All language subtitles for The.Story.of.India.E03.Spice.Routes.and.Silk.Roads.720p.10bit.BluRay.x265-budgetbits

[Indistinct chatter]

MICHAEL WOOD, VOICE-OVER:
India today is bidding to become

a world power
and a global economy.

But the roots of her rise
lie 2,000 years ago.

Rich in resources,
India has traded with the world

since the beginning of history.

But commerce is never
just about commodities,

it's the way civilizations
adapt and grow,

discover new ideas
and new worlds.

We've now reached
the days of the Roman Empire,

which saw the beginnings of
global trade on the silk road

and the spice route--

the next chapter
in "The Story of India."

Sometimes change in history

happens in
the unlikeliest of ways.

Here in India,

2,000 years ago in the time
of the Roman Empire,

these 3 things:
the produce of a weed,

of a grass, and
of the lava of a beetle

changed the course
of Indian history,

brought about
the growth of civilization

and caused
other countries to make

great voyages across
thousands of miles of ocean--

seeking the riches of India.

[Man vocalizing]

[Woman vocalizing]

The Arabian Sea off the coast
of Kerala, South India.

[Man speaking foreign
language on hand radio]

[Speaking
foreign language]

Our boat is carrying timber,
pepper, and spices

from South India
to the Persian Gulf:

the way they've done it
for more than 2,000 years.

It's easy to forget
the great voyages of

Columbus and Vasco de Gama
were to find India.

And those voyages started
in the days of the Romans.

[Men speaking foreign language]

We know about
the Roman trade with India

because of a guidebook written
by an old Greek sea captain

who knew all the Indian ports
like the back of his hand.

It's full of the most wonderful
detail that enables us to sample

the sights and sounds of India

in the time of
the ancient Romans.

"And this was the time,"
wrote an ancient historian,

"when history became one,

"when the affairs of
the Mediterranean,

"Africa and Asia connected."

From the first century A.D.,

Roman trading ports dotted
the shores of the Red Sea,

East Africa and India.

WOOD:
Ah, here we are. Yes.

[Asking question in
foreign language]

It started with
the discovery of the monsoon.

WOOD: Aiden.
MAN: Aiden?

WOOD: Ah, right.

[Speaking foreign
language]

WOOD:
July-August time, monsoon?

You are sailing
or not sailing?

No.

WOOD: In May, in June,
July-August--

Indian coast.

MAN: Dangerous time.
WOOD: Dangerous time.

It's so easy
as a Western person

to see things from a Western
perspective, isn't it?

We talk about these great
voyages of exploration--

the discovery of
the monsoon--

as if Indian sailors
didn't know about

the monsoon all along.

But still, the Romans
and the Greeks did discover

the monsoon--for themselves.

And the man who did it,
according to the story,

was a sailor called
Hippalus in about 150 B.C.

And what Hippalus
discovered was this:

in June, the south-west monsoon
begins to blow

in this direction
across the Indian Ocean.

The seas become heavy,
it becomes dangerous to sail

but, with strong enough ships,
you can take that wind,

coming out of the Red Sea

and it'll bring you
across to India.

"It's hard going," says the
Greek guide to the Indian Ocean,

"but you can get there
really quickly."

And then, this is the really
great thing about it,

in November, a couple of months
after the heavy winds die down,

the north-east monsoon blows you
back the other way.

In the last century B.C.,

ocean-going ships
from the Mediterranean

began regular trade with
the coast of South India.

But for distant worlds
to make contact,

they need the technology,
and the Romans developed that.

And miraculously,
you can see it today.

Here in Kerala, the traditional
boat builders still build

huge, wooden, ocean-going ships

using methods brought to India
2,000 years ago.

WOOD: How long is
this boat?

MAN: 70 feet.
WOOD: 70 feet?

MAN: Yeah, yeah.

WOOD: They recently built
a monster here--

170 feet long, bigger than
biggest Roman ships--

purely by eye,
without a single sketch.

So this is
the modification of

the ancient way
of constructing.

Greek and Roman
ship builders in Egypt,

once the trade
with India opened up,

devised a special way of
constructing the ships

in which they made
the skin first

with those interlocking joints--

mortice and tenons
and a dowel through,

so it was incredibly strong,

could cope
with really heavy seas.

And then putting the frame in,

full frame in, after
they'd constructed the skin.

[Hammering]

And it was
that technical advance,

plus the knowledge of
the monsoons,

that enabled the Greek
and Roman navigators

to open up the trade with India.

