0:00:13 > 0:00:20Civilisation is made by many things but, most of all by human interaction, by contact and exchange.
0:00:22 > 0:00:27Rich in resources, India has traded with the world since the beginning of history.
0:00:29 > 0:00:32But commerce is never just about commodities,
0:00:32 > 0:00:38it's the way civilisations adapt and grow, the way people learn about themselves and others,
0:00:38 > 0:00:41discover new ideas and new worlds.
0:00:42 > 0:00:46In the time of the Roman Empire, the opening of the Silk Road
0:00:46 > 0:00:51and the Spice Route saw the beginnings of a world economy.
0:00:51 > 0:00:54And at the centre was India.
0:00:57 > 0:01:01Sometimes change in history happens in the unlikeliest of ways.
0:01:01 > 0:01:05Here in India, 2000 years ago in the time of the Roman Empire,
0:01:05 > 0:01:11these three things - the produce of a weed, of a grass
0:01:11 > 0:01:13and of the lava of a beetle -
0:01:13 > 0:01:16changed the course of Indian history,
0:01:16 > 0:01:19brought about the growth of civilisation
0:01:19 > 0:01:22and caused other countries to make great voyages
0:01:22 > 0:01:26across thousands of miles of ocean, seeking the riches of India.
0:01:54 > 0:01:58The Arabian Sea off the coast of Kerala.
0:02:02 > 0:02:07Our boat is carrying timber, pepper and spices from South India
0:02:07 > 0:02:11to the Persian Gulf, the way they've done it for more than 2,000 years.
0:02:16 > 0:02:21It's easy to forget the great voyages of Columbus and Vasco de Gama were to find India.
0:02:24 > 0:02:27And those voyages started in the days of the Romans.
0:02:30 > 0:02:34We know about the Roman trade with India because of a guidebook
0:02:34 > 0:02:36written by an old Greek sea captain
0:02:36 > 0:02:39who knew Indian ports like the back of his hand.
0:02:39 > 0:02:43It's full of the most wonderful detail that enables us to sample
0:02:43 > 0:02:48the sights and sounds of India in the time of the Ancient Romans.
0:02:53 > 0:02:56"And this was the time," wrote an ancient historian,
0:02:56 > 0:03:02"when history became one, when the affairs of the Mediterranean, Africa and Asia connected."
0:03:02 > 0:03:09From the 1st century AD, Roman trading ports dotted the shores of the Red Sea, East Africa and India.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18Ah, here we are, yes.
0:03:18 > 0:03:22'It started with the discovery of the monsoon.'
0:03:22 > 0:03:24Aden, right.
0:03:24 > 0:03:28HE SPEAKS IN NATIVE LANGUAGE
0:03:28 > 0:03:31July, August time, monsoon?
0:03:31 > 0:03:33You are sailing or not sailing?
0:03:33 > 0:03:35In June...?
0:03:35 > 0:03:37In July, August...?
0:03:37 > 0:03:39- Dangerous time.- Dangerous time.
0:03:39 > 0:03:44It's so easy as a Western person to see things from a Western perspective.
0:03:44 > 0:03:46We talk about these great voyages of exploration,
0:03:46 > 0:03:51the discovery of the monsoon, as if Indian sailors didn't know about the monsoon all along.
0:03:51 > 0:03:56But still, the Romans and Greeks DID discover the monsoon for themselves.
0:03:56 > 0:04:02And the man who did it, according to the story, was a sailor called Hippalus in about 150 BC.
0:04:02 > 0:04:05And what Hippalus discovered was this.
0:04:05 > 0:04:11In June, the south-west monsoon begins to blow in this direction across the Indian Ocean.
0:04:11 > 0:04:17The seas become heavy, it becomes dangerous to sail, but with strong enough ships
0:04:17 > 0:04:22you can take that wind, coming out of the Red Sea, and it'll bring you across to India.
0:04:22 > 0:04:28"It's hard going," says the Greek guide to the Indian Ocean, "but you can get there really quickly."
0:04:28 > 0:04:32And then - this is the really great thing about it - in November,
0:04:32 > 0:04:38a couple of months after the heavy winds die down, the north-east monsoon blows you back the other way.
0:04:46 > 0:04:51And this is what they came for - the Spice Coast of Kerala.
0:04:53 > 0:04:58And if you were a Mediterranean merchant, wouldn't you like to stay here?
0:05:12 > 0:05:18But for distant worlds to make contact, they need the technology, and the Romans developed that.
0:05:18 > 0:05:21And miraculously, you can see it today.
0:05:21 > 0:05:25Here in Kerala, the traditional boat builders still build
0:05:25 > 0:05:31huge, wooden, ocean-going ships, using methods brought to India 2,000 years ago.
