"He gave Bamiyan the coup de grâce ... which is near the western Buddha. Inside it, he wrote, "there is a figure of Buddha lying in a sleeping position, as when he attained Nirvana.

This is no ordinary sculpture but one modelled on the Bamiyan Buddha in Afghanistan which was destroyed by the Taleban in 2001. Why a replica of the Bamiyan Buddha is being sculpted in the Kurunegala ...