1 00:00:10,927 --> 00:00:14,966 Sixty years ago, India threw off the chains of the British Empire 2 00:00:15,047 --> 00:00:16,958 and became a free nation. 3 00:00:21,887 --> 00:00:26,517 And now, the world's largest democracy is rushing headlong into the future. 4 00:00:29,927 --> 00:00:32,999 As the brief heyday of the West draws to a close, 5 00:00:33,087 --> 00:00:36,557 one of the greatest players in history is rising again. 6 00:00:40,447 --> 00:00:43,564 India has seen the ebb and flow of huge events 7 00:00:43,647 --> 00:00:45,717 since the beginning of history. 8 00:00:45,807 --> 00:00:49,641 Its tale is one of incredible drama and the biggest ideas. 9 00:00:54,367 --> 00:00:58,042 It's a place whose children will grow up in a global superpower, 10 00:00:58,127 --> 00:01:02,917 and yet still know what it means to belong to an ancient civilisation. 11 00:01:07,367 --> 00:01:11,963 This is the story of a land where all human pasts are still alive, 12 00:01:12,847 --> 00:01:17,079 a 1 0,000 year epic that continues today. 13 00:01:18,047 --> 00:01:19,765 The story of India. 14 00:01:57,167 --> 00:02:01,206 In the tale of life on Earth, the human story is brief. 15 00:02:01,607 --> 00:02:06,317 A few hundred generations cover humanity's attempts to create order, 16 00:02:06,407 --> 00:02:09,399 beauty and happiness on the face of the Earth. 17 00:02:10,847 --> 00:02:15,238 The beginnings to most of us are lost in time, beyond memory. 18 00:02:17,967 --> 00:02:22,961 Only India has preserved the unbroken thread of the human story 19 00:02:23,047 --> 00:02:24,719 that binds us all. 20 00:02:31,487 --> 00:02:34,240 According to the oldest Indian myths, 21 00:02:34,327 --> 00:02:39,037 the first humans came from a golden egg laid by the king of the gods 22 00:02:39,127 --> 00:02:41,641 in the churning of the cosmic ocean. 23 00:02:43,887 --> 00:02:47,357 Modern science, of course, works in a less poetic vein, 24 00:02:47,447 --> 00:02:50,200 but no less thrilling to the imagination. 25 00:02:53,207 --> 00:02:57,723 For what science tells us is that our ancestors first walked out of Africa 26 00:02:57,807 --> 00:03:00,640 only 70 or 80,000 years ago, 27 00:03:00,727 --> 00:03:05,801 round the shores of the Arabian Sea and down into South India. 28 00:03:17,287 --> 00:03:21,360 They were beachcombers, barefoot hunter-gatherers, 29 00:03:21,807 --> 00:03:24,446 driven as human beings always have been 30 00:03:24,527 --> 00:03:29,317 by chance and necessity, but also surely by curiosity, 31 00:03:29,407 --> 00:03:31,637 that most human of qualities. 32 00:03:32,967 --> 00:03:34,719 And when they came here to India, 33 00:03:34,807 --> 00:03:37,879 they must have been overwhelmed by the fertility. 34 00:03:37,967 --> 00:03:41,277 Here, down south, you throw a mango away and a tree will grow. 35 00:03:41,407 --> 00:03:43,967 Life is superabundant. 36 00:03:44,047 --> 00:03:49,201 So here, some of them stayed, and they were the first Indians. 37 00:03:52,527 --> 00:03:56,122 And all non-Africans on the planet can trace their descent 38 00:03:56,207 --> 00:03:59,165 from those early migrations into India. 39 00:03:59,247 --> 00:04:02,319 The rest of world was populated from here. 40 00:04:02,407 --> 00:04:04,557 Mother India indeed. 41 00:04:07,047 --> 00:04:09,197 And amazingly for so long ago, 42 00:04:09,287 --> 00:04:12,085 those first Indians have left their trail. 43 00:04:15,047 --> 00:04:17,686 If you go inland from the beaches of Kerala 44 00:04:17,767 --> 00:04:21,396 into the maze of backwaters, deep in the rainforests, 45 00:04:21,487 --> 00:04:23,796 you'll still find their traces. 46 00:04:23,887 --> 00:04:28,039 Clues to what lies beneath all the later layers of Indian history, 47 00:04:28,127 --> 00:04:31,961 clues that, till recently, were completely unsuspected. 48 00:04:34,927 --> 00:04:38,158 For here, you can even hear their voices, 49 00:04:38,247 --> 00:04:41,284 sounds from the beginning of human time. 50 00:04:41,367 --> 00:04:43,323 (BOY CHANTING) 51 00:04:49,647 --> 00:04:54,721 An ancient clan of Brahmins lives here, priests, ritual specialists. 52 00:04:54,807 --> 00:04:57,765 They alone can perform the religious rituals. 53 00:04:59,167 --> 00:05:02,045 They're preparing an ancient ceremony for the god of fire 54 00:05:02,127 --> 00:05:04,561 that will take 1 2 days to perform. 55 00:05:06,087 --> 00:05:07,679 (CHANTING) 56 00:05:15,167 --> 00:05:19,240 For centuries, these incantations, or mantras, have been passed down 57 00:05:19,327 --> 00:05:22,239 from father to son, only among Brahmins, 58 00:05:22,327 --> 00:05:24,124 exact in every sound. 59 00:05:24,207 --> 00:05:26,801 (ALL CHANTING) 60 00:05:29,367 --> 00:05:32,518 But some of the mantras are in no known language. 61 00:05:36,407 --> 00:05:39,956 Only recently have outsiders been allowed to record them 62 00:05:40,047 --> 00:05:43,198 and to try to make sense of the Brahmins' chants. 63 00:05:50,847 --> 00:05:52,246 To their amazement, 64 00:05:52,327 --> 00:05:55,922 they discovered whole tracts of the ritual were sounds 65 00:05:56,007 --> 00:05:59,363 that followed rules and patterns but had no meaning. 66 00:06:00,847 --> 00:06:05,125 There was no parallel for these patterns within any human activity, 67 00:06:05,207 --> 00:06:07,084 not even music. 68 00:06:07,167 --> 00:06:10,364 The nearest analogue came from the animal kingdom. 69 00:06:10,447 --> 00:06:12,085 It was birdsong. 70 00:06:13,487 --> 00:06:16,718 These sounds are perhaps tens of thousands of years old, 71 00:06:16,807 --> 00:06:19,640 passed down from before human speech. 72 00:06:20,767 --> 00:06:25,204 MAN: There are certain patterns of sounds preceding and succeeding texts. 73 00:06:27,407 --> 00:06:29,682 That is what is called oral tradition. 74 00:06:30,207 --> 00:06:34,598 You can't write those patterns in book. It's unprintable. 75 00:06:34,687 --> 00:06:39,556 So only orally it can be transmitted through generations, 76 00:06:39,647 --> 00:06:42,366 and this oral tradition is still alive in Kerala. 77 00:06:42,447 --> 00:06:44,403 (PLAYING CYMBALS) 78 00:06:49,247 --> 00:06:51,715 WOOD: For 1 2 days, the priests and their wives 79 00:06:51,807 --> 00:06:54,116 must stay inside the enclosure. 80 00:06:54,207 --> 00:06:57,677 Then, when the ritual is over and the world purified, 81 00:06:57,767 --> 00:07:01,840 the huts are burned down, all trace obliterated, 82 00:07:01,927 --> 00:07:04,919 save in the memory of the Brahmin reciters. 83 00:07:19,607 --> 00:07:22,804 So there's a crucial clue to the story of India, 84 00:07:22,887 --> 00:07:26,562 how the experience of the ancestors is faithfully handed down 85 00:07:26,647 --> 00:07:28,877 from generation to generation. 86 00:07:30,607 --> 00:07:34,441 But it's not just sounds and rituals that have been passed on. 87 00:07:37,967 --> 00:07:39,605 Over the hills in Tamil Nadu, 88 00:07:39,687 --> 00:07:42,247 geneticists from the University of Madurai 89 00:07:42,327 --> 00:07:45,364 have been testing the DNA of tribal villagers. 90 00:07:46,767 --> 00:07:49,122 First we isolate the DNA from the solution, 91 00:07:49,207 --> 00:07:51,801 and we look for specific markers in the solution, 92 00:07:51,887 --> 00:07:54,276 ancient markers, which can give you the clue 93 00:07:54,367 --> 00:07:57,006 about the migrational history of the people. 94 00:07:58,967 --> 00:08:01,879 It's a direct evidence that we are out of Africa 95 00:08:01,967 --> 00:08:05,164 and it's all a brotherly hood. We are all the same. 96 00:08:07,007 --> 00:08:08,884 WOOD: Here among the Kallar people, 97 00:08:08,967 --> 00:08:13,438 Professor Ramasamy Pitchappan recently tested a man called Virumandi. 98 00:08:13,527 --> 00:08:17,486 In his DNA was the marker of that first human migration. 99 00:08:18,407 --> 00:08:20,079 PITCHAPPAN: Virumandi's wife. 100 00:08:20,727 --> 00:08:22,445 WOOD: Very nice to meet you. 101 00:08:22,527 --> 00:08:26,202 Since the migration of the first man 70,000 years ago, 102 00:08:26,287 --> 00:08:31,361 and which Virumandi, he probably carries that gene, M1 30, right? 