And what the Romans
wanted were spices.

This is one of the pepper
warehouses in old Cochin,

built by Jewish merchants
from Iraq long ago.

Sacks of pepper destined
for the tables of the Europe

and America.

Kerala's Jews first came
with the Roman spice trade.

I wish you could smell the air,
it really is spicy.

You know that connotation:
heady, dreamy, erotic even.

And all of it is the produce of
native South Indian plants,

some of them weeds,
like pepper--a Tamil word.

And another
South Indian word: ginger.

"And ginger shall be

"hot in the mouth,"
says Shakespeare.

It's about 60, 65.

WOOD: And it's
grown in Kerala?

The history of food is a part of
the history of civilization.

Food is an essential of life;

and for all cultures,
eating together,

one of the life's
great pleasures.

Indian was perhaps
the first international cuisine.

And here you can see
the beginning:

born of the simple need
to preserve food

in the heat of the tropics.

This is what the Roman craze
for spices and pepper

was all about: food.

MAN: Coriander on the flesh,
everything mixed,

little water.

WOOD: Garam masala?
MAN: Garam masala.

WOOD: Some wine?
MAN: No wine.

WOOD: Sour vinegar?
MAN: Sour vinegar.

A top Roman celebrity chef
wrote a cookbook

with 460-odd recipes--

350 of them full of pepper
blasting away at the taste buds,

from whole, spiced
flamingos to dormice

stuffed with peppercorns.

The stuffed dormice

never caught on here
in vegetarian South India,

but many other commodities
and ideas did.

MAN: The Romans wanted
many things from India:

spices, pepper and cardamom
and many more.

Gemstones, berrel...

and one little known thing:
peacocks.

They say South Indian peacocks
were a favorite pet

among the ladies of
the Roman aristocracy.

WOOD: Fantastic!

But then, India was a golden
sparrow then, not now.

India did not need
much from Rome.

What we got is mainly
gold as medals, coins,

silver, copper, tin,
antimony,

and, of course,
Roman wine.

WOOD: There were
40 or 50 ports

trading with Rome
on the west coast of India.

Some of them were famous
even faraway in Europe.

The greatest, near modern
Cochin, was called Muziris,

"the first emporium of India,"
the Roman geographers called it.

Everyone came here--
Jews, Arabs, Christians.

The Apostle Thomas,
Doubting Thomas,

is supposed to have
landed here in A.D. 50.

[Bell clanging]

The Christians have been
in India ever since,

before they were in Europe,
let alone America.

But then,
as the coastline changed,

the port of Muziris vanished.

It was only in 2005
that the site was found

a mile or 2 inland
under a tangle of pepper vines

and banana trees.

Well, how about that!

[Birds chirping]

MAN: And this is the best piece
of amphora.

WOOD: Oh it's the bottom of
an amphora, yes.

MAN: It's the bottom.
WOOD: It's fantastic.

I've seen these
all along the route

from Egypt
and the Red Sea ports

and even in
the Egyptian desert.

MAN: And this amphora
was used for importing wine

and also to smooth
some excellent olive oil

and a kind of fish sauce
called garum.

[Bell clanging]

WOOD: Throughout its history,

India has always been
open to the world,

welcoming incomers,
imbibing foreign ideas.

And this coast of Kerala,

where people of
all the world's great religions

settled peacefully,

is a continuing testimony
to the trade links

forged 2 millennia ago.

[Bell clanging,
chatter]

I'm a great believer in
the living presence of the past.

You've only got to spend an hour
in a place like this

and you can feel it
all around you.

This is what it would have felt
like 2,000 years ago:

the evening catch
being unloaded,

the stalls cooking food.

A Greek or a Roman
standing on this spot now

would recognize this scene.

[Speaking foreign language]

[Hand whistle blowing]

But ancient South India was more
than a string of trading ports;

it was a great
classical civilization

whose center of power lay over
the mountains, to the east.

Over the western ghats:
the spine of India.

There are 2 passes
which lead eastwards

through the mountains of Kerala

into the plains
of South India--

both of them used by the railway
engineers in later times.

These routes lead into the land
Marco Polo called,

"the most splendid
province on earth."

The place the British thought
the most fertile part

of their empire: Tamil Nadu.

This is rice country; so fertile
it gives 3 harvests a year.

[chattering
in foreign language]

And the capital of
this southern civilization was

the city of Madurai.

To arrive here is to enter

one of those
thrilling places on earth

where the ancient past
still exists

alongside the modern world.

