0:00:08 > 0:00:1560 years ago, India threw off the chains of the British Empire and became a free nation.
0:00:19 > 0:00:26And now the world's largest democracy is rushing headlong into the future.
0:00:27 > 0:00:31As the brief heyday of the West draws to a close,
0:00:31 > 0:00:36one of the greatest players in history is rising again.
0:00:37 > 0:00:44India has seen the ebb and flow of huge events since the beginning of history.
0:00:44 > 0:00:49Its tale is one of incredible drama and the biggest ideas.
0:00:51 > 0:00:56It's a place whose children will grow up in a global superpower
0:00:56 > 0:01:01and yet still know what it means to belong to an ancient civilisation.
0:01:06 > 0:01:11This is the story of a land where all human pasts are still alive,
0:01:11 > 0:01:14a 10,000-year epic that continues today...
0:01:16 > 0:01:19..the Story of India.
0:01:55 > 0:02:00In the tale of life on Earth, the human story is brief.
0:02:00 > 0:02:07A few hundred generations cover humanity's attempts to create order, beauty and happiness
0:02:07 > 0:02:10on the face of the Earth.
0:02:10 > 0:02:15The beginnings to most of us are lost in time, beyond memory.
0:02:15 > 0:02:23Only India has preserved the unbroken thread of the human story that binds us all.
0:02:27 > 0:02:34According to the oldest Indian myths, the first humans came from a golden egg,
0:02:34 > 0:02:40laid by the king of the gods in the churning of the cosmic ocean.
0:02:40 > 0:02:46Modern science, of course, works in a less poetic vein,
0:02:46 > 0:02:50but no less thrilling to the imagination.
0:02:51 > 0:02:57For what science tells us is that our ancestors first walked out of Africa,
0:02:57 > 0:03:02only 70,000 or 80,000 years ago, round the shores of the Arabian Sea
0:03:02 > 0:03:05and down into South India.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18They were beachcombers,
0:03:18 > 0:03:21barefoot hunter-gatherers,
0:03:21 > 0:03:26driven as human beings always have been by chance and necessity.
0:03:26 > 0:03:31But also surely by curiosity, that most human of qualities.
0:03:31 > 0:03:36When they came here, they must have been overwhelmed by the fertility.
0:03:36 > 0:03:43Here down south, you throw a mango away and a tree will grow. Life is super-abundant.
0:03:43 > 0:03:49So here some of them stayed and they were the first Indians.
0:03:49 > 0:03:57And all non-Africans on the planet can trace their descent from those early migrations into India.
0:03:57 > 0:04:02The rest of the world was populated from here - Mother India, indeed.
0:04:03 > 0:04:10And amazingly for so long ago, those first Indians have left their trail.
0:04:11 > 0:04:15If you go inland from the beaches of Kerala,
0:04:15 > 0:04:19into the maze of backwaters, deep in the rainforests,
0:04:19 > 0:04:27you'll still find their traces, clues to what lies beneath all the later layers of Indian history,
0:04:27 > 0:04:32clues that, till recently, were completely unsuspected.
0:04:33 > 0:04:40For here, you can even hear their voices, sounds from the beginning of human time.
0:04:42 > 0:04:44LONG VOWEL SOUND
0:04:46 > 0:04:52An ancient clan of Brahmans lives here, priests, ritual specialists.
0:04:52 > 0:04:56They alone can perform the religious rituals.
0:04:56 > 0:05:01They're preparing an ancient ceremony for the god of fire
0:05:01 > 0:05:03that will take 12 days to perform.
0:05:04 > 0:05:07CHANTING
0:05:12 > 0:05:20For centuries, these incantations or mantras have been passed down from father to son,
0:05:20 > 0:05:24only among Brahmans, exact in every sound.
0:05:27 > 0:05:32But some of the mantras are in no known language.
0:05:34 > 0:05:39Only recently have outsiders been allowed to record them
0:05:39 > 0:05:43and to try and make sense of the Brahmans' chants.
0:05:49 > 0:05:54To their amazement, they discovered whole tracts of the ritual
0:05:54 > 0:05:59were sounds that followed rules and patterns, but had no meaning.
0:05:59 > 0:06:05There was no parallel for these patterns within any human activity, not even music.
0:06:05 > 0:06:11The nearest analogue came from the animal kingdom. It was birdsong.
0:06:11 > 0:06:19These sounds are perhaps tens of thousands of years old, passed down from before human speech.
0:06:19 > 0:06:25'There are certain patterns of sounds preceding and succeeding texts.
0:06:25 > 0:06:29'That is called oral tradition.'
0:06:29 > 0:06:34You can't write those patterns in a book. It's unprintable.
0:06:34 > 0:06:39So only orally it can be transmitted through generations.
0:06:39 > 0:06:43And this oral tradition is still alive in Kerala.
0:06:48 > 0:06:54For 12 days, the priests and their wives must stay inside the enclosure.
0:06:54 > 0:07:01And then when the ritual is over and the world purified, the huts are burned down,
0:07:01 > 0:07:06all trace obliterated, save in the memory of the Brahman reciters.
0:07:16 > 0:07:21So there's a crucial clue to the story of India -
0:07:21 > 0:07:28how the experience of the ancestors is faithfully handed down from generation to generation.
0:07:28 > 0:07:34But it's not just sounds and rituals that have been passed on.
0:07:34 > 0:07:40Over the hills in Tamil Nadu, geneticists from the University of Madurai
0:07:40 > 0:07:45have been testing the DNA of tribal villagers.
0:07:45 > 0:07:52First we isolate the DNA from the solution. And we look for specific ancient markers in the solution,
0:07:52 > 0:07:57which can give you the clue about the migrational history of people.
0:07:57 > 0:08:04It's evidence we are out of Africa and it's a brotherhood. We are all the same.
0:08:05 > 0:08:12'Here among the Kallar people, Professor Ramasamy Pitchappan tested a man called Virumandi.
0:08:12 > 0:08:16'In his DNA was the marker of that first human migration.'
0:08:16 > 0:08:21- How are you?- And Virumandi's wife. - Very nice to meet you. Hello.