103 00:08:31,447 --> 00:08:32,596 WOOD: Right, great. 104 00:08:32,687 --> 00:08:36,521 So, Virumandi, how does it feel to be the first Indian? 105 00:08:36,607 --> 00:08:38,006 Yeah, yeah. 106 00:08:38,087 --> 00:08:40,760 I am very happy for this... 107 00:08:41,247 --> 00:08:43,807 -PITCHAPPAN: That you have this gene. -Gene, yes. 108 00:08:43,887 --> 00:08:45,400 WOOD: Wonderful. 109 00:08:46,887 --> 00:08:51,483 Virumandi's tribe practise South India's and the world's oldest form of marriage, 110 00:08:51,567 --> 00:08:53,797 with first cousins. 111 00:08:53,887 --> 00:08:57,800 That way, they've handed down some of mankind's earliest genes. 112 00:08:58,647 --> 00:09:02,356 PITCHAPPAN: Some 50 to 60,000 years ago, 113 00:09:02,447 --> 00:09:05,439 this M1 30 gene pool came over here 114 00:09:06,367 --> 00:09:10,280 and, luckily, somebody stayed in this village and expanded, 115 00:09:10,367 --> 00:09:12,278 then we could identify. 116 00:09:13,087 --> 00:09:17,444 You know, to our surprise, you know, that the whole village is of M1 30. 117 00:09:17,527 --> 00:09:19,040 WOOD: Everybody around us here? 118 00:09:19,127 --> 00:09:22,961 Everybody around us here carries M1 30, 119 00:09:23,047 --> 00:09:26,483 so you call it as a ponder fact, what will be that. 120 00:09:26,567 --> 00:09:31,118 You've got the early migrations in at least two waves, 121 00:09:31,207 --> 00:09:33,721 language is only developing later? 122 00:09:33,807 --> 00:09:35,638 Yes, the scholars feel 123 00:09:35,727 --> 00:09:39,003 that it is only just 1 0,000 years old, the spoken language. 124 00:09:39,087 --> 00:09:40,156 WOOD: Wow. 125 00:09:40,247 --> 00:09:42,681 PITCHAPPAN: Maybe only 1 0 to 1 5,000 maximum. 126 00:09:43,407 --> 00:09:47,161 Language is not the same as ethnicity. We need to make that clear, don't we? 127 00:09:47,247 --> 00:09:50,159 Yes, it is absolutely essential. Yes, it is not. 128 00:09:50,247 --> 00:09:52,920 The language can easily be adopted. 129 00:09:53,007 --> 00:09:55,475 But the same is true with the religion, too. 130 00:09:55,567 --> 00:09:58,001 -Ah. -It's a kind of belief system. 131 00:09:58,887 --> 00:10:03,642 You believe in your system, in your education, 132 00:10:04,207 --> 00:10:08,325 or in your capacity, or in your family, whatever way you feel like. 133 00:10:09,207 --> 00:10:12,199 You have every liberty to feel proud of what you are. 134 00:10:12,287 --> 00:10:17,156 This is because of this reason, I believe that India has become 135 00:10:17,247 --> 00:10:21,559 such a cosmos of humanity with the diversity, 136 00:10:21,647 --> 00:10:23,160 but still with a unity. 137 00:10:23,247 --> 00:10:25,556 WOOD: Is that what makes you an Indian, then? 138 00:10:25,647 --> 00:10:29,276 Yeah, probably, yes. A human being all the more, I would say, 139 00:10:29,367 --> 00:10:30,402 rather than Indian. 140 00:10:34,087 --> 00:10:37,284 WOOD: And despite all the later migrations and invasions, 141 00:10:37,367 --> 00:10:41,121 India's gene pool has remained largely constant. 142 00:10:41,207 --> 00:10:44,005 It's one of the unchanging roots of India. 143 00:10:47,407 --> 00:10:53,721 Languages and religions came only later, and they are always subject to change. 144 00:10:58,007 --> 00:10:59,406 But here in the south, 145 00:10:59,487 --> 00:11:03,082 they've passed down humanity's oldest religion, too. 146 00:11:03,167 --> 00:11:08,195 In the great temple of Madurai, they still worship the female principal, 147 00:11:08,287 --> 00:11:09,925 the Mother Goddess, 148 00:11:10,007 --> 00:11:14,000 as Indian people have done for tens of thousands of years. 149 00:11:19,967 --> 00:11:22,925 And alongside her are countless other deities 150 00:11:23,007 --> 00:11:27,319 that link humanity with the magical power of the natural world. 151 00:11:28,967 --> 00:11:31,686 Over the ages, thousands of gods will emerge, 152 00:11:31,767 --> 00:11:34,406 always adding to what had been before. 153 00:11:34,887 --> 00:11:40,325 So the roots of Indian religion, too, will grow over a vast period of time 154 00:11:40,407 --> 00:11:44,685 as India's expression of the multiplicity of the universe. 155 00:11:47,007 --> 00:11:50,283 Why have only one god when you can have millions? 156 00:11:59,327 --> 00:12:02,478 So, India's famous unity and diversity 157 00:12:02,567 --> 00:12:07,163 goes back to customs and beliefs and habits that lie deep in prehistory, 158 00:12:07,247 --> 00:12:10,603 like the worship of the goddess here in Madurai. 159 00:12:10,687 --> 00:12:14,396 And when you look at all the tides of Indian history that follow, 160 00:12:14,487 --> 00:12:18,560 you can see that identity is never static, 161 00:12:19,287 --> 00:12:21,801 always in the making and never made. 162 00:12:22,047 --> 00:12:23,799 (ALL SINGING IN HINDI) 163 00:12:34,047 --> 00:12:37,119 Now we must rush over tens of thousands of years 164 00:12:37,207 --> 00:12:39,960 in which humanity lived as hunter-gatherers. 165 00:12:40,047 --> 00:12:41,366 And then in the Stone Age, 166 00:12:41,447 --> 00:12:44,166 in a great arc from Mediterranean to India, 167 00:12:44,247 --> 00:12:47,956 changes in technology led to the invention of agriculture. 168 00:12:48,047 --> 00:12:49,526 (TRAIN HORN BLARING) 169 00:12:51,047 --> 00:12:55,757 And that would be the motor for the next turning point in the story of India, 170 00:12:56,687 --> 00:12:58,405 the rise of cities. 171 00:13:17,087 --> 00:13:18,884 In the year 2007, 172 00:13:18,967 --> 00:13:22,243 for the first time in history, most of us will live in cities 173 00:13:22,327 --> 00:13:24,602 rather than in the countryside. 174 00:13:26,767 --> 00:13:28,246 Here in the Indian subcontinent, 175 00:13:28,327 --> 00:13:32,718 that process of civilisation began in 7000 BC, 176 00:13:32,807 --> 00:13:34,923 even earlier than Ancient Egypt, 177 00:13:35,007 --> 00:13:38,443 with the growth of large villages in the Indus Valley. 178 00:13:42,727 --> 00:13:45,719 So, despite the divisions made by modern borders, 179 00:13:45,807 --> 00:13:50,244 nowhere else on Earth is there such continuity of settled life. 180 00:13:50,487 --> 00:13:52,557 (PEOPLE CHATTERING) 181 00:13:53,127 --> 00:13:54,526 WOOD: Hello. 182 00:13:55,247 --> 00:13:56,760 (WOOD SPEAKING URDU) 183 00:13:56,847 --> 00:14:00,317 Though, of course, when we talk about India in history, 184 00:14:00,407 --> 00:14:02,443 we mean the whole of the subcontinent, 185 00:14:02,527 --> 00:14:06,486 before modern politics divided up that deep continuum 186 00:14:06,567 --> 00:14:10,526 and gave the people new identities and new allegiances. 187 00:14:14,727 --> 00:14:19,198 So, Multan is your native place? Multan, your native place? 188 00:14:19,287 --> 00:14:21,562 -PASSENGER: Ah, yes. -Ah, yes. 189 00:14:21,647 --> 00:14:23,399 -Very nice. -What work you doing? 190 00:14:23,487 --> 00:14:26,797 Making historical film for BBC London. 191 00:14:33,127 --> 00:14:36,756 These days, ''civilisation'' is a very problematical word, 192 00:14:36,847 --> 00:14:38,963 with many shades of meaning, 193 00:14:39,047 --> 00:14:43,643 but to historians and archaeologists, it means living in cities, 194 00:14:43,727 --> 00:14:48,084 large-scale, highly organised societies, monumental architecture, 195 00:14:48,167 --> 00:14:49,839 law and writing. 196 00:14:49,927 --> 00:14:52,680 And to find the origins of Indian civilisation, 197 00:14:52,767 --> 00:14:55,918 we need to come first of all to Pakistan, 198 00:14:56,007 --> 00:15:00,717 once part of India, but split to become a separate country in 1 94 7. 199 00:15:01,287 --> 00:15:03,755 Because it was here in the valley of the Indus River, 200 00:15:03,847 --> 00:15:07,760 comparatively recently, in a series of amazing discoveries, 201 00:15:07,847 --> 00:15:12,716 revealed a hitherto completely unknown ancient civilisation. 