[Bell jingling]

Just imagine if classical Athens
was alive today

and the goddess
of the city

still presiding
over her citizens--

that's Madurai.

"At dawn," says a Tamil poem
of the Roman period,

"Madurai wakes
to the sound of the Vedas,

"and the air is perfumed
with the scent of flowers."

Tamil Nadu is the world's

last surviving
classical civilization.

Its people
still live comfortably,

both in modernity
and in sacred time.

[Speaking foreign language]

Part of the global culture,

but also the guardians of
humanity's older traditions.

And, as in Roman times,
they still worship

the city's goddess--
Minakshi.

So Minakshi, you especially
go to for marriage?

WOMAN: Yes, especially
for marriage.

WOOD: Also for babies?

[Speaking
foreign language]

WOMAN: Her son to succeed
in the engineer college

over here,
she has come to pray god.

WOOD: Ah, right, for success
in his studies.

Today, Tamil is India's
last living classical language.

2,000 years ago, Madurai was the
center of South Indian culture.

Wow, this is
extraordinary, isn't it?

So this is...
[speaking foreign language]

This palm leaf manuscript

is a late copy of an epic poem
composed here in Roman times.

It's only
100 years old.

So still in Tamil Nadu,
100 years ago

they were writing
palm leaf manuscripts.

So this is how
the ancient scribes wrote?

[Man and woman
speaking foreign language]

WOOD: In the hand.

MAN: One letter,
typewriting machine.

MAN: Right to left--
WOOD: Really?

MAN: Rare, rare.
WOOD: Rare?

MAN: Rare manuscript.

WOOD: Wow, that's confusing,
isn't it? You get--

MAN: Right to left:
rare manuscript, left to right.

Normal script:
left to right,

rare manuscripts:
right to left.

Oh, I see,
coal and oil--soot.

Soot, soot and oil,
yeah, yeah, ok.

It's absolutely
great, isn't it?

Wow.

So there you are:

an ancient Tamil
business card.

The old Tamil poems mention
Greek and Roman traders bringing

gold to Madurai in exchange
for pearls and textiles.

The city still has
6,000 goldsmiths

working
in the gold quarter.

Your fathers did it
before you and grandfathers?

It runs in the family?
MAN: Yes, yes.

My father, my grandfather,
my grand-grand-grandfather

always in this work.

WOOD: Thank you.

WOOD: Hello.
Man: Hello.

Everywhere around you,
you're seeing

what a pre-modern city
would have looked like.

Indian textiles have been
coveted since ancient times.

I'm not sure
it's quite my color!

MAN: There's more colors.
WOOD: Very, very nice.

This is pashimina?

Cotton, of course,
is native to India.

WOOD: Beautiful!
MAN: Sells best in shirts.

WOOD: Oh it's lovely.
MAN: Yes...

But it's how the Indians dye it

that has always
dazzled visitors.

You can make 1 of these
in 1 hour?

MAN: One hour.
WOOD: One hour?

No wonder the Greeks
loved it, hey?

The ancient Tamil poems talk
about the Greeks, the Avanas,

wandering around with jaws
dropping at Madurai

and they still do drop,
don't they?

MAN: This building, market,
450 years ago.

This is a big market,
like a stock exchange.

WOOD: Madurai is
a marketing town.

MAN: Marketing town, it's
a center, it's a center.

WOOD: Pilgrims are still coming
here, but to do shopping.

MAN: Happy shopping.
Say "happy shopping;"

they do happy
shopping here.

MAN: What the Indians wanted
most of all was gold.

India today is the biggest
importer of gold in the world.

Although not much of it
gets into circulation

because the Indians,
as the ancient Greeks observed,

love above all
"to decorate themselves."

WOOD: So this is
a necklace of coins?

WOMAN: It's traditional,
you know, when we get married

and those kind of
special occasions.

Our parents give us
a dowry of gold.

Second thing,

we like to decorate ourselves
with ornaments.

WOOD: May I lift up?
MAN: Yeah. Sure.

WOOD: So this is the necklace
made out of very small coins?

Size of the little gold coins
that the Romans sent over here.

Ah, goddess Lakshmi,
goddess of wealth.

Of wealth, yes.

Roman writers talk about
100 million sesterces

being sent over to India,

and the interesting thing is,

back then they were used
for adornment, too.

These things were not used
as circulating money.

Romans complained about
the balance of payments

in their day, just as
the Indian government is today.

[Coins rattling]

[Car horn blares]

So that's how ancient India
began to trade

with the Mediterranean--by sea.