0:08:21 > 0:08:26Since the migration of the first man 70,000 years ago,
0:08:26 > 0:08:30Virumandi, he probably carries that gene M130.
0:08:30 > 0:08:35So Virumandi, how does it feel to be the first Indian?
0:08:35 > 0:08:37I'm very happy...
0:08:38 > 0:08:43- That you have this gene. - Gene.- Yes.- Wonderful.
0:08:43 > 0:08:50Virumandi's tribe practise South India's and the world's oldest form of marriage
0:08:50 > 0:08:57with first cousins. That way, they've handed down some of mankind's earliest genes.
0:08:57 > 0:09:05Some 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, these M130 gene pool came over here.
0:09:05 > 0:09:10And luckily somebody stayed in this village and expanded,
0:09:10 > 0:09:12then we could identify.
0:09:12 > 0:09:18- And to our surprise, the whole village is M130. - Everybody around us here?- Yes.
0:09:18 > 0:09:25Everybody around us here carries M130. So you ponder that fact, why will be that?
0:09:25 > 0:09:32- You've got the early migrations in at least two waves. Language is only developing later.- Yes.
0:09:32 > 0:09:37The Kallars feel it is just 10,000 years old, this spoken language.
0:09:37 > 0:09:41- Wow.- Maybe only 10,000 to 15,000 maximum.
0:09:41 > 0:09:48- Language is not the same as ethnicity. We need to make that clear, don't we?- Yes.
0:09:48 > 0:09:55It is essential. Yes, it is not. The language can easily be adopted. The same is true of religion too.
0:09:55 > 0:10:02It's a kind of belief system. You believe in your system, in your education
0:10:02 > 0:10:07or in your family, whatever way you feel like.
0:10:07 > 0:10:11You have every liberty to feel proud of what you are.
0:10:11 > 0:10:17It is because of this reason I believe that India has become such a cosmos of humanity
0:10:17 > 0:10:21with a diversity, but still with a unity.
0:10:21 > 0:10:29- Is that what makes you an Indian? - Probably. A human being, all the more, I'd say, rather than Indian.
0:10:32 > 0:10:36And despite all the later migrations and invasions,
0:10:36 > 0:10:43India's gene pool has remained largely constant. It's one of the unchanging roots of India.
0:10:44 > 0:10:48Languages and religions came only later.
0:10:48 > 0:10:52And they are always subject to change.
0:10:54 > 0:11:01But here in the south, they've passed down humanity's oldest religion too.
0:11:01 > 0:11:08In the great temple of Madurai they still worship the female principle, the Mother goddess,
0:11:08 > 0:11:13as Indian people have done for tens of thousands of years.
0:11:17 > 0:11:22And alongside her are countless other deities
0:11:22 > 0:11:27that link humanity with the magical power of the natural world.
0:11:27 > 0:11:34Over the ages, thousands of gods will emerge, always adding to what had been before.
0:11:34 > 0:11:40So the roots of Indian religion too will grow over a vast period of time
0:11:40 > 0:11:45as India's expression of the multiplicity of the universe.
0:11:45 > 0:11:50Why have only one god when you can have millions?
0:11:57 > 0:12:04So India's famous unity and diversity goes back to customs and beliefs and habits
0:12:04 > 0:12:09that lie deep in pre-history, like the worship of the goddess here.
0:12:09 > 0:12:14And when you look at all the tides of Indian history that follow,
0:12:14 > 0:12:20you can see that identity is never static, always in the making and never made.
0:12:20 > 0:12:23SINGING
0:12:30 > 0:12:37And now we must rush over tens of thousands of years in which humanity lived as hunter-gatherers.
0:12:37 > 0:12:44And then in the Stone Age, in a great arc from the Mediterranean to India,
0:12:44 > 0:12:48changes in technology led to the invention of agriculture.
0:12:48 > 0:12:54And that would be the motor for the next turning point in the story of India,
0:12:54 > 0:12:57the rise of cities.
0:13:15 > 0:13:19In the year 2007, for the first time in history,
0:13:19 > 0:13:24most of us will live in cities, rather than in the countryside.
0:13:24 > 0:13:31Here in the Indian subcontinent, that process of civilisation began in 7000 BC,
0:13:31 > 0:13:38even earlier than Ancient Egypt, with the growth of large villages in the Indus Valley.
0:13:38 > 0:13:43So despite the divisions made by modern borders,
0:13:43 > 0:13:49nowhere else on Earth is there such continuity of settled life.
0:13:51 > 0:13:55Hello. Salaam alaikum.
0:13:55 > 0:14:02Though of course, when we talk about India in history, we mean the whole of the subcontinent,
0:14:02 > 0:14:07before modern politics divided up that deep continuum
0:14:07 > 0:14:12and gave the people new identities and new allegiances.
0:14:12 > 0:14:19- So Multan is your native place? Multan, your native place?- Yes.
0:14:19 > 0:14:25- Very nice.- What are you doing? - Making a historical film for BBC London.
0:14:30 > 0:14:37These days, civilisation is a very problematical word with many shades of meaning.
0:14:37 > 0:14:43But to historians and archaeologists, it means living in cities,
0:14:43 > 0:14:48highly-organised societies, architecture, law and writing.
0:14:48 > 0:14:55And to find the origins of Indian civilisation, we need to come first of all to Pakistan,
0:14:55 > 0:15:00once part of India, but split to become a separate country in 1947,
0:15:00 > 0:15:07because it was here in the valley of the Indus river, in a series of amazing discoveries,
0:15:07 > 0:15:12revealed a hitherto, completely unknown, ancient civilisation.
0:15:17 > 0:15:22Those first discoveries took place in the 1920s
0:15:22 > 0:15:29at a little halt on the railway line between Multan and Lahore, Harappa.
0:15:31 > 0:15:37At that time the Indian subcontinent was under British rule.
0:15:37 > 0:15:41And then the idea that the people of Pakistan and India
0:15:41 > 0:15:48might be heirs to a civilisation older than the Bible, Greece and Rome would have seemed incredible.