202 00:15:19,967 --> 00:15:23,596 Those first discoveries took place in the 1 920s 203 00:15:23,687 --> 00:15:27,726 at a little halt on the railway line between Multan and Lahore, 204 00:15:27,807 --> 00:15:29,479 Harappa. 205 00:15:34,367 --> 00:15:38,519 At that time, the Indian subcontinent was under British rule. 206 00:15:39,047 --> 00:15:42,517 And then, the idea that the people of what is now Pakistan and India 207 00:15:42,607 --> 00:15:46,441 might be heirs to ancient civilisation far older than the Bible, 208 00:15:46,527 --> 00:15:49,519 Greece and Rome, would have seemed incredible. 209 00:15:50,287 --> 00:15:53,757 The Europeans saw India as a primitive, backward place. 210 00:15:54,167 --> 00:15:57,762 They believed civilisation was the product of the classical world 211 00:15:57,847 --> 00:16:00,884 for whom they were the modern standard-bearers. 212 00:16:00,967 --> 00:16:04,562 And nobody even suspected that India had a prehistory. 213 00:16:06,327 --> 00:16:11,401 But all that changed in 1 92 1 when British and Indian archaeologists 214 00:16:11,487 --> 00:16:14,126 arrived at this little place in the Punjab. 215 00:16:17,527 --> 00:16:18,926 (GREETING IN URDU) 216 00:16:19,007 --> 00:16:22,204 -How are you? How nice to see you. -Good. Thank you. 217 00:16:22,287 --> 00:16:23,959 -Thank you for having us. -Here. 218 00:16:24,047 --> 00:16:25,639 That's wonderful. 219 00:16:25,727 --> 00:16:28,446 WOOD: The archaeologists camped in tents here, 220 00:16:28,527 --> 00:16:31,280 and they were plagued by mosquitoes, too. 221 00:16:41,847 --> 00:16:43,246 That night in the dig hut, 222 00:16:43,327 --> 00:16:46,956 I read again the romantic account of those first discoveries, 223 00:16:47,047 --> 00:16:50,562 at the same time as the finding of Tutankhamen in Egypt. 224 00:16:52,927 --> 00:16:55,236 ''Not often is it given to archaeologists, '' 225 00:16:55,327 --> 00:16:57,682 wrote the British excavator John Marshall, 226 00:16:57,767 --> 00:17:00,565 ''as it was given to Schliemann at Mycenae 227 00:17:00,647 --> 00:17:04,242 ''to light upon the remains of a forgotten civilisation. 228 00:17:04,327 --> 00:17:06,363 ''It looks, however, at the moment, 229 00:17:06,447 --> 00:17:09,245 ''as if we are on the threshold of such a discovery 230 00:17:09,327 --> 00:17:11,761 ''here in the plains of the Indus. '' 231 00:17:28,927 --> 00:17:33,955 Like the other great ancient civilisations in Iraq, Egypt and China, 232 00:17:34,047 --> 00:17:37,084 India's first cities had grown up on a river. 233 00:17:38,167 --> 00:17:40,727 The ruins of Harappa stood on the dried-up bed 234 00:17:40,807 --> 00:17:43,526 of a tributary of the river Indus. 235 00:17:43,807 --> 00:17:46,401 Its huge citadel walls had been quarried away 236 00:17:46,487 --> 00:17:49,240 by Victorian railway contractors. 237 00:17:49,327 --> 00:17:52,603 But there was still evidence of industry and trade, 238 00:17:52,687 --> 00:17:57,556 of writing and high level organisation and a huge population. 239 00:17:58,727 --> 00:18:02,720 Harappa was far older than anything previously known in India. 240 00:18:04,087 --> 00:18:07,875 Amazingly, at the time of the building of the pyramids of Egypt, 241 00:18:07,967 --> 00:18:10,720 there had been vast cities here in India. 242 00:18:13,567 --> 00:18:15,876 WOOD: When does Harappa begin? 243 00:18:17,807 --> 00:18:21,846 Harappa was beginning 3500 BC, 244 00:18:22,647 --> 00:18:25,878 5,000 years ago from here. 245 00:18:25,967 --> 00:18:31,485 WOOD: Right, 3500 BC! So this is a very, very long-lasting place. 246 00:18:31,567 --> 00:18:36,925 And when was the heyday, the high period, of the Indus civilisation? 247 00:18:37,007 --> 00:18:43,640 The high period of the Indus civilisation started from 2900 BC 248 00:18:44,047 --> 00:18:45,924 to 1 900 BC. 249 00:18:46,367 --> 00:18:50,838 This is the highest period, and we call it Mature Harappan Period. 250 00:18:50,927 --> 00:18:53,316 And how many people do you think... 251 00:18:53,407 --> 00:18:58,162 (LAUGHS) How many people do you think lived here in the height of its power? 252 00:18:58,247 --> 00:19:01,922 -I think about two lakh peoples. -200,000 people? 253 00:19:02,007 --> 00:19:07,923 Yes, according to their houses and streets, it is an estimated guess. 254 00:19:08,007 --> 00:19:11,841 WOOD: Wow, but it's a big city for the ancient world. 255 00:19:17,287 --> 00:19:19,596 The next year, 1 922, 256 00:19:19,687 --> 00:19:24,283 British and Indian archaeologists targeted an untouched site to the south, 257 00:19:24,367 --> 00:19:26,085 Mohenjo Daro. 258 00:19:28,687 --> 00:19:31,599 By ancient standards, it was an urban giant, 259 00:19:31,687 --> 00:19:33,518 a Bronze Age Manhattan. 260 00:19:37,287 --> 00:19:39,926 Just like the modern Indians and Pakistanis, 261 00:19:40,007 --> 00:19:42,157 the Indus people were traders. 262 00:19:42,247 --> 00:19:45,444 From here, their boats sailed to the Persian Gulf and Iraq, 263 00:19:45,527 --> 00:19:49,281 carrying cargoes of ivory, teak and lapis lazuli. 264 00:19:52,727 --> 00:19:56,197 The city appeared to be the capital of a great empire, 265 00:19:56,287 --> 00:20:00,280 which we now know extended from the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea. 266 00:20:00,767 --> 00:20:03,235 With over 2,000 towns and villages, 267 00:20:03,327 --> 00:20:06,683 it was the largest civilisation in the ancient world 268 00:20:06,767 --> 00:20:10,760 and, with up to five million people, the world's biggest population. 269 00:20:13,247 --> 00:20:16,205 But their writing is still un-deciphered. 270 00:20:25,927 --> 00:20:28,885 Then, after several centuries of stability, 271 00:20:28,967 --> 00:20:33,563 the cities declined, trade collapsed and urban life itself ended. 272 00:20:35,487 --> 00:20:38,206 The people went back to the land. 273 00:20:38,287 --> 00:20:40,278 But why the Indus cities died 274 00:20:40,367 --> 00:20:43,484 is one of the greatest mysteries in archaeology. 275 00:20:53,967 --> 00:20:57,243 Back in London, I went to see Dr Sanjeev Gupta, 276 00:20:57,327 --> 00:21:02,355 who offered me a much bigger picture as to why civilisations rise and fall. 277 00:21:03,007 --> 00:21:04,998 GUPTA: About 1 80 million years ago, 278 00:21:05,087 --> 00:21:09,603 India was actually an island floating in this vast ocean that we call Tethys, 279 00:21:09,687 --> 00:21:13,316 and it was moving northwards for about 1 30 million years. 280 00:21:13,967 --> 00:21:17,676 Eventually, about 50 million years ago, it actually rammed into Asia, 281 00:21:17,767 --> 00:21:21,123 collided with Asia, to produce the world's largest mountain belt, 282 00:21:21,207 --> 00:21:22,765 the Himalayas. 283 00:21:24,487 --> 00:21:27,923 WOOD: So there's a different perspective to the historian's view. 284 00:21:28,167 --> 00:21:30,317 Civilisations come and go, 285 00:21:30,407 --> 00:21:34,798 environment and climate are what shape our human story in the long term 286 00:21:34,887 --> 00:21:37,685 as we are now discovering to our cost. 287 00:21:39,767 --> 00:21:42,235 The Himalayas draw the warm air from the south, 288 00:21:42,327 --> 00:21:45,637 which is precipitated in rain, the monsoons. 289 00:21:45,727 --> 00:21:49,515 And the monsoons made the first Indian civilisation. 290 00:21:49,607 --> 00:21:51,916 When they failed, it did too. 291 00:21:53,247 --> 00:21:55,966 The key was the shifting and drying up of rivers, 292 00:21:56,047 --> 00:21:58,686 and one great river system in particular. 293 00:21:59,807 --> 00:22:03,516 GUPTA: What we've been doing is to look at satellite imagery 294 00:22:03,607 --> 00:22:06,041 to try and see if you can trace paleo river channels, 295 00:22:06,127 --> 00:22:07,480 essentially, on the flood plains. 296 00:22:07,567 --> 00:22:11,003 WOOD: So this is the area just along the border between India and Pakistan? 