site for more than 20 years.

Taj particularly recalled the visits of the prime minister of Bhutan, who seemed soaking in the grand Buddhist civilisation that once thrived there; and the reverent Princess Maha Chakkri Sirinthon of Thailand who climbed bare-feet to the monastery, perched 300-foot high on a hill, to light a candle and pray to the Healing Buddha.

Officer Masihullah of the Directorate of Archaeology of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who had reported the rain damage, said the protective wooden roof put over the wall containing the Healing Buddha in the 1920s needs repairs but funds have not been available for that for two years.

“In the past few years, government’s attention had shifted from Taxila valley to other heritage sites. But it is now focusing on conservation and projection of Taxila valley again,” said the officer who looks after 14 historical sites in the Hazara/Haripur region.

“Our conservationists and engineers are waiting for the rainy season to end,” he said.

Rainwater has seeped through the wall behind the ‘Healing Buddha’.

“If we go for the (repair) work now, we risk losing more of the wall. Experts will begin the work by October.”

Excavated by Sir John Marshal between 1913 and 1934, the Jandial temple is unique. It represented the state religion at the time of its erection.

Experts of the Department of Archaeology and Museums say Jandial Temple is contemporary to the 2nd Century BC historical city Sirkup as the outer walls of both are made of sand stones and have the same style of construction.

“At the temple deceased were laid in the open for the birds to eat their flesh. Mourning ceremonies were performed for the deceased in a separately erected hall,” said an archaeologist in DOAM elaborating on the distinctively Greek method of construction similar to those in vogue in Attica, the region encompassing the city of Athens, Greece.

Published in Dawn, September 16th , 2014