0:15:48 > 0:15:53The Europeans saw India as a primitive, backward place.
0:15:53 > 0:15:58They believed civilisation was the product of the classical world
0:15:58 > 0:16:05for whom they were the modern standard bearers. Nobody suspected that India had a pre-history.
0:16:05 > 0:16:12But all that changed in 1921 when British and Indian archaeologists arrived here in the Punjab.
0:16:15 > 0:16:22- How are you? It's nice to see you. Thank you for having us.- Here. - That's wonderful.
0:16:22 > 0:16:26'The archaeologists camped in tents here
0:16:26 > 0:16:31'and they were plagued by mosquitoes too.'
0:16:37 > 0:16:44That night in the dig hut, I read again the romantic account of those first discoveries,
0:16:44 > 0:16:50at the same time as the finding of Tutankhamun in Egypt.
0:16:50 > 0:16:57"Not often is it given to archaeologists," wrote the British excavator John Marshall,
0:16:57 > 0:17:04"as it was given to Schliemann at Mycenae, to light upon the remains of a forgotten civilisation.
0:17:04 > 0:17:11"It looks, however, as if we're on the threshold of such a discovery, here in the plains of the Indus."
0:17:16 > 0:17:18BIRDSONG
0:17:25 > 0:17:32Like the other great ancient civilisations in Iraq, Egypt and China,
0:17:32 > 0:17:37India's first cities had grown up on a river.
0:17:37 > 0:17:43The ruins of Harappa stood on the dried-up bed of a tributary of the River Indus.
0:17:43 > 0:17:50Its huge citadel walls had been quarried away by Victorian railway contractors.
0:17:50 > 0:17:57But there was still evidence of industry, of writing and high-level organisation and a huge population.
0:17:57 > 0:18:02Harappa was far older than anything previously known in India.
0:18:02 > 0:18:07Amazingly, at the time of the building of the pyramids of Egypt,
0:18:07 > 0:18:11there had been vast cities here in India.
0:18:11 > 0:18:14When does Harappa begin?
0:18:17 > 0:18:21Harappa was beginning in 3500 BC.
0:18:21 > 0:18:245,000 years ago from here.
0:18:24 > 0:18:30Right. 3500 BC - so this is a very, very long-lasting place.
0:18:30 > 0:18:35And when was the heyday, the high period of the Indus civilisation?
0:18:35 > 0:18:40The high period of the Indus civilisation
0:18:40 > 0:18:43started around 2900 BC to 1900 BC.
0:18:43 > 0:18:49This is the highest period. We call it the Mature Harappan period.
0:18:49 > 0:18:57Right. And how many people, do you think, lived here in the height of its power?
0:18:57 > 0:19:04- I think about 200,000 people. - 200,000 people?- Yes. According to their houses and streets.- Wow.
0:19:04 > 0:19:10- It is an estimated guess.- But it's a big city for the ancient world.
0:19:16 > 0:19:18The next year, 1922,
0:19:18 > 0:19:26British and Indian archaeologists targeted an untouched site to the south, Mohenjo-daro.
0:19:26 > 0:19:32By ancient standards, it was an urban giant, a Bronze Age Manhattan.
0:19:34 > 0:19:41Just like the modern Indians and Pakistanis, the Indus people were traders.
0:19:41 > 0:19:46From here their boats sailed to the Persian Gulf and Iraq,
0:19:46 > 0:19:51carrying cargoes of ivory, teak and lapis lazuli.
0:19:51 > 0:19:56The city appeared to be the capital of a great empire,
0:19:56 > 0:20:03which we now know extended from the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea. With over 2,000 towns and villages,
0:20:03 > 0:20:08it was the largest civilisation in the ancient world.
0:20:08 > 0:20:13And with up to five million people, the world's biggest population.
0:20:13 > 0:20:17But their writing is still undeciphered.
0:20:23 > 0:20:28Then, after several centuries of stability, the cities declined,
0:20:28 > 0:20:32trade collapsed and urban life itself ended.
0:20:33 > 0:20:36The people went back to the land.
0:20:36 > 0:20:42But why the Indus cities died is one of the greatest mysteries in archaeology.
0:20:51 > 0:20:58Back in London, I went to see Dr Sanjeev Gupta, who offered me a much bigger picture
0:20:58 > 0:21:02as to why civilisations rise and fall.
0:21:02 > 0:21:07180 million years ago, India was an island, floating in the ocean.
0:21:07 > 0:21:12It was moving northwards for about 130 million years.
0:21:12 > 0:21:17Eventually, about 50 million years ago, it collided with Asia
0:21:17 > 0:21:20to produce the Himalayas.
0:21:21 > 0:21:26So there's a different perspective to the historian's view.
0:21:26 > 0:21:33Civilisations come and go. Environment and climate are what shape our human story
0:21:33 > 0:21:38in the long term, as we're now discovering to our cost.
0:21:38 > 0:21:45The Himalayas draw the warm air from the south, which is precipitated in rain, the monsoons.
0:21:45 > 0:21:49And the monsoons made the first Indian civilisation.
0:21:49 > 0:21:51When they failed, it did too.
0:21:51 > 0:21:57The key was the shifting and drying up of rivers and one great river system in particular.
0:21:57 > 0:22:01We've been looking at satellite imagery,
0:22:01 > 0:22:06to try and see if you can trace river channels on the flood plains.
0:22:06 > 0:22:10- So this is the area between India and Pakistan?- Yes.
0:22:10 > 0:22:17We're going to zoom in on an area over here and look at some satellite imagery in detail.
0:22:17 > 0:22:22So what you can see are these light areas, which are desert areas.
0:22:22 > 0:22:29But snaking through the desert, you can see the trace, this dark channel-like feature,
0:22:29 > 0:22:34- which people believe is the trace of an ancient river.- Wow.
0:22:34 > 0:22:40And if we put the sites on for the main phase of the Harappan civilisation,
0:22:40 > 0:22:47you can see beautifully how those sites are actually strung along the trace of this ancient channel bed.