297 00:22:11,087 --> 00:22:14,124 GUPTA: That's right, and we are going to basically zoom in on an area over here 298 00:22:14,207 --> 00:22:17,404 and look at some satellite imagery in some detail. 299 00:22:18,527 --> 00:22:21,405 So in this satellite imagery, what you can see are these light areas 300 00:22:21,487 --> 00:22:24,399 which are desert areas, sand dunes, etc, 301 00:22:24,487 --> 00:22:28,196 but snaking through the desert, you can see the trace, 302 00:22:28,287 --> 00:22:33,315 this dark channel-like feature which people believe 303 00:22:33,407 --> 00:22:35,796 -is the trace of an ancient river. -Wow. 304 00:22:35,887 --> 00:22:40,563 If we now put the sites on for the main phase of the Harappan civilisation, 305 00:22:40,647 --> 00:22:42,285 you can see beautifully how 306 00:22:42,367 --> 00:22:47,077 those sites are actually strung along the trace of this ancient channel bed. 307 00:22:47,167 --> 00:22:48,759 WOOD: It is very clear there, isn't it? 308 00:22:48,847 --> 00:22:51,315 Absolutely matches the curve of the channel bed. 309 00:22:51,407 --> 00:22:54,126 And you can trace it actually from India into Pakistan, 310 00:22:54,207 --> 00:22:56,846 into the area that's called Cholistan, where you have numeral sites. 311 00:22:56,927 --> 00:23:01,045 WOOD: Oh, yeah, yeah. So this is from the height of the Indus civilisation? 312 00:23:01,127 --> 00:23:05,723 Yeah, probably between 5,000 to 4,000 yeas ago. 313 00:23:05,807 --> 00:23:08,605 When Mohenjo Daro and Harappa are at their height. 314 00:23:08,687 --> 00:23:13,841 So what happens to these sites at the end of the Harappan civilisation? 315 00:23:13,927 --> 00:23:18,205 Actually, if we look at the later Harappan stages... 316 00:23:18,487 --> 00:23:19,636 WOOD: Oh, yes. 317 00:23:19,727 --> 00:23:23,561 What you see is that there is a major shift eastwards, 318 00:23:24,127 --> 00:23:26,038 into the eastern part of the... 319 00:23:26,127 --> 00:23:28,004 Central and eastern part of the Ganges Plain, 320 00:23:28,087 --> 00:23:32,683 away from the major Ghaggar-Hakra settlements over here. 321 00:23:32,807 --> 00:23:34,160 -Wow. -In the last 1 0,000 years, 322 00:23:34,247 --> 00:23:36,203 we've actually seen a progressive decline 323 00:23:36,287 --> 00:23:40,041 in the strength of the Indian summer monsoon and particularly around... 324 00:23:40,127 --> 00:23:42,800 Some people suggest that around 3,500 years ago, 325 00:23:42,887 --> 00:23:46,926 there was actually a major decrease in the strength of the monsoon. 326 00:23:47,007 --> 00:23:49,521 Climate change isn't just happening now, it's happened in the past. 327 00:23:49,607 --> 00:23:50,881 All these early settlements, 328 00:23:50,967 --> 00:23:53,527 these Mature Harappan civilisation settlements, 329 00:23:53,607 --> 00:23:57,202 just completely disappear and we see this major shift eastward 330 00:23:57,287 --> 00:24:00,085 into the central part of the Ganges Plain. 331 00:24:04,607 --> 00:24:06,643 (THUNDER RUMBLING) 332 00:24:09,847 --> 00:24:13,681 WOOD: And ever since, from sacred songs to Bollywood movies, 333 00:24:13,767 --> 00:24:16,486 Indian people have loved the monsoon. 334 00:24:17,967 --> 00:24:22,006 The coming of the monsoon has an almost erotic charge. 335 00:24:22,687 --> 00:24:24,962 It's the giver of life itself. 336 00:24:41,967 --> 00:24:46,563 So climate change shifted the centre of gravity of Indian history. 337 00:24:47,047 --> 00:24:51,245 The people moved, following the rivers eastwards to new lands 338 00:24:51,327 --> 00:24:55,639 in a forested world that's been sacred from that day to this, 339 00:24:55,727 --> 00:24:57,957 the plain of the river Ganges. 340 00:24:59,847 --> 00:25:04,682 And here, the next chapter in the story of India will take place. 341 00:25:17,607 --> 00:25:20,565 -Hi, sir. How are you? -Hi. How are you? 342 00:25:20,967 --> 00:25:24,516 -How is the water? The water is good? -Yeah, good. 343 00:25:32,247 --> 00:25:35,637 So the first great Indian civilisation died out. 344 00:25:36,607 --> 00:25:38,165 Or did it? 345 00:25:38,247 --> 00:25:42,240 The mystery of the Indus cities is so tantalising 346 00:25:42,327 --> 00:25:46,843 and the differences with later Indian civilisation apparently so great, 347 00:25:46,927 --> 00:25:48,565 that it's easy to think that 348 00:25:48,647 --> 00:25:52,435 there was a major break in continuity of Indian civilisation. 349 00:25:53,087 --> 00:25:56,841 But history's not like that, especially Indian history, 350 00:25:56,927 --> 00:26:01,205 and it's only a very short time after the end of the last Indus cities, 351 00:26:01,287 --> 00:26:03,926 let's say around 1 500 BC, 352 00:26:04,007 --> 00:26:06,760 that we get the first definite evidence 353 00:26:06,847 --> 00:26:09,919 of an Indian language and an Indian literature. 354 00:26:13,287 --> 00:26:17,166 And language and literature are the next landmarks in the story. 355 00:26:18,527 --> 00:26:21,758 Texts we can not just hear, but read. 356 00:26:24,287 --> 00:26:28,075 The language is Sanskrit, the ancestor of all the modern dialects 357 00:26:28,167 --> 00:26:33,639 spoken in the north of the subcontinent across Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. 358 00:26:35,727 --> 00:26:40,164 It's the root of the languages spoken today by nearly a billion people. 359 00:26:40,247 --> 00:26:42,715 But where did Sanskrit come from? 360 00:26:45,927 --> 00:26:48,805 Is it the language of the Indus civilisation? 361 00:26:48,887 --> 00:26:51,959 Did it grow up here in the Ganges Plain? 362 00:26:52,047 --> 00:26:55,039 Or did it come from outside India? 363 00:26:57,327 --> 00:27:00,842 Like Latin, Sanskrit is no longer a spoken language. 364 00:27:00,927 --> 00:27:04,806 But here in the holy city of Varanasi, young Brahmin boys still learn it 365 00:27:04,887 --> 00:27:07,845 to recite their earliest scriptures, the Vedas. 366 00:27:08,927 --> 00:27:12,522 (BRAHMIN BOYS CHANTING IN SANSKRIT) 367 00:27:18,687 --> 00:27:22,999 For traditional Hindus, these are the most ancient scriptures in the world, 368 00:27:23,087 --> 00:27:25,282 older by far than the Bible. 369 00:27:35,007 --> 00:27:38,124 The Vedas have been orally transmitted down the ages 370 00:27:38,207 --> 00:27:40,402 as accurately as a recording, 371 00:27:40,487 --> 00:27:42,955 and it's because they're so perfectly preserved 372 00:27:43,047 --> 00:27:45,242 that linguists can date them. 373 00:27:45,327 --> 00:27:49,036 The oldest is a collection of a thousand hymns called the Rig Veda, 374 00:27:49,127 --> 00:27:52,119 which start around 1 500 BC, 375 00:27:52,207 --> 00:27:55,279 a time when Stonehenge was still in use. 376 00:27:58,087 --> 00:27:59,645 It's quite a thought, isn't it? 377 00:27:59,727 --> 00:28:03,163 In this room you've got a living link with India's deep past. 378 00:28:03,247 --> 00:28:07,957 What you're listening to are the sounds and the words of the Bronze Age. 379 00:28:11,287 --> 00:28:13,278 As with the mantras in Kerala, 380 00:28:13,367 --> 00:28:17,121 the archaic verses of the Rig Veda have been passed down word for word 381 00:28:17,207 --> 00:28:20,119 only within families of Brahmin priests. 382 00:28:23,447 --> 00:28:27,326 Is it easy to understand today 383 00:28:28,287 --> 00:28:32,405 or is the Sanskrit, ancient Sanskrit, very difficult to understand? 384 00:28:33,247 --> 00:28:37,126 -Yes, is very difficult is Sanskrit. -It's very difficult? 385 00:28:37,207 --> 00:28:39,437 Very difficult is Sanskrit. 386 00:28:40,887 --> 00:28:42,798 -WOOD: Only through Brahmins? -Only Brahmins. 387 00:28:42,887 --> 00:28:44,684 WOOD: Only Brahmins learning. 388 00:28:44,767 --> 00:28:47,600 So all the boys here today are Brahmin boys? 389 00:28:47,687 --> 00:28:51,236 -After Upanayana Samskara. -After... 390 00:28:51,327 --> 00:28:53,557 Upanayana Samskara, the holy thread. 391 00:28:53,647 --> 00:28:55,956 Oh, after the holy thread, yeah, yeah. 392 00:29:04,207 --> 00:29:08,086 WOOD: Out of the poems of the Rig Veda, a story emerges. 