0:05:34 > 0:05:36How long is this boat?
0:05:36 > 0:05:39- About 70 feet.- 70 feet?
0:05:39 > 0:05:41Yeah, yeah.
0:05:41 > 0:05:48They recently built a monster here, 170 feet long, bigger than biggest Roman ships,
0:05:48 > 0:05:51purely by eye, without a single sketch.
0:05:51 > 0:05:56So this is a modification of the ancient way of constructing.
0:05:56 > 0:06:00Greek and Roman shipbuilders in Egypt, once trade with India opened up,
0:06:00 > 0:06:03devised a special way of constructing the ships
0:06:03 > 0:06:08in which they made the skin first with those interlocking joints,
0:06:08 > 0:06:13mortise and tenons and a dowel through, so it was incredibly strong, could cope with heavy seas.
0:06:13 > 0:06:19And then putting the frame in, the full frame in, after they'd constructed the skin.
0:06:21 > 0:06:25And it was that technical advance, plus the knowledge of the monsoons,
0:06:25 > 0:06:29that enabled the Greek and Roman navigators to open up the trade with India.
0:06:33 > 0:06:37And what the Romans wanted was spices.
0:07:02 > 0:07:08This is one of the pepper warehouses in old Cochin, built by Jewish merchants from Iraq long ago.
0:07:09 > 0:07:15Sacks of pepper destined for the tables of Europe and America.
0:07:18 > 0:07:22Kerala's Jews first came with the Roman spice trade.
0:07:24 > 0:07:28I wish you could smell the air, it really is spicy.
0:07:28 > 0:07:33You know that connotation - heady, dreamy, erotic even.
0:07:33 > 0:07:37And all of it is the produce of native South Indian plants,
0:07:37 > 0:07:41some of them weeds, like pepper, a Tamil word.
0:07:42 > 0:07:44And another South Indian word - ginger.
0:07:47 > 0:07:51Ginger shall be hot in the mouth, says Shakespeare.
0:07:52 > 0:07:53It's about 60, 65.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56And it's grown in Kerala?
0:08:00 > 0:08:04The history of food is a part of the history of civilisation.
0:08:04 > 0:08:11Food is an essential of life, and for all cultures, eating together, one of the life's great pleasures.
0:08:13 > 0:08:16Indian was perhaps the first international cuisine.
0:08:16 > 0:08:22And here you can see the beginning, born of the simple need to preserve food in the heat of the tropics.
0:08:24 > 0:08:29This is what the Roman craze for spices and pepper was all about -
0:08:29 > 0:08:30food.
0:08:30 > 0:08:33Coriander, fresh, everything mixed, a little water.
0:08:33 > 0:08:35Garam masala?
0:08:35 > 0:08:37- Garam masala.- Some wine?
0:08:37 > 0:08:39- No wine.- Sour vinegar. Sour vinegar.
0:08:39 > 0:08:46A top Roman celebrity chef wrote a cookbook with 460-odd recipes,
0:08:46 > 0:08:49350 of them full of pepper,
0:08:49 > 0:08:53blasting away at the taste buds, from whole spiced flamingos
0:08:53 > 0:08:57to dormice stuffed with peppercorns.
0:09:06 > 0:09:14The stuffed dormice never caught on here in vegetarian South India, but many other commodities and ideas did.
0:09:15 > 0:09:21The Romans wanted many things from India.
0:09:21 > 0:09:24Spices, pepper and cardamom
0:09:24 > 0:09:26and many more.
0:09:26 > 0:09:29Gemstones, pearls
0:09:29 > 0:09:33and one little known thing - peacocks.
0:09:33 > 0:09:39They say South Indian peacocks were a favourite pet
0:09:39 > 0:09:43among the ladies of the Roman aristocracy.
0:09:43 > 0:09:45Fantastic!
0:09:45 > 0:09:51But India was a golden sparrow then, not now.
0:09:51 > 0:09:55India did not need much from Rome.
0:09:55 > 0:09:59What we got is mainly gold,
0:09:59 > 0:10:06as medals, coins, silver, copper, tin,
0:10:06 > 0:10:10antimony and, of course, Roman wine.
0:10:14 > 0:10:19There were 40 or 50 ports trading with Rome on the west coast of India.
0:10:23 > 0:10:29The greatest was called Muziris, the first emporium of India, as the Roman geographers called it.
0:10:30 > 0:10:37Everyone came here. The apostle Thomas, Doubting Thomas, is supposed to have landed here in AD 50.
0:10:42 > 0:10:45The Syrian Christians have been here ever since.
0:10:45 > 0:10:49Jews, later Muslim Arabs, all religions came here peacefully
0:10:49 > 0:10:52and stayed on the banks of the Periyar river.