0:22:47 > 0:22:54- It absolutely matches the curve of the channel bed.- And you can trace it from India into Pakistan,
0:22:54 > 0:23:00- into the area called Cholistan. - So this is from the height of the Indus civilisation?
0:23:00 > 0:23:07- Yes. 5,000 to 4,000 years ago. - When Mohenjo-daro and Harappa are at their height.
0:23:07 > 0:23:13So what happens to these sites at the end of the Harappan civilisation?
0:23:13 > 0:23:18- Actually, if we look at the later Harappan stages...- Oh, yes.
0:23:18 > 0:23:22And what you see is that there's a major shift eastward
0:23:22 > 0:23:27into the central and eastern part of the Ganges plain
0:23:27 > 0:23:32- away from the major Ghaggar-Hakra settlements over here.- Wow.
0:23:32 > 0:23:39In the last 10,000 years, we've seen a decline in the strength of the Indian summer monsoon.
0:23:39 > 0:23:45And 3,500 years ago, there was a major decrease in the strength of the monsoon.
0:23:45 > 0:23:52Climate change isn't just happening now, it's happened in the past. Settlements completely disappear
0:23:52 > 0:23:58and we see this major shift eastward into the central part of the Ganges plain.
0:24:03 > 0:24:05THUNDER RUMBLES
0:24:07 > 0:24:10And ever since,
0:24:10 > 0:24:16from sacred songs to Bollywood movies, Indian people have loved the monsoon.
0:24:16 > 0:24:21The coming of the monsoon has an almost erotic charge.
0:24:21 > 0:24:23It's the giver of life itself.
0:24:23 > 0:24:26CHEERING
0:24:39 > 0:24:45So climate change shifted the centre of gravity of Indian history.
0:24:45 > 0:24:52The people moved, following the rivers eastwards to new lands in a forested world
0:24:52 > 0:24:58that has been sacred from that day to this, the plain of the River Ganges.
0:24:58 > 0:25:04And here, the next chapter in the story of India will take place.
0:25:15 > 0:25:18How are you?
0:25:18 > 0:25:23- How are you? How is the water? - Huh?- The water is good?- It's good.
0:25:30 > 0:25:34So the first great Indian civilisation died out.
0:25:34 > 0:25:39Or did it? The mystery of the Indus cities is so tantalising
0:25:39 > 0:25:46and the differences with later Indian civilisation apparently so great
0:25:46 > 0:25:52that it's easy to think that there was a major break in continuity of Indian civilisation.
0:25:52 > 0:25:57But history's not like that, especially Indian history.
0:25:57 > 0:26:03And it's only a short time after the end of the last Indus cities, around 1500 BC,
0:26:03 > 0:26:11that we get the first definite evidence of an Indian language and an Indian literature.
0:26:11 > 0:26:16And language and literature are the next landmarks in the story.
0:26:16 > 0:26:20Texts we can not just hear, but read.
0:26:20 > 0:26:26The language is Sanskrit, the ancestor of all the modern dialects
0:26:26 > 0:26:33spoken in the north of the subcontinent, across Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
0:26:33 > 0:26:38It's the root of languages spoken today by nearly a billion people.
0:26:38 > 0:26:41But where did Sanskrit come from?
0:26:42 > 0:26:46Is it the language of the Indus civilisation?
0:26:46 > 0:26:51Did it grow up here in the Ganges plain?
0:26:51 > 0:26:54Or did it come from outside India?
0:26:54 > 0:26:59Like Latin, Sanskrit is no longer a spoken language.
0:26:59 > 0:27:04But here in the holy city of Varanasi, young Brahman boys still learn it
0:27:04 > 0:27:09to recite their earliest scriptures, the Vedas.
0:27:09 > 0:27:11CHANTING
0:27:15 > 0:27:21For traditional Hindus, these are the most ancient scriptures in the world,
0:27:21 > 0:27:23older by far than the Bible.
0:27:26 > 0:27:28CHANTING
0:27:30 > 0:27:37The Vedas have been orally transmitted down the ages as accurately as a recording.
0:27:37 > 0:27:44And it's because they're so perfectly preserved that linguists can date them.
0:27:44 > 0:27:51The oldest is a collection of 1,000 hymns called the Rig-Veda, which starts around 1500 BC,
0:27:51 > 0:27:55a time when Stonehenge was still in use.
0:27:55 > 0:28:02It's quite a thought, isn't it? In this room, you've got a living link with India's deep past.
0:28:02 > 0:28:08What you're listening to are the sounds and the words of the Bronze Age.
0:28:08 > 0:28:11As with the mantras in Kerala,
0:28:11 > 0:28:16the archaic verses of the Rig-Veda have been passed down word for word
0:28:16 > 0:28:20only within families of Brahman priests.
0:28:22 > 0:28:26Is it easy to understand today?
0:28:26 > 0:28:31Or is the ancient Sanskrit very difficult to understand?
0:28:31 > 0:28:38- Yes. Very difficult to understand. - It's very difficult? - Very difficult.
0:28:38 > 0:28:43- Only through Brahmans?- Only Brahmans.- Only Brahmans learning.
0:28:43 > 0:28:47- So all the boys here today, they are Brahman boys?- Yes.
0:28:47 > 0:28:54- After upanayanam.- After...? - Holy thread.- Oh, after the holy thread. Yeah, yeah.
0:28:54 > 0:28:57RHYTHMIC DRUMMING
0:29:00 > 0:29:05Out of the poems of the Rig-Veda, a story emerges.
0:29:05 > 0:29:12Over several centuries, it's the tale of tribes moving across North India, led by the god of fire,
0:29:12 > 0:29:15burning forests, looking for new lands.
0:29:22 > 0:29:26The leaders of these tribes spoke Sanskrit.
0:29:26 > 0:29:35The Rig-Veda shows that they fought battles among themselves. And they called themselves Aryans.
0:29:39 > 0:29:42HORNS BLARE
0:29:42 > 0:29:49The significance of that story only began to be understood in the 18th century
0:29:49 > 0:29:53when the British came here to Calcutta.
