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Comment by reaperducer | Hacker News Reader

You see this in India at every temple that was raided by Muslims. The logic being that breaking the nose would make the "idol" unfit for worship.

I find that interesting because when I was in Turkey it was common to see the ancient depictions of Jesus Christ on church walls with the eyes scratched off. The explanation given by the locals was the same as what you state for the statues in India.

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Let's double-down on this and point out that the marauding Burmese desecrated temples of their neighbours -- knocking heads off Buddhas -- and they were of identical religions!

When Angkor Wat was being raided by art thieves operating out of Thailand, they knocked off heads off of buddha not to be disrepsectful per se, but because they wanted to loot and sell those heads on the black market. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat#History

I believe Muslims recognise Jesus as a prophet [1], so there was more going on there than different religions.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_Islam

I can't say what happened when the Turks arrived, but that region was already known for iconoclasm while it was still under Christian leadership.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Iconoclasm

Sounds pretty comparable to Christian iconoclasts tearing down images of saints. I.e. it was the "right thing to do" and they probably thought Jesus would be horrified to be part of an idolatrous image.

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