393 00:29:08,167 --> 00:29:12,683 Over several centuries, it's the tale of tribes moving across North India, 394 00:29:12,767 --> 00:29:15,565 lead by the God of Fire, burning forests, 395 00:29:15,647 --> 00:29:16,841 looking for new lands. 396 00:29:24,567 --> 00:29:27,479 The leaders of these tribes spoke Sanskrit. 397 00:29:27,567 --> 00:29:31,196 The Rig Veda shows that they fought battles among themselves 398 00:29:31,287 --> 00:29:33,721 and they called themselves Aryans. 399 00:29:44,727 --> 00:29:47,764 The significance of that story only began to be understood 400 00:29:47,847 --> 00:29:51,601 in the 1 8th century, when the British came here to Calcutta. 401 00:29:57,047 --> 00:29:59,845 The key figure was a Welsh judge called William Jones, 402 00:29:59,927 --> 00:30:02,236 who founded the Asiatic Society. 403 00:30:03,247 --> 00:30:07,525 Unlike some of his contemporaries, Jones admired Indian civilisation. 404 00:30:07,607 --> 00:30:10,883 He persuaded a Brahmin scholar to teach him Sanskrit, 405 00:30:10,967 --> 00:30:15,006 and what he found would rewrite the history of the world's languages, 406 00:30:15,087 --> 00:30:17,203 including our own. 407 00:30:22,647 --> 00:30:25,719 On February 2nd, 1 786, 408 00:30:25,807 --> 00:30:28,560 Jones gave a lecture here to the Society. 409 00:30:31,607 --> 00:30:33,404 Like others before him, 410 00:30:33,487 --> 00:30:39,244 he noticed a very close similarity between Sanskrit, Latin and Greek, 411 00:30:40,967 --> 00:30:44,084 and even to English and his native Welsh. 412 00:30:50,047 --> 00:30:54,677 Take the word for ''father'', pater in Greek and pater in Latin, 413 00:30:54,767 --> 00:30:56,803 is pitar in Sanskrit. 414 00:30:58,447 --> 00:31:02,599 The word for ''mother'', mater in Latin, meter in Greek, 415 00:31:02,687 --> 00:31:05,201 in Sanskrit is matar. 416 00:31:06,087 --> 00:31:10,478 And most amazing, the key word for horse in Sanskrit, aszwa, 417 00:31:10,567 --> 00:31:14,765 is exactly the same thousands of miles away in Lithuania. 418 00:31:15,647 --> 00:31:19,276 ''No philologer could examine all three, ''said Jones, 419 00:31:19,367 --> 00:31:23,645 ''without believing them to have sprung from some common source. '' 420 00:31:24,807 --> 00:31:27,037 We now know that Jones was right, 421 00:31:27,127 --> 00:31:30,517 and though this is now hugely controversial in the subcontinent, 422 00:31:30,607 --> 00:31:34,600 most linguists agree the common source lay outside India. 423 00:31:34,687 --> 00:31:37,360 Oh, thank you very much. Oh, this is very exciting. 424 00:31:37,447 --> 00:31:40,245 WOOD: So where had Sanskrit come from? 425 00:31:40,327 --> 00:31:44,286 In the Rig Veda lies the key to the next phase of the story. 426 00:31:44,367 --> 00:31:46,358 So, Professor Biswas, this is... 427 00:31:46,447 --> 00:31:53,125 I'm looking in the modern catalogue, 6608, and we are looking for bundle 1 4. 428 00:31:53,567 --> 00:31:56,639 -BISWAS: Bundle 1 4, this one. -Yeah, great. 429 00:31:57,127 --> 00:31:59,880 It says here, ''Copied in Samvat, 430 00:31:59,967 --> 00:32:04,358 ''the year 1 41 8,'' which is AD 1 362. 431 00:32:04,447 --> 00:32:06,483 -''Appearance very old.'' -Yeah, yeah. 432 00:32:06,567 --> 00:32:10,196 And probably this is the earliest manuscript of Padapatha. 433 00:32:10,287 --> 00:32:11,845 The earliest manuscript. This is fantastic. 434 00:32:11,927 --> 00:32:13,519 This is the earliest manuscript of Padapatha. 435 00:32:13,607 --> 00:32:15,165 WOOD: When this text was written down, 436 00:32:15,247 --> 00:32:19,604 it had already been passed down orally for more than 2,500 years. 437 00:32:19,687 --> 00:32:21,996 BISWAS: The first verse of the Rig Veda... 438 00:32:22,087 --> 00:32:24,999 (RECITING RIG VEDA) 439 00:32:32,207 --> 00:32:34,118 WOOD: In the Rig Veda, there are many clues 440 00:32:34,207 --> 00:32:37,483 to the origin of the Sanskrit-speaking peoples. 441 00:32:37,567 --> 00:32:41,321 First, the Rig Vedic gods are not originally Indian. 442 00:32:41,767 --> 00:32:43,917 The most important god was Indra. 443 00:32:44,007 --> 00:32:48,205 Indra was the god of thunder, he was the god of rain. 444 00:32:48,647 --> 00:32:50,763 The god of thunder and the god of rain. 445 00:32:50,847 --> 00:32:54,760 He brought down the water from sky to earth. 446 00:32:54,847 --> 00:32:56,565 -He bought down the water from the sky. -From sky. 447 00:32:56,647 --> 00:32:59,480 WOOD: Then there's the chariots and horses. 448 00:32:59,567 --> 00:33:02,161 Horses are not known in the Indus civilisation, 449 00:33:02,247 --> 00:33:05,603 and yet they're a key part of the society of the Rig Veda. 450 00:33:05,687 --> 00:33:07,757 Chariots were drawn by the horses. 451 00:33:07,847 --> 00:33:10,122 They used to ride the horses 452 00:33:10,207 --> 00:33:13,483 and it was very familiar animal to them. 453 00:33:14,047 --> 00:33:18,563 And I think that they tamed the horse at a very early period. 454 00:33:20,287 --> 00:33:24,280 WOOD: And another clue is the evidence of a migration eastwards. 455 00:33:25,047 --> 00:33:28,198 So a movement eastwards can be determined. 456 00:33:28,287 --> 00:33:30,482 And some of the rivers are identified 457 00:33:30,567 --> 00:33:33,081 with rivers almost towards the Afghan border? 458 00:33:33,167 --> 00:33:36,557 -Yeah, yeah. -The Swat, Suvastu and the Kabul river? 459 00:33:37,167 --> 00:33:41,763 This is the first movement of Aryans. 460 00:33:41,847 --> 00:33:45,157 Is this the name they called themselves and what does it mean? 461 00:33:45,247 --> 00:33:49,399 It actually means ''the civilised''. The sabhya. 462 00:33:49,487 --> 00:33:53,082 -The socialised, civilised person... -Noble or... Yeah. Refined... 463 00:33:53,167 --> 00:33:54,725 -Refined person. -Yeah. 464 00:33:54,807 --> 00:33:57,526 And so, the use of the word arya. 465 00:33:58,527 --> 00:34:01,439 -That's what they called themselves? -Yeah. 466 00:34:02,007 --> 00:34:04,567 WOOD: So this is a key moment in the story. 467 00:34:04,647 --> 00:34:09,084 Around 1 500 BC, after the death of the Indus cities, 468 00:34:09,167 --> 00:34:14,560 Aryan tribes began to enter India with new gods and a new language. 469 00:34:17,407 --> 00:34:21,366 The earliest hymns in the Rig Veda mention places in the northwest 470 00:34:21,447 --> 00:34:25,042 where the Aryans are first found inside the subcontinent. 471 00:34:26,087 --> 00:34:30,683 They settled in the valley of the Indus, the river that gave India its name. 472 00:34:33,447 --> 00:34:37,884 They fought battles on the Kabul River, which flows down from Afghanistan. 473 00:34:41,967 --> 00:34:44,845 And they herded their cattle on the river Swat, 474 00:34:44,927 --> 00:34:47,441 today in Pakistan's northwest frontier. 475 00:34:51,487 --> 00:34:56,766 The heart of the early Aryan territory was the region of Peshawar in Pakistan. 476 00:34:58,327 --> 00:35:00,966 And here I hope to solve another clue. 477 00:35:01,047 --> 00:35:05,723 The Rig Veda talks about a sacred drink central to the Aryans' rituals, 478 00:35:05,807 --> 00:35:09,925 a speciality of the tribes around here. It was called Soma. 479 00:35:10,407 --> 00:35:13,558 The Rig Veda says it was taken from a mountain plant. 480 00:35:13,647 --> 00:35:18,357 It didn't have leaves or berries, it was a brown twig-like plant 481 00:35:18,447 --> 00:35:21,962 which you crushed to create a kind of distillation. 482 00:35:22,047 --> 00:35:26,245 Now, in the mountains of Afghanistan, there's still a drink called Soma today, 483 00:35:26,327 --> 00:35:30,923 and if we're likely to find it anywhere, it'll be here in the bazaar at Peshawar. 484 00:35:35,767 --> 00:35:40,318 Just off the street of storytellers is the alley of the apothecaries, 485 00:35:40,407 --> 00:35:44,559 and here I tried out the Rig Veda's description of the Soma plant. 486 00:35:45,287 --> 00:35:47,005 No, that's not it. 487 00:35:49,127 --> 00:35:52,244 A long stalk, no leaves, 488 00:35:52,327 --> 00:35:55,000 makes bitter, very bitter taste. 