0:29:53 > 0:30:00The key figure was a Welsh judge called William Jones who founded the Asiatic Society.
0:30:00 > 0:30:05Unlike some of his contemporaries, Jones admired Indian civilisation.
0:30:05 > 0:30:10He persuaded a Brahman scholar to teach him Sanskrit.
0:30:10 > 0:30:17And what he found would rewrite the history of the world's languages, including our own.
0:30:20 > 0:30:23On February the 2nd, 1786,
0:30:23 > 0:30:28Jones gave a lecture here to the society.
0:30:29 > 0:30:36Like others before him, he noticed a very close similarity between Sanskrit,
0:30:36 > 0:30:38Latin and Greek.
0:30:38 > 0:30:42And even to English and his native Welsh.
0:30:47 > 0:30:50Take the word for "father" -
0:30:50 > 0:30:53"Pater" in Greek and "Pater" in Latin,
0:30:53 > 0:30:56it's "Pitar" in Sanskrit.
0:30:56 > 0:31:01The word for "mother" - "mater" in Latin, "meter" in Greek.
0:31:01 > 0:31:04In Sanskrit, it's "matar".
0:31:04 > 0:31:09And most amazing, the key word for horse in Sanskrit, "asva",
0:31:09 > 0:31:14is exactly the same thousands of miles away in Lithuania.
0:31:14 > 0:31:18"No philologer could examine all three," said Jones,
0:31:18 > 0:31:22"without believing them to have sprung from some common source."
0:31:22 > 0:31:28We now know Jones was right and though this is hugely controversial in the subcontinent,
0:31:28 > 0:31:32most linguists agree the common source lay outside India.
0:31:32 > 0:31:36Thank you very much.
0:31:36 > 0:31:43'So where had Sanskrit come from? In the Rig-Veda lies the key to the next phase of the story.'
0:31:43 > 0:31:49So, Professor Biswas, I'm looking in the modern catalogue - 6608.
0:31:49 > 0:31:54- And we're looking for bundle 14. - Bundle 14 - this one.- Great.
0:31:54 > 0:32:03It says here, "Copied in Samvat, the year 1418, which is AD 1362.
0:32:03 > 0:32:09- "Appearance very old."- Yes. And probably this is the earliest manuscript.
0:32:09 > 0:32:11The earliest manuscript. Fantastic.
0:32:11 > 0:32:18When this text was written down, it had already been passed down orally for more than 2,500 years.
0:32:18 > 0:32:22It's the first verse of the Rig-Veda.
0:32:22 > 0:32:25RECITES VERSE
0:32:30 > 0:32:37'In the Rig-Veda, there are many clues to the origin of the Sanskrit-speaking peoples.
0:32:37 > 0:32:41'First, the Rig-Vedic gods are not originally Indian.'
0:32:41 > 0:32:49- The most important god was Indra. Indra was the god of thunder and rain.- The god of thunder and rain.
0:32:49 > 0:32:53He brought down the water from the sky.
0:32:53 > 0:33:00'Then there's the chariots and horses. Horses are not known in the Indus civilisation.
0:33:00 > 0:33:04'Yet they're a key part of the Rig-Veda.'
0:33:04 > 0:33:12Chariots were drawn by the horses. They used to ride the horses and it was a very familiar animal to them.
0:33:12 > 0:33:17And I think that they tamed the horse at a very early period.
0:33:17 > 0:33:22'And another clue is the evidence of a migration eastwards.'
0:33:23 > 0:33:27So a movement eastwards can be determined?
0:33:27 > 0:33:34- Some of the rivers are identified with rivers almost towards the Afghan border?- Yes.
0:33:34 > 0:33:40- The Swat and the Kabul river?- This is the first movement of Aryans.
0:33:40 > 0:33:47- Is this the name they called themselves? And what does it mean? - It actually means "the civilised".
0:33:47 > 0:33:53- The socialised, civilised person. - Refined, yes.- Refined person.
0:33:53 > 0:33:55And so the use of the word, "Arya".
0:33:55 > 0:33:59- That's what they call themselves? - Yes.
0:33:59 > 0:34:03So this is a key moment in the story.
0:34:03 > 0:34:07Around 1500 BC, after the death of the Indus cities,
0:34:07 > 0:34:13Aryan tribes began to enter India with new gods and a new language.
0:34:13 > 0:34:18The earliest hymns in the Rig-Veda mention places in the northwest
0:34:18 > 0:34:23where the Aryans are first found inside the subcontinent.
0:34:23 > 0:34:30They settled in the valley of the Indus, the river that gave India its name.
0:34:30 > 0:34:36They fought battles on the Kabul River, which flows down from Afghanistan.
0:34:39 > 0:34:46And they herded their cattle on the River Swat, today in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier.
0:34:49 > 0:34:56The heart of the early Aryan territory was the region of Peshawar in Pakistan.
0:34:56 > 0:34:59Here I hope to solve another clue.
0:34:59 > 0:35:03The Rig-Veda talks about the sacred drink used in the Aryans' rituals,
0:35:03 > 0:35:08a speciality of the tribes around here. It was called soma.
0:35:08 > 0:35:15The Rig-Veda says it was taken from a mountain plant. It didn't have leaves or berries.
0:35:15 > 0:35:20It was a twig-like plant, which you crushed to create a distillation.
0:35:20 > 0:35:25In the mountains of Afghanistan there's still a drink called soma.
0:35:25 > 0:35:32And if we're likely to find it anywhere, it'll be here in the bazaar at Peshawar.
0:35:32 > 0:35:36Just off the Street of Storytellers
0:35:36 > 0:35:43is the Alley of the Apothecaries. And here I tried out the Rig-Veda's description of the soma plant.
0:35:43 > 0:35:47No, that's not it.
0:35:47 > 0:35:53Long stalk. No leaves. Makes very bitter taste.
0:35:53 > 0:35:56Look. Look. It's like this.
0:35:56 > 0:35:59CONVERSATION IN LOCAL LANGUAGE
0:36:01 > 0:36:03- Soma?- Soma? You have?
0:36:03 > 0:36:07- LAUGHTER - Fantastic!