The rulers here in Madurai
even sent their own embassies

to the Emperor Augustus
in Rome--

the first glimmerings of
a global economy.

But, at that same moment,
far to the north,

new connections were being made.

Just as the spice route was
opening up by sea, in the north,

beyond the mighty chain of
the Himalayas

the world's greatest tradeway
would connect east and west

and India with both:
the silk road.

This is Merv in Turkmenistan
in Central Asia.

And it was in the first century
B.C. out here in Central Asia

that the merchants of China
and the western world met

for the very first time.

[Chattering]

From that moment,
the silk route was open.

[Chattering
in foreign language]

There are still little places
where people come

to do worship,
aren't there?

And it would be the silk route
which would be the catalyst

in a new and brilliant phase
in the history of India.

That's just amazing,
isn't it,

like the interior
of a volcanic crater.

This is just the citadel
of ancient Merv,

and the citadel was
one tiny corner of the vast city

built in the time of
the ancient Greeks and Romans.

Doesn't that give you an idea
of the wealth and the importance

of the silk route?

But the silk road
was controlled by

a mysterious
Central Asian empire.

They had begun
as a confederation of tribes

who had migrated along
the road from the edge of China.

Later,
they conquered Afghanistan

and then India itself.

They called themselves
the Kushans.

The discovery of
the Kushans' forgotten empire

and their unknown language
began in Afghanistan,

and some of
the most important discoveries

have been made here
during the war,

fought since the 1970s.

The Kushans made
their first capital near Kabul

and, rich on the profits of
the silk road, sponsored

a flowering of the arts.

[Speaking
foreign language]

The Kushans adopted Buddhism
and fostered Buddhist culture.

Since we shot this 12 years ago,

these pieces of Kushan Buddhist
art in Kabul museum have been

smashed to pieces
by the Taliban.

Here's a Greek period
Buddha.

This headless statue of the
greatest Kushan king, Kanishka,

was also pulverized.

History, too, has been
a casualty of the Afghan war.

The key find was a crucial
inscription from Surkh Khotal,

north of Kabul.

In Greek letters,

it's addressed to the legendary
King Kanishka himself.

And this text led
to the decipherment of

their lost language
by an English professor--

Nicholas Sims-Williams.

Now a second inscription
has been dug up by an Afghan warlord.

MAN: This inscription is not
nearly as well-preserved

as the inscription of
Surkh Khotal, as you can see,

but it actually is an even more
important historical inscription

because it describes
the deeds of the great king

and the extension of
his power across India.

WOOD: The new inscription

also tells us about
the great king himself.

Man: He describes himself as the
righteous and as the autocrat.

He has this
wonderful word autocrat,

which is a Greek term,
of course.

And he says that he received the
kingship from Nanna

and from all the gods.

WOOD: From these texts,

the Kushan story can be
told for the first time.

King Kujula ruled Central Asia
and took Kabul;

his son pushed his power
down the Khyber Pass

into North-West India.

His great-grandson Kanishka, a
contemporary of Emperor Hadrian,

overran India
almost to the Bay of Bengal.

Under the Kushans, trade grew,
the economy thrived,

and soon they followed
the earlier Greek

and Indian rulers here by
minting coins for trade.

It was a boom time;

the population increased several
times in a few generations,

and you can still find traces
of that boom time

in the bazaars all the way
between Kabul and Peshawar

in the coins.

Basilios, Apollodotus,
King Apollodotus.

On one side, an Indian elephant;
and on the other side,

with the local script,
a hump-backed Indian bull.

And then the Kushans themselves,

the people who really opened up
the silk route to trade--

sacrificing at a fire altar
with an Iranian god--

Oshto, is it,
on 1 side?

Although, on their coins
you get the Buddha,

you get Atheni,
Hercules, Shiva--

the gods of everywhere between
the Mediterranean and India.

The Kushan kings now issued

gold coins
on the Roman gold standard.

They're among the most
magnificent currency ever minted

and they're found
as far away as Ethiopia.

From around A.D. 130, Kaniska
ruled from the silk route cities

through Kabul and Peshawar to
the Lower River Ganges Plain.

Architect of the great
salvation, Kanishka the Kushan,

the righteous, the just, the
autocrat who inaugurated year 1,

and proclaimed his edict
to all India:

"may the gods keep me
ever fortunate.

And may I rule India
for a thousand years."

Their first capital inside India
was the ancient city of Peshawar

in today's Pakistan.

It's been a caravan town
ever since,

one of the oldest inhabited
cities in the world.