489 00:35:55,087 --> 00:35:57,123 (SPEAKING URDU) 490 00:36:03,487 --> 00:36:06,718 -Soma? You have? -Yeah. 491 00:36:06,807 --> 00:36:10,561 WOOD: (LAUGHING) Ah, fantastic, fantastic! 492 00:36:10,647 --> 00:36:13,366 -He has the natural plant here? -VENDOR: Yeah, yeah. 493 00:36:17,767 --> 00:36:21,077 WOOD: It can be one foot, two foot, three feet long, 494 00:36:21,807 --> 00:36:23,445 scented like... 495 00:36:23,527 --> 00:36:24,755 Ah! 496 00:36:24,847 --> 00:36:28,044 (ALL SPEAKING URDU) 497 00:36:30,527 --> 00:36:32,199 This is it. 498 00:36:32,287 --> 00:36:34,926 This is it, smells slightly like pine. 499 00:36:37,447 --> 00:36:39,119 If I boil this up in water, 500 00:36:39,207 --> 00:36:43,200 I should be able to taste the bitter taste of it. Yeah, yeah, okay. 501 00:36:43,287 --> 00:36:45,755 (PEOPLE CHATTERING) 502 00:36:45,847 --> 00:36:48,759 We don't know exactly how Soma was prepared, 503 00:36:48,847 --> 00:36:52,396 although we do know that they sweetened its bitter taste with honey. 504 00:36:52,527 --> 00:36:56,122 What we want is a pot of this, full boiling water, 505 00:36:56,207 --> 00:36:59,085 -but a lot of it so it's strong. -MAN: Okay. 506 00:36:59,167 --> 00:37:03,479 WOOD: Soma is still used as a medicine in Central Asia. 507 00:37:03,567 --> 00:37:07,037 The active element in the plant is ephedrine, 508 00:37:07,127 --> 00:37:10,278 and the effect that it has, according to the Rig Veda is, 509 00:37:10,367 --> 00:37:13,518 well, if you take too much of it, it can cause nausea, 510 00:37:13,607 --> 00:37:17,316 it can be frightening, it can give you vertigo, 511 00:37:17,407 --> 00:37:19,363 sickness, vomiting. 512 00:37:19,447 --> 00:37:24,567 If you take it in the right measure, it enlivens the senses, 513 00:37:24,647 --> 00:37:27,081 sharpens you up, keeps you awake. 514 00:37:27,167 --> 00:37:31,604 The poets in the Rig Veda compose their songs often at night 515 00:37:31,687 --> 00:37:33,120 having drunk Soma, 516 00:37:33,207 --> 00:37:37,359 and, of course, Indra, King of the Gods, drinks vast quantities of this 517 00:37:37,447 --> 00:37:40,723 perhaps because it's thought to be an aphrodisiac as well. 518 00:37:43,967 --> 00:37:46,481 My God, look at the colour of it! 519 00:37:46,567 --> 00:37:48,364 (WOOD LAUGHING) 520 00:37:48,447 --> 00:37:52,360 But Soma's not an Indian plant. It doesn't grow in the humid plains. 521 00:37:52,447 --> 00:37:55,280 And today, it's no longer part of Hindu religion. 522 00:37:55,367 --> 00:37:57,358 It came from outside. 523 00:37:58,967 --> 00:38:02,277 Now I'm getting a kind of tingling feeling all over. 524 00:38:03,047 --> 00:38:07,404 Just sharpens the senses up, makes you slightly... 525 00:38:07,487 --> 00:38:10,843 Oh, go on then! In for a penny, in for a pound! Thank you. 526 00:38:10,927 --> 00:38:12,155 (SPEAKING URDU) 527 00:38:12,247 --> 00:38:16,399 Slight feeling all over now of slightly tingling, 528 00:38:16,487 --> 00:38:18,796 heart beating slightly faster, 529 00:38:20,007 --> 00:38:22,441 senses just slightly sharpened up. 530 00:38:23,407 --> 00:38:27,195 This is a really important aspect of the Rig Veda. 531 00:38:27,287 --> 00:38:31,326 There are many, many of their thousand poems devoted to the merits 532 00:38:31,407 --> 00:38:35,161 of drinking Soma, almost as an elixir of the gods 533 00:38:35,247 --> 00:38:37,636 and chiefly of the King of the Gods himself. 534 00:38:37,727 --> 00:38:40,639 WOOD: It also makes you talk too much. 535 00:38:47,607 --> 00:38:50,519 So the northwest frontier and the rivers of the Punjab 536 00:38:50,607 --> 00:38:53,644 were the first home of the Aryans inside India. 537 00:38:55,607 --> 00:38:58,963 But the Rig Veda suggests they'd come from much further afield, 538 00:38:59,047 --> 00:39:03,279 beyond the Khyber Pass, even beyond the mountains of the Hindu Kush. 539 00:39:05,647 --> 00:39:09,196 The clues now point us northwards into Central Asia. 540 00:39:16,807 --> 00:39:22,165 And our search for the Aryans led us into Turkmenistan, to Ashgabat. 541 00:39:26,767 --> 00:39:31,443 A closed world in the last days of its strange and secretive ruler, 542 00:39:31,527 --> 00:39:32,960 Turkmenbashi. 543 00:39:36,927 --> 00:39:39,919 And here we gathered supplies for our journey onwards 544 00:39:40,007 --> 00:39:43,841 to the site of a sensational new archaeological discovery. 545 00:39:48,087 --> 00:39:53,115 We'd arranged a rendezvous out in the Karakum, the Black Desert, 546 00:39:54,687 --> 00:39:56,040 on the migration route 547 00:39:56,127 --> 00:39:58,960 by which the ancestors of the Aryans must have come 548 00:39:59,047 --> 00:40:01,845 out of Central Asia in the Bronze Age. 549 00:40:08,487 --> 00:40:12,321 Four thousand years ago, this desert was a fertile oasis 550 00:40:12,407 --> 00:40:15,319 home to thousands of settlements, 551 00:40:15,407 --> 00:40:17,875 all of them destroyed by climate change 552 00:40:17,967 --> 00:40:21,198 at the same time as Harappa and Mohenjo Daro. 553 00:40:23,847 --> 00:40:28,045 And out here, we made our rendezvous with Victor Sarianidi. 554 00:40:28,287 --> 00:40:33,486 So Professor Sarianidi is, to say the least, a living legend. 555 00:40:34,127 --> 00:40:37,836 One of the great Russian archaeologists, who's been excavating out here 556 00:40:37,927 --> 00:40:40,122 in the wilds for many years 557 00:40:40,207 --> 00:40:46,521 and found what few archaeologists are ever lucky enough to find, 558 00:40:47,407 --> 00:40:49,159 a lost civilisation. 559 00:40:55,567 --> 00:41:00,277 Sarianidi is excavating a vast, fortified mudbrick enclosure 560 00:41:01,687 --> 00:41:05,362 and a huge sacred precinct with tombs and fire altars. 561 00:41:07,767 --> 00:41:09,359 The material culture here 562 00:41:09,447 --> 00:41:12,166 is the mirror image of the Aryans of the Rig Veda 563 00:41:12,247 --> 00:41:17,037 and their ancient Iranian cousins who followed the Zoroastrian religion. 564 00:41:35,647 --> 00:41:38,161 What date does the site finish... Stop being used? 565 00:41:52,047 --> 00:41:56,518 So change of river and climate change moves the population? 566 00:42:03,127 --> 00:42:06,005 This is where the Soma Haoma was prepared? 567 00:42:06,087 --> 00:42:10,080 -The sacred drink, in this kind of bowl? -SARIANIDI: Yeah. 568 00:42:10,167 --> 00:42:14,365 What were the ingredients of the sacred drink? What went into it? 569 00:42:14,447 --> 00:42:15,926 (WOMAN TRANSLATING) 570 00:42:22,287 --> 00:42:24,118 -Have you tasted? -No! 571 00:42:24,207 --> 00:42:26,243 -Have you made today? -Well, probably. 572 00:42:26,367 --> 00:42:28,562 (ALL LAUGHING) 573 00:42:28,647 --> 00:42:30,080 Too early in the morning? 574 00:42:30,167 --> 00:42:32,123 Well, it certainly is for me, I'll tell you that! 575 00:42:36,247 --> 00:42:39,125 When you look at the connections, you've got the sacred drink here, 576 00:42:39,207 --> 00:42:41,482 the Soma, you've got the fire altars, 577 00:42:41,567 --> 00:42:44,877 you've got the beginnings of very close similarities 578 00:42:44,967 --> 00:42:47,276 with what we heard in the Rig Veda. 579 00:42:47,367 --> 00:42:52,600 What about horses then, Victor? Have you found evidence of horses? 580 00:42:54,247 --> 00:42:57,922 The horse was first domesticated out here in Central Asia. 581 00:43:00,447 --> 00:43:03,007 So this is a foal, for a king's mausoleum? 582 00:43:03,087 --> 00:43:05,282 WOMAN: Yes. SARIANIDI: Yeah, yeah. 583 00:43:05,367 --> 00:43:10,122 The horse sacrifice was the greatest ritual an Aryan king could do. 584 00:43:14,247 --> 00:43:16,886 WOOD: All of these are royal tombs? 585 00:43:16,967 --> 00:43:22,519 And in these tombs, you found wheeled vehicles, like carts. 586 00:43:22,607 --> 00:43:24,757 -With four wheels? -Da, yes. 587 00:43:24,847 --> 00:43:26,917 With four wheels, yeah. Really interesting, isn't it? 588 00:43:27,007 --> 00:43:30,363 You know, the Rig Veda, when they talk about the wheeled vehicles, 589 00:43:30,447 --> 00:43:35,202 in the early Rig Veda, they used this word ratha, in Sanskrit. Ratha. 