0:36:07 > 0:36:11Fantastic. He has the natural plant here.
0:36:15 > 0:36:19Can be one-foot, two-foot, three-feet long.
0:36:19 > 0:36:21Scented like...
0:36:21 > 0:36:23Ah!
0:36:24 > 0:36:27- Mahu.- Mahu?- Yes.
0:36:27 > 0:36:30This is it.
0:36:30 > 0:36:34This is it. It smells slightly like pine.
0:36:36 > 0:36:43If I boil this up in water, I should be able to taste the bitter taste of it? Yes. OK.
0:36:43 > 0:36:47'We don't know exactly how soma was prepared,
0:36:47 > 0:36:51'but we do know that they sweetened it with honey.'
0:36:51 > 0:36:58What we want is a pot of boiling water, but a lot of it, so it's strong.
0:36:58 > 0:37:02'Soma is still used as a medicine in Central Asia.'
0:37:02 > 0:37:05The active element in the plant is ephedrine.
0:37:05 > 0:37:12And the effect that it has, according to the Rig-Veda, if you take too much, it can cause nausea.
0:37:12 > 0:37:17It can be frightening. It can give you vertigo, sickness, vomiting.
0:37:17 > 0:37:25If you take it in the right measure, it enlivens the senses, sharpens you up, keeps you awake.
0:37:25 > 0:37:31The poets in the Rig-Veda composed their songs, often at night, having drunk soma.
0:37:31 > 0:37:38And Indra, king of the gods, drinks vast quantities as it's thought to be an aphrodisiac as well.
0:37:42 > 0:37:45My God, look at the colour of it!
0:37:45 > 0:37:51'But soma's not an Indian plant. It doesn't grow in the humid plains.
0:37:51 > 0:37:55'It's no longer part of Hindu religion. It came from outside.'
0:37:55 > 0:38:00Now I'm getting a kind of tingling feeling all over.
0:38:00 > 0:38:05It just sharpens the senses up. Makes you slightly...
0:38:05 > 0:38:10Oh, go on then. In for a penny, in for a pound! Thank you.
0:38:10 > 0:38:17Slight feeling all over now of slightly tingling. Heart beating slightly faster.
0:38:17 > 0:38:20Um, senses just slightly sharpened up.
0:38:20 > 0:38:25This is a really important aspect of the Rig-Veda.
0:38:25 > 0:38:30There are many, many poems devoted to the merits of drinking soma,
0:38:30 > 0:38:35an elixir of the gods and chiefly of the king of the gods himself.
0:38:35 > 0:38:38'It also makes you talk too much.'
0:38:44 > 0:38:51So the Northwest Frontier and the rivers of the Punjab were the first home of Aryans inside India.
0:38:54 > 0:39:01But the Rig-Veda suggests they'd come from much further afield, beyond the Khyber Pass,
0:39:01 > 0:39:05even beyond the mountains of the Hindu Kush.
0:39:05 > 0:39:11The clues now point us northwards into Central Asia.
0:39:14 > 0:39:19And our search for the Aryans led us into Turkmenistan,
0:39:19 > 0:39:22to Ashgabat...
0:39:23 > 0:39:31..a closed world in the last days of its strange and secretive ruler, Turkmenbashi.
0:39:34 > 0:39:39And here we gathered supplies for our journey onwards
0:39:39 > 0:39:43to the site of a sensational new archaeological discovery.
0:39:46 > 0:39:51We'd arranged a rendezvous out in the Karakum, the Black Desert,
0:39:51 > 0:39:58on the migration route by which the ancestors of the Aryans must have come
0:39:58 > 0:40:02out of Central Asia in the Bronze Age.
0:40:06 > 0:40:104,000 years ago, this desert was a fertile oasis,
0:40:10 > 0:40:13home to thousands of settlements,
0:40:13 > 0:40:20all of them destroyed by climate change at the same time as Harappa and Mohenjo-daro.
0:40:21 > 0:40:27And out here we made our rendezvous with Victor Sarianidi.
0:40:27 > 0:40:32Professor Sarianidi is, to say the least, a living legend.
0:40:32 > 0:40:39One of the great Russian archaeologists. He's been excavating out here for many years,
0:40:39 > 0:40:45and found what few archaeologists are ever lucky enough to find,
0:40:45 > 0:40:48a lost civilisation.
0:40:53 > 0:40:59Sarianidi's excavating a vast, fortified mud-brick enclosure
0:40:59 > 0:41:04and a huge sacred precinct with tombs and fire altars.
0:41:04 > 0:41:12The material culture here is the mirror image of the Aryans of the Rig-Veda
0:41:12 > 0:41:18and their ancient Iranian cousins who followed the Zoroastrian religion.
0:41:19 > 0:41:21SPEAKING IN BROKEN ENGLISH:
0:41:34 > 0:41:37What date does it stop being used?
0:41:50 > 0:41:55So change of river and climate change moves the population?
0:42:00 > 0:42:04This is where the soma, haoma, was prepared?
0:42:04 > 0:42:07- The sacred drink?- Yes.
0:42:07 > 0:42:10- In this kind of bowl?- Yes.
0:42:10 > 0:42:15What were the ingredients of the sacred drink?
0:42:20 > 0:42:22Have you tasted?
0:42:22 > 0:42:27- No!- Have you made today?- No! - Too early in the morning!
0:42:27 > 0:42:30Well, it certainly is for me!
0:42:31 > 0:42:38When you look at the connections, you've got the sacred drink here, the soma.
0:42:38 > 0:42:45You've got the fire altars. You've got close similarities with what we heard in the Rig-Veda.
0:42:45 > 0:42:48What about horses then, Victor?
0:42:48 > 0:42:51Have you found evidence of horses?
0:42:51 > 0:42:57The horse was first domesticated out here in Central Asia.
0:42:57 > 0:43:02- So this is a foal for a king's mausoleum?- Yes.- Yeah.
0:43:02 > 0:43:10The horse sacrifice was the greatest ritual an Aryan king could do.
0:43:13 > 0:43:16- All of these?- Yes.- The royal tombs.