MAN: Babur said that
this was a garden city.

He said if you put
a blind man towards Peshawar,

the moment he is within
the environment of Peshawar,

through every smell
and beautiful air,

he will say,
"Well, I am in Peshawar now."

This is the Akhbari

during the time of
the Akhbar.

WOOD: The moghul bricks.
MAN: Yeah, the moghul bricks.

And still the wooden
gates we have.

Look at this,
see the wood.

WOOD: It's just
fantastic, isn't it?

MAN: This is the area

which was really owned
by very rich people,

rich families with their
very commercial background.

And they had their business
investment in Bukhara.

WOOD: So, really, this is--
Salaam.

So this is really
the riches of the city

coming from the silk route...

MAN: Oh, yes.

WOOQOD: ...the old silk route
connections

with Central Asia,
Bukhara, Samarkand.

MAN: Exactly, exactly,
because the trade has been--

the trans-border trade
had been for years

from the north
to the east.

DURRANI: Peshawar has
played like a host,

whether they were
in [indistinct]

or they were travelers
or they were the riders.

WOOD: Yeah, yeah.

So this was the place
where they say intermingle

with the people for
endless cup of the green teas,

sipping their green teas.

WOOD: Endless cups
of green teas? That's it.

WOOD: And the richest cargo
on those camel caravans

that used to ply down the Khyber
right up to the 1970s was silk.

Raw Chinese silk,
to be turned by Indian weavers

into works of art.

MAN: Seven months' time
to make 1 each.

And all 1 piece,
no any joint in this.

And look the back also.

WOOD: Pepper on their tables,
peacocks in their gardens,

silk on their bodies.

"We must be mad,"
grumbled Pliny in Rome,

"bankrupting ourselves
for India."

Gosh, the work is very,
very fine, isn't it?

MAN: Yes sir, thank you
very much.

WOOD: Very fine.

That is just knockout,
isn't it?

MAN: Then you should be
careful, it's slippery.

WOOD: Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's been a bit washed
by the rain, hasn't it?

MAN: Yes.

It's for the country,
for the world,

and to my mind this culture
belongs to everybody.

WOOD: Yeah, yeah.

MAN: It's not only ours.
It's a human culture.

WOOD: Right in
the middle of Peshawar,

they've started
the biggest excavation ever

in the subcontinent, and it's
turning out to be a revelation

about the Kushans' role
in Pakistani and Indian history.

MAN: Each layer is marked
by 10-15 kinds.

WOOD: Even the British are
already stratified.

So, the Moghuls are
about 6 feet down?

MAN: Yes.

WOOD: So that's 500 years.
MAN: Yes.

You can see that,
in about 10 feet,

you are covering
about 1,000 years.

The Kushans
about 24 feet deep.

MAN: Yes, about 24 to 26.

WOOD: And you still haven't
got the bottom yet.

MAN: No, no, we haven't
reached to bottom.

These are
the Greek levels.

So this is a continuous profile
of 2,300 years,

and this is
the earliest living city

in the whole South Asia.

WOOD: The earliest living city
in the whole of South Asia.

MAN: So far.

WOOD: So what was it about the
Kushans' rule that brought about

this boom time in population,
in towns, and economies?

There seems to be some kind of
almost revolutionary opening up

of the world
in the Kushan period.

Why do you think that is?

MAN: Very simple question.

And I still say that
to the Pakistanis,

and particularly
to my people,

because of peace,

because Buddhism was
a religion of peace, no war.

WOOD: And Buddhism is the key to
an ancient legend of Kanishka,

the tale of the greatest
building in the world,

and a prophecy from none other
than the Buddha himself.

MAN: At the stated time,
Kanishka came to the throne,

and he ruled the whole world.

At first, he despised
the Buddha's law,

but 1 day, he was out
hunting a white hare

when he met a shepherd boy.

Some say the boy was Indra
in disguise.

And he was building
a small mud stupa.

WOMAN: The Buddha said
that after his death,

you would build the greatest
building in the world

to house the remains
of his body.

MAN:
So Kanishka ordered a stupa

to be built around
the boy's mud stupa.

But however high
his stupa rose,

the small one always
exceeded it,

until eventually
it rose 700 feet high.

WOOD: So legend says

that Kanishka made
the greatest building on Earth:

a giant domed stupa.

Across Asia,
he's still remembered

as one of the 4 pillars
of Buddhism,

but all trace of his great
monument has vanished.

We know the site lay
outside the town,

in open fields where traces
were located a century ago

by a French explorer.