590 00:43:35,287 --> 00:43:38,199 And it's not a chariot, it is actually a cart, 591 00:43:38,287 --> 00:43:41,085 and here they have actually found the cart. 592 00:43:47,527 --> 00:43:51,805 The origin of the Aryans must lie much further into Central Asia. 593 00:43:51,887 --> 00:43:55,960 This was perhaps a staging post for one group out of many 594 00:43:56,047 --> 00:43:58,242 on the way to Iran and India. 595 00:43:59,647 --> 00:44:02,684 I'd like to toast you. Thank you for your hospitality. 596 00:44:02,767 --> 00:44:07,682 -It's great to finally get here. -SARIANIDI: And we help you, if we may. 597 00:44:07,767 --> 00:44:08,882 Thank you. 598 00:44:10,287 --> 00:44:13,245 (MAN SPEAKING RUSSIAN) 599 00:44:22,447 --> 00:44:24,642 Cheers. To women. To the women... 600 00:44:24,727 --> 00:44:26,524 WOOD: And that night under the stars, 601 00:44:26,607 --> 00:44:29,075 another thought came to me about the Rig Veda. 602 00:44:29,167 --> 00:44:30,839 WOOD: The women! 603 00:44:34,887 --> 00:44:38,243 The communal drinking, the convivial feast, 604 00:44:38,327 --> 00:44:42,718 was that how some of this ancient poetry was composed by the bards 605 00:44:42,807 --> 00:44:44,957 in front of the Aryan kings? 606 00:44:47,567 --> 00:44:49,603 Mighty Indra, 607 00:44:50,487 --> 00:44:54,958 let your regal mounts bring you here to drink Soma, 608 00:44:55,727 --> 00:44:59,117 the juice which is swifter than thought. 609 00:45:03,967 --> 00:45:06,959 Indra, wield your thunderbolt! 610 00:45:07,047 --> 00:45:09,561 Indra, bring rain! 611 00:45:09,647 --> 00:45:12,036 Grant all our desires. 612 00:45:12,127 --> 00:45:16,439 Part the sky and make all things visible. 613 00:45:23,047 --> 00:45:27,404 Part the sky and drink Soma, 614 00:45:27,487 --> 00:45:34,404 that opens our mind to the vastness of your skies. 615 00:45:44,487 --> 00:45:46,443 Indra! 616 00:45:57,327 --> 00:46:00,558 WOOD: It's a wonderful, tantalising mystery, isn't it? 617 00:46:00,647 --> 00:46:03,559 The Aryans, or to be more precise, 618 00:46:03,647 --> 00:46:06,241 the cluster of languages that would become 619 00:46:06,327 --> 00:46:11,526 modern English, German, French, Latin and Greek, Persian and Sanskrit. 620 00:46:12,327 --> 00:46:15,478 Where did they come from and how did they spread? 621 00:46:16,327 --> 00:46:20,002 Well, it may just be that here in the deserts of Turkmenistan, 622 00:46:20,087 --> 00:46:24,638 for the first time we can pin these people down on their migration. 623 00:46:24,927 --> 00:46:28,840 They arrived in this place well before 2000 BC. 624 00:46:29,687 --> 00:46:34,238 They defended themselves in these great mudbrick citadels, 625 00:46:34,327 --> 00:46:36,443 they were cattle herders, 626 00:46:36,527 --> 00:46:41,647 they had a class of priests who performed fire rituals at special altars 627 00:46:41,727 --> 00:46:45,037 and made the sacred intoxicating drink, 628 00:46:45,487 --> 00:46:48,923 and they had horses and wheeled wagons. 629 00:46:50,367 --> 00:46:54,918 Around 1 700 and 1 800 BC, they moved on again, 630 00:46:55,007 --> 00:46:58,556 perhaps this time because of overpopulation, climate change, 631 00:46:58,647 --> 00:47:00,524 the shifting of rivers. 632 00:47:00,607 --> 00:47:03,167 But this time, they moved southwards 633 00:47:03,247 --> 00:47:07,240 towards the passes of the Hindu Kush and the Indian subcontinent. 634 00:47:07,767 --> 00:47:12,318 The history of India was about to enter its defining phase. 635 00:47:25,127 --> 00:47:27,925 WOOD: Now again, we need to jump the centuries. 636 00:47:28,287 --> 00:47:30,278 By around 1 000 BC, 637 00:47:30,367 --> 00:47:33,245 Aryan tribes were settled across North India 638 00:47:33,327 --> 00:47:35,795 and fighting each other for supremacy. 639 00:47:35,887 --> 00:47:41,200 And that period of heroic warfare was eventually crystallised in a great myth, 640 00:47:41,727 --> 00:47:43,365 the Mahabharata. 641 00:47:50,527 --> 00:47:53,678 Composed in Sanskrit, it's the longest poem in the world, 642 00:47:53,767 --> 00:47:57,043 and for all Indians, the greatest story ever told. 643 00:47:57,607 --> 00:48:00,485 (HINDI SONG PLAYING) 644 00:48:19,207 --> 00:48:21,675 Like Homer's tale of Troy, 645 00:48:21,767 --> 00:48:26,477 the Mahabharata is a story of war and tragedy, a doomsday epic. 646 00:48:26,887 --> 00:48:30,846 It harks back to the time when the Aryan tribes had settled in India. 647 00:48:30,927 --> 00:48:35,398 An archetypal tale of family feud that ends in an apocalyptic battle 648 00:48:35,487 --> 00:48:37,478 here at Kurukshetra. 649 00:48:37,567 --> 00:48:40,798 It's dawn on the festival of the great god Shiva, 650 00:48:40,887 --> 00:48:45,403 and the pilgrims are gathering here by the enormous sacred pool 651 00:48:45,487 --> 00:48:47,000 at Kurukshetra 652 00:48:48,127 --> 00:48:54,885 to celebrate a battle which, in Indian tradition, took place in 31 00 BC. 653 00:48:58,967 --> 00:49:02,164 For Indian people, the battle has always marked the divide 654 00:49:02,247 --> 00:49:05,762 between the time of myth and the beginning of real history. 655 00:49:05,847 --> 00:49:09,920 It's the last time when men and gods walked the Earth together. 656 00:49:10,007 --> 00:49:13,682 The story of the rival families, the Kurus and the Pandavas, 657 00:49:13,767 --> 00:49:17,203 would permeate Indian culture, in all Indian languages, 658 00:49:17,287 --> 00:49:22,077 a fundamental guide to how to live your life and do your duty. 659 00:49:22,767 --> 00:49:26,043 MAN: It's a battlefield for Kaurav and Pandav, 660 00:49:27,407 --> 00:49:31,366 at the time of Dwapara. Dwapara is Krishna's time. 661 00:49:31,607 --> 00:49:33,563 Lord Krishna's time. 662 00:49:35,807 --> 00:49:39,561 All the warriors, they belong to his own family, 663 00:49:39,647 --> 00:49:41,524 all family relatives. 664 00:49:44,727 --> 00:49:47,525 He doesn't want to do war with his own... 665 00:49:47,607 --> 00:49:50,075 WOOD: He doesn't want to fight against his own people. 666 00:49:50,167 --> 00:49:51,441 And what did Krishna say to him? 667 00:49:51,527 --> 00:49:56,681 Then Krishna teach, advise him, 668 00:49:56,767 --> 00:49:58,803 how to perform his duty, 669 00:49:58,887 --> 00:50:02,926 the importance of performing duty for the king. 670 00:50:03,007 --> 00:50:06,317 -WOOD: Your duty is to fight? -The performance of duty is must. 671 00:50:08,567 --> 00:50:12,685 MAN: It's really an epic that speaks to every age. 672 00:50:12,767 --> 00:50:17,204 It is an epic full of stories of human beings with feet of clay, 673 00:50:17,287 --> 00:50:21,599 with lust and lechery, and ambitions and fears, 674 00:50:21,687 --> 00:50:24,155 people who have committed acts of betrayal 675 00:50:24,247 --> 00:50:27,159 and sold each other down the river. 676 00:50:27,647 --> 00:50:29,478 There's a tremendous amount of it, and sort of... 677 00:50:29,567 --> 00:50:31,125 To read the Mahabharata today 678 00:50:31,207 --> 00:50:34,756 is to recognise how thrilling it must have been to hear it the first time, 679 00:50:34,847 --> 00:50:38,237 somewhere between 400 BC and 400 AD, 680 00:50:38,327 --> 00:50:41,080 which is roughly the 800-year span during which it was composed. 681 00:50:44,007 --> 00:50:47,204 THAROOR: During that period, the tale was told and re-told 682 00:50:47,287 --> 00:50:50,484 to a point where it became a sort of national library of India, 683 00:50:50,567 --> 00:50:53,161 where every tale that had to be told was incorporated 684 00:50:53,247 --> 00:50:55,681 into a retelling of the Mahabharata. 685 00:50:57,967 --> 00:51:00,720 All sorts of things got tossed into this. 686 00:51:01,687 --> 00:51:06,283 Literally every single thing that people wanted to talk about their times 687 00:51:06,367 --> 00:51:09,439 was interpolated into a retelling of the epic. 688 00:51:10,167 --> 00:51:15,195 So, for 800 years, the Mahabharata became the story of India. 