0:43:16 > 0:43:21And in these tombs you found wheeled vehicles like carts?
0:43:21 > 0:43:26- With four wheels?- Yes.- With four wheels. It's really interesting.
0:43:26 > 0:43:33The Rig-Veda, when they talk about the wheeled vehicles, they use this word "ratha" in Sanskrit.
0:43:33 > 0:43:40It's not a chariot, it is actually a cart. And here they've found a cart.
0:43:44 > 0:43:49The origin of the Aryans must lie much further into Central Asia.
0:43:49 > 0:43:57This was perhaps a staging post for one group out of many on the way to Iran and India.
0:43:57 > 0:44:02I would like to toast you. It's great to finally get here.
0:44:02 > 0:44:07- If we can help you, we will. - Thank you.
0:44:10 > 0:44:13SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN
0:44:21 > 0:44:29And that night under the stars, another thought came to me about the Rig-Veda.
0:44:32 > 0:44:37The communal drinking, the convivial feast,
0:44:37 > 0:44:44was that how some of this ancient poetry was composed by the bards in front of the Aryan kings?
0:44:45 > 0:44:47Mighty Indra
0:44:47 > 0:44:51Let your regal mounts bring you here
0:44:51 > 0:44:54to drink soma,
0:44:54 > 0:44:58the juice which is swifter than thought!
0:45:03 > 0:45:05Indra, wield your thunderbolt.
0:45:05 > 0:45:08Indra, bring rain!
0:45:08 > 0:45:11Grant all our desires.
0:45:11 > 0:45:15Part the sky and make all things visible!
0:45:21 > 0:45:25Part the sky and drink soma
0:45:25 > 0:45:29that opens our mind
0:45:29 > 0:45:33to the vastness of your skies.
0:45:42 > 0:45:45'Indra!'
0:45:53 > 0:45:59It's a wonderful, tantalising mystery, isn't it?
0:45:59 > 0:46:06The Aryans, or to be more precise, the languages that would become modern English, German, French,
0:46:06 > 0:46:12Latin and Greek, Persian and Sanskrit, where did they come from?
0:46:12 > 0:46:19How did they spread? Well, it may just be that here in the deserts of Turkmenistan,
0:46:19 > 0:46:23for the first time we can pin these people down on their migration.
0:46:23 > 0:46:27They arrived in this place well before 2000 BC.
0:46:27 > 0:46:33They defended themselves in these great mud-brick citadels.
0:46:33 > 0:46:40They were cattle herders. They had a class of priests who performed fire rituals at special altars
0:46:40 > 0:46:43and made the sacred intoxicating drink.
0:46:43 > 0:46:48And they had horses and wheeled wagons.
0:46:48 > 0:46:52Around 1700 BC and 1800 BC, they moved on again,
0:46:52 > 0:46:59perhaps this time because of overpopulation, climate change, the shifting of rivers.
0:46:59 > 0:47:06But this time, they moved south towards the passes of the Hindu Kush and the Indian subcontinent.
0:47:06 > 0:47:11The history of India was about to enter its defining phase.
0:47:23 > 0:47:27Now again we need to jump the centuries.
0:47:27 > 0:47:32By around 1000 BC, Aryan tribes were settled across North India
0:47:32 > 0:47:35and fighting each other for supremacy.
0:47:35 > 0:47:43And that period of heroic warfare was eventually crystallised in a great myth, the Mahabharata.
0:47:48 > 0:47:54Composed in Sanskrit, it's the longest poem in the world,
0:47:54 > 0:47:59and for all Indians, the greatest story ever told.
0:48:17 > 0:48:24Like Homer's tale of Troy, the Mahabharata is a story of war and tragedy, a doomsday epic.
0:48:24 > 0:48:30It harks back to the time when the Aryan tribes had settled in India,
0:48:30 > 0:48:37an archetypal tale of family feud that ends in an apocalyptic battle here at Kurukshetra.
0:48:37 > 0:48:43It's dawn on the festival of Siva and the pilgrims are gathering here
0:48:43 > 0:48:48by the enormous sacred pool at Kurukshetra, to celebrate a battle,
0:48:48 > 0:48:53which, in Indian tradition, took place in 3100 BC.
0:48:53 > 0:49:00For Indian people, the battle has always marked the divide between the time of myth
0:49:00 > 0:49:07and the beginning of real history. It's the last time when men and gods walked the Earth together.
0:49:07 > 0:49:14The story of the rival families, the Kurus and the Pandavas, would permeate Indian culture,
0:49:14 > 0:49:21in all Indian languages, a fundamental guide to how to live your life and do your duty.
0:49:21 > 0:49:29It's a battlefield for Kuru and Pandava, at the time of Dvapara. Dvapara is the Krishna time.
0:49:29 > 0:49:32Lord Krishna's time.
0:49:34 > 0:49:40All the warriors, they belong to his own family. All family are relatives.
0:49:40 > 0:49:47- They don't want to do war with his own.- He doesn't want to fight against his own people?- Yes.
0:49:47 > 0:49:50And what did Krishna say to him?
0:49:50 > 0:49:56Then Krishna...advised him how to perform his duty.
0:49:56 > 0:50:01The importance of performing duty for the king.
0:50:01 > 0:50:06- Your duty is to fight? - A performance of duty is a must.
0:50:06 > 0:50:11It's really an epic that speaks to every age.
0:50:11 > 0:50:16That is an epic full of stories of human beings with feet of clay
0:50:16 > 0:50:18with lust and lechery,
0:50:18 > 0:50:21ambitions and fears.
0:50:21 > 0:50:23People who have committed betrayals
0:50:23 > 0:50:26and sold each other down the river.
0:50:26 > 0:50:28To read the Mahabharata today
0:50:28 > 0:50:34is to recognise how thrilling it must have been to hear it the first time,
0:50:34 > 0:50:41somewhere between 400 BC and 400 AD, which is roughly the 800-year span during which it was composed.
0:50:41 > 0:50:49During that period, the tale was told and retold to a point where it became a national library of India
0:50:49 > 0:50:56where every tale that had to be told was incorporated into a re-telling of the Mahabharata.