He says this: If we set out
from the Lahore gate

and take the "Cherat" road
or Khaz Al Khani.

MAN: Yes.
Al Khani this way.

WOOD: Ok.

Today, the site has been
completely swallowed up

by modern Peshawar.

[Speaking
foreign language]

About 2, 3 kilometers
from here.

WOOD: Ok.
That's fantastic.

MAN: And this is the largest
graveyard of Peshawar.

WOOD: Ok. Shokria,
Shokria.

Thank you very much.

[Speaking
foreign language]

WOOD: Ah, great, great.

Does he know anything about
the story of the place?

[Speaking
foreign language]

[Man speaking
foreign language]

Great news. This gentleman knows
this was the place,

Shahji-Ki Dheri,
the mound of the great king.

He doesn't know
who the great king was,

but that was the place.

Ok. Thank you very much!

[Man speaking
foreign language]

WOOD: This is it?
MAN: Yes.

That is all
Shahji-Ki Dheri.

WOOD: That is the mound?
MAN: Yes.

WOOD:
The stupa is described

by several
Chinese Buddhist pilgrims

of the late
Roman period.

This whole great mound here was
the complex that Kanishka built

with, not only the giant stupa,

but a huge monastery
with other buildings.

It extended over a vast area.

And it's just been plundered
for bricks by the locals

for centuries.

And, as so often
in the subcontinent,

the site is still sacred.

WOOD: Sufis still come here?
MAN: Yeah. Yeah.

Every year.

WOOD: Every year?

MAN: So, this is the line...

WOOD: When I was in Calcutta,
they have a model--

a big stone model of
a stupa from here,

from Peshawar.

And I drew the monument.

This is, I think this is
what it looked like.

The Chinese pilgrims
talked about 5 stages.

Sometimes they say
the stupa itself was 300 feet,

but I think maybe
that's too big.

And then on top was
a huge kind of wooden structure.

You would have had great flags
coming out at an angle,

blowing in the wind--
huge long silk streamers.

"Of all the stupas
in the world," the Chinese said,

"not 1 could compare
to this in solemn beauty

"and majestic grandeur."

when the Chinese pilgrims
came here 500 years later,

they say that everybody
agrees this was

the most wonderful stupa

in the whole
of the inhabited world.

MAN: Yes. Exactly.

WOOD: You can image coming
into the plain of Peshawar,

can't you, with this
gigantic structure.

"It radiated brilliance.

"And when the breeze blew,
the precious bells

"sounded in harmony."

[Bells tinkling]

[Traffic noise]

WOOD: Like all great rulers
of Indian history,

the Kushans accepted and
supported all religions.

In their patronage of Buddhism,
they developed a new art form:

representing the Buddha's story

as a series of miraculous
fairytale events.

Inventing the way
we see the Buddha today.

Melding Greek and Indian style,
they created

an international art

that was transmitted down
the silk route and conquered

the whole of the eastern world.

Legend said that Kanishka
buried a small portion

of the Buddha's ashes
under his great stupa.

Thank you very much.

And tucked away in
a corner case in the museum is

a small bronze casket,
found on the site,

which had contained ashes.

But even this intimate gift
is a testimony

to the open mindedness

of the rulers of this vast,
multi-cultural empire.

And outside a series of images

that's just wonderfully typical
of Kanishka's era:

there's the Buddha on the top
with his "fear not" gesture.

But the figures by him,
the devotees,

are actually great Hindu gods.

There's Indra
with his flat crown,

and there, with his long hair,
Brahma, the creator god.

If we move it round,
there's Kanishka himself wearing

the royal garb of
the Kushan kings:

the great big boots
that have clod-hopped

all the way across
the Hindu Kush;

the big coat that looks like
a Tibetan tuba

and the double crown, the king
of kings: Maharaja Kanishka.

You can see why Kanishka
and the Kushans

chose this
as their capital.

Looking towards the Khyber Pass
and those routes

into Central Asia...

across westwards to the
Mediterranean and eastwards

above Tibet to their ancestral
home on the edge of China.

And yet, they also ruled
1,500 miles or more that way

across the plains of India.

So by A.D. 130, when the emperor
Hadrian ruled the Roman empire

in the west and the Han Chinese
far to the east,

the Kushans under Kanishka ruled
the middle of the world,

from the Aral Sea
to the Bay of Bengal.

Around that time, Kanishka
conquered the plains of India

and made his new Indian capital
the city of Mathura.