689 00:51:19,847 --> 00:51:23,920 WOOD: And stories, too, become part of a nation's identity, 690 00:51:24,007 --> 00:51:27,204 for they help create a shared past that binds us all, 691 00:51:27,287 --> 00:51:29,482 irrespective of language or religion, 692 00:51:29,567 --> 00:51:33,196 making an allegiance to the idea of India itself. 693 00:51:34,607 --> 00:51:37,167 But was the war more than just myth? 694 00:51:37,927 --> 00:51:41,124 WOOD: So these are all places that were famous in the legend? 695 00:51:41,247 --> 00:51:43,158 MAN: These names have not changed. 696 00:51:43,247 --> 00:51:48,765 Till today, they bear the same name. The reason is that they have been... 697 00:51:48,847 --> 00:51:51,919 WOOD: In 1 949, two years after independence, 698 00:51:52,007 --> 00:51:54,077 a young archaeologist, BB Lal, 699 00:51:54,167 --> 00:51:57,682 went to the citadel of the warring clans at Hastinapur 700 00:51:57,767 --> 00:52:00,042 to see if real history lay behind the myth. 701 00:52:01,647 --> 00:52:04,605 -Right. -This is a view of the Hastinapur mound, 702 00:52:04,727 --> 00:52:07,958 and we put a long trench right across the mound. 703 00:52:08,047 --> 00:52:10,925 We are looking at this mound from the west. 704 00:52:11,007 --> 00:52:14,124 On the eastern side, the river used to flow. 705 00:52:14,207 --> 00:52:17,882 Right by the side of the old river Ganges, in ancient times. 706 00:52:19,007 --> 00:52:21,396 WOOD: His guide was not only archaeological science 707 00:52:21,487 --> 00:52:24,638 but the tradition handed down in the Mahabharata. 708 00:52:25,687 --> 00:52:29,919 LAL: On the western side of the mound, we were getting the painted grey ware. 709 00:52:30,007 --> 00:52:32,805 On the eastern side, we were not getting it. 710 00:52:32,887 --> 00:52:36,675 So I was very much worried. I spent many nights without sleep. 711 00:52:36,767 --> 00:52:38,359 (WOOD CHUCKLING) 712 00:52:38,447 --> 00:52:43,840 And the texts say, a great flood came in the Ganga and washed away Hastinapur. 713 00:52:43,927 --> 00:52:46,361 WOOD: A great flood washed away Hastinapur? 714 00:52:46,447 --> 00:52:49,280 LAL: And you can see the man in this figure 715 00:52:49,367 --> 00:52:52,882 is pointing to the erosion mark left by the river. 716 00:52:52,967 --> 00:52:55,037 -WOOD: It's very clear, isn't it? -Yeah. 717 00:52:55,127 --> 00:53:00,440 So you'd found the key evidence that the tradition had... Was correct? 718 00:53:00,527 --> 00:53:03,405 That there had been a flood that had destroyed part of the city? 719 00:53:03,487 --> 00:53:05,000 LAL: Yes. 720 00:53:11,327 --> 00:53:16,640 WOOD: When you go to Hastinapur today, you'd almost think it could be then. 721 00:53:17,327 --> 00:53:21,843 What Lal found under the ground was so similar to what is still above it. 722 00:53:23,407 --> 00:53:26,479 The country people of India live the same way. 723 00:53:26,567 --> 00:53:28,637 They build the same kind of houses. 724 00:53:30,247 --> 00:53:34,923 Ancient Hastinapur was recognisable in the India of today. 725 00:53:49,407 --> 00:53:51,602 This is the trench that Professor Lal 726 00:53:51,687 --> 00:53:54,121 dug through the mound nearly 60 years ago. 727 00:53:54,207 --> 00:53:55,640 It's crumbling now, 728 00:53:55,727 --> 00:53:59,561 but you can still make out the different layers of the city. 729 00:54:01,167 --> 00:54:04,762 It's a bit bigger than Troy, for the sake of comparison, 730 00:54:04,847 --> 00:54:06,838 about 700 yards across, 731 00:54:06,927 --> 00:54:10,886 a royal citadel of one of these early kings of the Ganges Valley, 732 00:54:10,967 --> 00:54:15,006 with mudbrick defences, store rooms, 733 00:54:15,087 --> 00:54:18,796 rooms for the warriors who were their armed following, 734 00:54:18,887 --> 00:54:23,165 and somewhere here, presumably a palace, although Professor Lal never found that. 735 00:54:23,247 --> 00:54:27,559 Now what connected this place with the war in the Mahabharata? 736 00:54:27,647 --> 00:54:30,320 Well, remember three things. 737 00:54:30,407 --> 00:54:33,240 A legend which named the place, 738 00:54:33,327 --> 00:54:36,922 the story of the flood and the pottery. 739 00:54:37,007 --> 00:54:38,520 Now, here's the pottery. 740 00:54:38,607 --> 00:54:43,044 This kind of stuff you can pick up even today after the rains 741 00:54:43,127 --> 00:54:46,756 all over the site. They call it ''painted grey ware''. 742 00:54:46,847 --> 00:54:51,557 You can see why. It's grey, beautifully turned on a wheel 743 00:54:51,647 --> 00:54:53,285 and it's painted. 744 00:54:54,927 --> 00:54:58,203 That was the evidence that led Professor Lal to believe 745 00:54:58,287 --> 00:55:00,676 that there was truth behind the legend 746 00:55:00,767 --> 00:55:04,521 and that the great war of the Mahabharata really took place. 747 00:55:05,287 --> 00:55:09,326 Remember, this was the first great excavation done after independence, 748 00:55:09,407 --> 00:55:11,045 and it was of crucial importance 749 00:55:11,127 --> 00:55:13,960 for the Indian people's view of their own history. 750 00:55:14,047 --> 00:55:18,245 The Mahabharata was their greatest and most loved epic. 751 00:55:18,327 --> 00:55:22,366 And here, this excavation seemed to prove that 752 00:55:22,447 --> 00:55:26,679 long before all the colonial periods which had dominated India, 753 00:55:26,767 --> 00:55:29,679 there was a real history and it was their own. 754 00:55:36,647 --> 00:55:41,516 Over the next 3,000 years, Greeks and Huns, Turks and Afghans, 755 00:55:41,607 --> 00:55:46,203 Moghuls and British, Alexander, Tamburlaine, Babur 756 00:55:46,287 --> 00:55:50,280 will all come and fall under India's spell. 757 00:55:55,887 --> 00:56:00,438 And India's greatest strength, as the oldest civilisations know, 758 00:56:00,527 --> 00:56:02,563 will be to adapt and change, 759 00:56:02,647 --> 00:56:06,242 to absorb the wounds of history and to use its gifts, 760 00:56:06,327 --> 00:56:10,002 but somehow, magically, always remain India. 761 00:56:37,087 --> 00:56:40,363 This is the sacred city of Mathura on the river Yamuna. 762 00:56:40,447 --> 00:56:43,325 The cool season is over now, the rains are ending 763 00:56:43,407 --> 00:56:45,967 and the heat is beginning to rise. 764 00:56:46,047 --> 00:56:47,719 (PEOPLE CHANTING AND CLAPPING) 765 00:56:47,807 --> 00:56:50,640 The festival of Holi celebrates the coming of light, 766 00:56:50,727 --> 00:56:53,400 the triumph of good, the growth of life. 767 00:56:53,887 --> 00:56:56,481 And down there, there's bank managers and ITboffins 768 00:56:56,567 --> 00:56:59,479 rubbing shoulders with farmers and rickshaw men, 769 00:56:59,567 --> 00:57:03,037 all of them dancing for a god from prehistory. 770 00:57:12,647 --> 00:57:17,562 This amazing journey has already taken us from the deep south of India 771 00:57:18,247 --> 00:57:20,681 to the wilds of the Hindu Kush in Central Asia 772 00:57:20,767 --> 00:57:23,565 and here to the heart of the Ganges Plain. 773 00:57:24,527 --> 00:57:29,555 Already you can see the cultures and the languages 774 00:57:30,007 --> 00:57:33,044 and the religions of India have been built up 775 00:57:33,127 --> 00:57:35,561 over tens of thousands of years. 776 00:57:35,647 --> 00:57:40,880 They're the deep current on which events, the great events of history, 777 00:57:40,967 --> 00:57:43,242 are just the surface movements. 778 00:57:46,127 --> 00:57:51,281 And they make up that deep core of the identity of India. 779 00:57:54,847 --> 00:57:56,280 And this... 780 00:57:59,647 --> 00:58:02,923 And this is just the beginning! 781 00:58:04,727 --> 00:58:07,400 (PEOPLE CHEERING) 782 00:58:11,327 --> 00:58:14,239 WOOD: Next in the Story of India. 783 00:58:14,327 --> 00:58:18,400 Tales of war and peace, and the power of ideas. 784 00:58:18,767 --> 00:58:21,918 The greatest warriors, the greatest thinkers 785 00:58:22,007 --> 00:58:24,840 and the most dangerous idea in the world.