0:50:56 > 0:51:00All sorts of things got tossed into this.
0:51:00 > 0:51:08Every single thing that people wanted to talk about, their times, went into a re-telling of the epic.
0:51:08 > 0:51:14So for 800 years, the Mahabharata became THE story of India.
0:51:16 > 0:51:21And stories too become part of a nation's identity
0:51:21 > 0:51:28for they help create a shared past that binds us all, irrespective of language or religion,
0:51:28 > 0:51:35making an allegiance to the idea of India itself. But was the war more than just myth?
0:51:35 > 0:51:40So these are all places that were famous in the legend?
0:51:40 > 0:51:47The names have not changed. Till today, they bear the same name. The reason is that they have been...
0:51:47 > 0:51:53In 1949, two years after independence, a young archaeologist, BB Lal,
0:51:53 > 0:52:00went to the citadel of the warring clans at Hastinapur to see if real history lay behind the myth.
0:52:00 > 0:52:07This is a view of the Hastinapur mound. And we put a long trench across the mound.
0:52:07 > 0:52:13This is the mound from the west. On the eastern side, the river used to flow.
0:52:13 > 0:52:18Right by the side of the old River Ganges in ancient times.
0:52:18 > 0:52:25His guide wasn't only archaeological science, but the tradition handed down in the Mahabharata.
0:52:25 > 0:52:32On the western side of the mound, we were getting the painted greyware. On the eastern side, we were not.
0:52:32 > 0:52:39I spent many nights without sleep. And the texts say a great flood came in the Ganga
0:52:39 > 0:52:42and washed away Hastinapur.
0:52:42 > 0:52:48- A great flood washed away Hastinapur.- And you can see that man there
0:52:48 > 0:52:53- is pointing to the erosion mark left by the river.- It's very clear.
0:52:53 > 0:53:01So you'd found the key evidence that the tradition was correct, that there had been a flood
0:53:01 > 0:53:05- that had destroyed part of the city?- Yes.
0:53:09 > 0:53:12When you go to Hastinapur today,
0:53:12 > 0:53:16you'd almost think it could be then.
0:53:16 > 0:53:22What Lal found under the ground was so similar to what is still above it.
0:53:22 > 0:53:29The country people of India live the same way. They build the same kind of houses.
0:53:29 > 0:53:34Ancient Hastinapur was recognisable in the India of today.
0:53:45 > 0:53:52This is the trench that Professor Lal dug through the mound nearly 60 years ago.
0:53:52 > 0:53:59It's crumbling now. But you can still make out the different layers of the city.
0:53:59 > 0:54:06It's a bit bigger than Troy, for the sake of comparison, about 700 yards across.
0:54:06 > 0:54:13A royal citadel of one of these early kings of the Ganges valley, with mud-brick defences,
0:54:13 > 0:54:16storerooms, rooms for the warriors.
0:54:16 > 0:54:22And somewhere here presumably a palace, although Professor Lal never found that.
0:54:22 > 0:54:27Now what connected this place with the war in the Mahabharata?
0:54:27 > 0:54:34Well, remember, three things - the legend which named the place, the story of the flood
0:54:34 > 0:54:40and the pottery. This kind of stuff you can pick up even today
0:54:40 > 0:54:46after the rains, all over this site. They call it painted greyware.
0:54:46 > 0:54:50You can see why - it's grey, beautifully turned on a wheel
0:54:50 > 0:54:53and it's painted.
0:54:53 > 0:54:58That was the evidence that led Professor Lal to believe
0:54:58 > 0:55:02that the great war of the Mahabharata really took place.
0:55:02 > 0:55:08Remember, this was the first great excavation done after independence.
0:55:08 > 0:55:14It was of crucial importance for the Indian people's view of their own history.
0:55:14 > 0:55:21The Mahabharata was their greatest epic. And here this excavation seemed to prove
0:55:21 > 0:55:28that long before all the colonial periods, there was a real history, and it was their own.
0:55:35 > 0:55:42Over the next 3,000 years, Greeks and Huns, Turks and Afghans, Moguls and British,
0:55:42 > 0:55:49Alexander, Tamburlaine, Babur will all come and fall under India's spell.
0:55:52 > 0:55:58And India's greatest strength, as the oldest civilisations know,
0:55:58 > 0:56:03will be to adapt and change, to absorb the wounds of history
0:56:03 > 0:56:08and to use its gifts, but somehow magically, always remain India.
0:56:34 > 0:56:41This is the sacred city of Mathura on the River Jumna. The cool season is over now. The rains are ending.
0:56:41 > 0:56:45And the heat is beginning to rise.
0:56:45 > 0:56:52The Festival of Holi celebrates the coming of light, the triumph of good, the growth of life.
0:56:52 > 0:57:00And down there, there's bank managers and IT boffins rubbing shoulders with rickshaw men,
0:57:00 > 0:57:04all of them dancing for a god from pre-history.
0:57:11 > 0:57:17This amazing journey has already taken us from the Deep South of India
0:57:17 > 0:57:24to the wilds of the Hindu Kush in Central Asia and here to the heart of the Ganges plains.
0:57:24 > 0:57:30Already you can see the cultures and the languages and the religions of India
0:57:30 > 0:57:35have been built up over tens of thousands of years.
0:57:35 > 0:57:42They're the deep current on which the great events of history are just the surface movements.
0:57:43 > 0:57:50And they make up that deep core of the identity of India.
0:57:53 > 0:57:55And this...
0:57:58 > 0:58:02And this is just the beginning!
0:58:02 > 0:58:04CHEERING
0:58:09 > 0:58:14Next in The Story Of India, tales of war and peace,
0:58:14 > 0:58:17and the power of ideas -
0:58:17 > 0:58:24the greatest warriors, the greatest thinkers and the most dangerous idea in the world.
0:58:48 > 0:58:52Subtitles by Subtext for Red Bee Media Ltd 2007
0:58:52 > 0:58:56Email us at subtitling@bbc.co.uk