An early English traveler
in India said that

when you come down the grand
Trunk road from Afghanistan,

it's only
when you reach Mathura,

with its sacred
turtles in the river

and monkeys scampering
through the streets,

that you get the flavor of
the real Hindustan.

Mathura became
an international city,

rich on the profits of
the silk road.

"It was heaven on Earth,"
said one observer,

"huge and prosperous,
rich in money and people."

And then, as now, it was
also a great religious city,

sacred to the god Krishna.

[Chatter, horns honking]

See, we've lost all this
in the west, haven't we?

But if you'd had come
to Canterbury

in the time of
"The Canterbury Tales,"

with the hundreds and hundreds

of coaching inns
for the pilgrims,

it would have been like this:

a city teeming with pilgrims
like this at festival time.

Where have you come from?

WOMAN: I will come from...
Moradabad.

WOOD: Moradabad.

This is a very long way.
WOMAN: Yeah.

WOOD: And your husbands?
WOMAN: No.

Husbands are there!
WOOD: You've got rid of them!

You got rid of husbands.
WOMAN: Yeah.

9 ladies, only ladies.

WOOD:
Well, I hope you have

a very happy rest of
your tirthayatra.

WOMAN: Yeah. Thank you.

[Horn beeps]

WOOD: The ancient Greeks called
this city "Mathura Ton Theon,"

the city of the gods.

If you'd been here
in the second century A.D.

at the height of
the Kushan empire,

you would have seen Greeks,
Romans, Bahtrians, Persians,

maybe even the odd Chinese.

All the result of the opening up
of the silk route

and the contacts between
the Mediterranean world,

and India and China.

It was an incredibly
exciting time

and this city was
at the center of it.

Dynamic economy,
very diverse ethnically,

in its religious life,
just the place to be--

[Men shouting]

and that explains why you have
such tremendous achievements

in ideas and in art here.

[Shouting]

A great historian of the Roman
empire, Edward Gibbons, said

this period,
second century A.D,

was the happiest time
for humanity

in the whole history
of the world.

Like the Moghuls
and the British,

the Kushans were outsiders,

a foreign military elite
ruling the people of India.

But by encouraging long-distance
trade and religious tolerance,

the Kushans brought peace
to a vast area

for more than
2 centuries.

And with this peace,
they could foster the arts,

literature, and science.

They were behind
the development of Sanskrit

as a language of international
scholarship in the east,

like medieval Latin in the west.

And another important area of
their patronage was medicine.

[Horn]

One of founders of the Indian
tradition of medicine, ayurveda,

is said to have been Kanishka's
guru and chief minister.

His name was Chanaka.

Here in Mathura,
the Gupta family are doctors

who, for many generations, have
followed the ancient tradition

handed down from the Kushan era.

MAN: 300 different medicinal
plants are growing here

for healing different kinds
of the problems.

WOOD: So everything
for your medicine

you grow here yourself?

MAN: Yes.

This is called
Amaltas Rgveta.

It is a family Cassia Fistula,

that's very good
for constipation.

WOOD: A system based on
natural cures,

ayurveda was transmitted east
in the early centuries A.D.

by Buddhist monks
on the silk route to China.

MAN: This is now
nicely aloe vera,

which is going very famous
now all over the world:

aloe vera gel.

WOOD: And this is what the
ladies use for their skin cream

and all this
sort of stuff?

MAN: Yeah.

WOOD: May I look?
MAN: Sure. Sure.

WOOD: Oh, yeah,
look at that.

How about that?

MAN: This is the gel,
you know?

DIFFERENT MAN: Ayurveda
is the science of life.

The whole body and whole nature
is made by natural 5 element:

earth, water, fire,
air and ether.

50 years old.
More than that.

WOOD: So, the Kushan era
was a great time

for the codifying of India's
traditions of knowledge.

MAN: ...no electricity
and no...

WOOD: Like all ancient
Indian sciences,

ayurveda originally was
orally transmitted

from master to pupil,
father to son.

Only later was
it committed to writing.

MAN: And this
in a form of poetry

so the people can
remember the poetry

because it is difficult
to remember the like, full book,

so just
the poetry poetry.

It's all vata,
pitta, kapha...

disease names,
disease symptoms, medicines,

descriptions are
in the poetry form.

WOOD: How long, far back
in time does it go?

GUPTA: This is like
all the literature

on the Earth's planet.

It started near about
5,000 year before,

like 3,000 year
before Christ.

WOOD:
But the most important legacy

of the Kushan age
in world history

was brought about by Kushan
Buddhist monks and traders

who traveled the silk route
and took Buddhism to China.

MAN: Buddhism reach
another great nation, China,

around second century.

I always showing
my sort of respect

to the Chinese Buddhist

because they are
historically,

they are elder student
of Buddha;

we are younger,
so I always respect them.

Buddhism is one of
the rich India's tradition.

[Chanting]

DALAI LAMA: Of course, recent
time, certain sort of ideology

or certain sort of
political reasons,

there's a lot of destructions
happen, but time change,

the things become more open.

So itis really very right
that China, Chinese,

again as a student of
Indian master.

WOOD: But the Buddhists
were also the traders,

and just as the rise of
capitalism in Europe

went hand-in-hand
with the Protestant ethic,

capitalism in the East was
driven by the commercial ethos

of Buddhist merchants
who traveled the silk road.

As for Kanishka,
his end is a mystery.

But a legend was told
in the East for centuries:

the king had conquered
3/4 of the world

but still could not rest.

And he set off east with
an army of white elephants,

riding his magic horse.

But when he reached
the snowy peaks of the North,

a mountainous wall of ice,
his horse reared up,

unwilling to go any further.

The king spoke
to his magic horse,

"I have ridden you
on all my victorious campaigns.

"Why do you hesitate now?

"Why will you not go forward
on this road?"

WOMAN: I wonder, my king,

will the conquest of
the East satisfy you?

Your hunger is boundless.

What will you do when there are
no more worlds left to conquer?

MAN: On seeing the king's
magic horse hesitate,

his army spoke amongst
themselves and decided

to get rid of the king.

[Chanting gibberish]

WOOD: Legend tells
of assassination

and regime change
here in Mathura.

History says Kanishka died
around 150 A.D.

and was succeeded
by others of his dynasty,

but could a distant echo
of those dark events

have come down to us today?

Here in Mathura every year
a cycle of plays

is performed
about the god Krishna.

Part of a tradition of drama
here which goes back, unbroken,

to the ancient world.

[Woman singing
in foreign language]

WOOD: The plays tell the story
of young Krishna's overthrow

of a great tyrant--

a fairy tale villain
whose name is Kansa.

[Man speaking foreign language]

WOOD: Now we come
to the best bit:

the Killing of the wicked tyrant
of Mathura, Raja Kans.

[Man laughs maniacally]

[Man speaking
foreign language]

WOOD: Great as the Kushans were
in the history of India,

they were, after all,
foreigners.

Just outside Kanishka's former
capital of Mathura,

there's 1 last clue to the fall
of India's forgotten emperor.

Do you--
could we just ask?

Do you know a place called
"Tochari Tila," "Tochari Tila"?

MAN: Tochari Tila?
[Speaking foreign language]

Raja kanishki.

WOOD: Raja kanishki!

[Man speaking foreign language]

WOOD: Fantastic. They found
a statue of King Kanishka.

Oh, there's a mound
in front, can you see?

This is Tochari Tila here?

MAN: Tochari Tila, yes.

WOOD: Ah, right right.

The place still preserves 1 of
the ancient names of the Kushans

from the time when they lived
on the edge of China

before their long march
into history.

Unfortunately, the dig wasn't
very well done back in 1912,

but what they found in this
little mound was a temple

about 100 feet long
by 60 feet wide.

Inside, a big circular
feature and statues

of the great kings of
the Kushan dynasty.

The biggest mystery, though,
is when the excavators

picked over the remains
of the place,

the place had been devastated
by vandals--destroyed--

right at the end of
the Kushan period,

not in some later period by
the Huns or Muslim invaders.

And one statue in particular--

great royal statue,
7 or 8 feet high--

had been smashed to bits
with almost deliberate venom.

And today, in Mathura museum,
you can still see

the headless statue of Kanishka,
the king of kings,

the ruler of all India,

"may his reign last
for 1,000 years."

In the early centuries A.D.,

the Kushans had opened up
India's horizons,

creating a vast,
multi-racial empire.

They put India onto
the international map,

linking it to the trade systems
of the world,

adding another layer to the
story of India through peace,

trade, and tolerance.

But, above all, is the simple
civilizing influence of contact.

In the second century A.D.,
the Indian subcontinent had

the world's biggest population--
as it does today--

and one of
the biggest economies.

And now, as the wheel of history
turns full circle,

that age looks like
a precursor of our own.

Next in "The Story
of India..."

the genius of early Indian
technology,

the astounding living traditions
of the south,

and the Indian science
of the divine.