0:11:00 > 0:11:02But Muziris itself has disappeared...
0:11:02 > 0:11:04until now.
0:11:08 > 0:11:13In 2005, the site of Muziris was found a mile or two inland
0:11:13 > 0:11:17under a tangle of pepper vines and banana trees.
0:11:20 > 0:11:25The clues which led the archaeologists here were Roman coins, beads and glass
0:11:25 > 0:11:30and broken pottery dug up by the local people in their gardens.
0:11:30 > 0:11:31How about that!
0:11:35 > 0:11:37Oh, yeah.
0:11:38 > 0:11:40Actually, can use further.
0:11:40 > 0:11:44- So that is the plot where we excavated there.- Yeah, yeah.
0:11:44 > 0:11:47We found similar structures about three metres that side.
0:11:47 > 0:11:49The regular trench we excavated.
0:11:52 > 0:11:58The place was probably a Roman treaty port, next door to an Indian village, which is still here.
0:11:58 > 0:12:01This is a habitation mound,
0:12:01 > 0:12:04this whole area is...
0:12:04 > 0:12:07spread with a lot of pottery,
0:12:07 > 0:12:10bricks, tiles, everything.
0:12:10 > 0:12:12Every cultural thing.
0:12:12 > 0:12:17Everybody had been looking for the site of Muziris, hadn't they? Everybody wondered where it was.
0:12:17 > 0:12:21We dug a trench measuring two metres by two metres
0:12:21 > 0:12:23and at a depth of about one metre
0:12:23 > 0:12:26we found a brick structure in this trench,
0:12:26 > 0:12:32and further below we found a lot of amphora, what is known as Roman amphora pottery,
0:12:32 > 0:12:34and small coin fragments.
0:12:34 > 0:12:39And this is the best piece of amphora.
0:12:39 > 0:12:44Oh, it's the bottom of an amphora, yes. It's fantastic.
0:12:44 > 0:12:48I've seen these all along the route from Egypt,
0:12:48 > 0:12:52the Red Sea ports and even in the Egyptian desert.
0:12:52 > 0:12:55This amphora was used for importing wine
0:12:55 > 0:13:00and also, to some extent, olive oil and a kind of fish sauce called garum.
0:13:12 > 0:13:17In the temple here in Muziris, there was a statue of the Emperor Augustus.
0:13:17 > 0:13:23So Queen Victoria wasn't the first Western ruler whose image stood on the banks of an Indian river.
0:13:39 > 0:13:43I'm a great believer in the living presence of the past.
0:13:43 > 0:13:49You've only got to spend an hour in a place like this and you can feel it all around you.
0:13:49 > 0:13:52This is what it would have felt like 2,000 years ago.
0:13:52 > 0:13:56The evening catch being unloaded, the stalls cooking food.
0:13:56 > 0:14:02A Greek or a Roman standing on this spot now would recognise this scene.
0:14:29 > 0:14:33But ancient South India was more than a string of trading ports.
0:14:33 > 0:14:40It was a great classical civilisation whose centre of power lay over the mountains to the east.
0:14:42 > 0:14:46Over the Western Ghats, the spine of India.
0:14:47 > 0:14:53There are two passes which lead eastwards through the mountains of Kerala
0:14:53 > 0:14:56and into the plains of South India,
0:14:56 > 0:15:01both of them used by the railway engineers in later times.
0:15:05 > 0:15:12These routes lead into the land Marco Polo called the most splendid province on earth.
0:15:14 > 0:15:19The place the British thought the most fertile part of their empire - Tamil Nadu.
0:15:29 > 0:15:35This is rice country - so fertile it gives three harvests a year.
0:15:39 > 0:15:44And the capital of this southern civilisation was the city of Madurai.
0:15:49 > 0:15:53To arrive here is to enter one of those thrilling places on earth
0:15:53 > 0:15:58where the ancient past still exists alongside the modern world.
0:16:04 > 0:16:08Just imagine, if classical Athens was alive today,
0:16:08 > 0:16:13and the goddess of the city still presiding over her citizens.
0:16:13 > 0:16:15That's Madurai.
0:16:26 > 0:16:30"At dawn," says a Tamil poem of the Roman period,
0:16:30 > 0:16:37"Madurai wakes to the sound of the Vedas, and the air is perfumed with the scent of flowers."
0:16:48 > 0:16:52Tamil Nadu is the world's last surviving classical civilisation.
0:16:52 > 0:16:57Its people still live comfortably, both in modernity and in sacred time.
0:17:02 > 0:17:08Part of the global culture, but also the guardians of humanity's older traditions.
0:17:16 > 0:17:21And, as in Roman times, they still worship the city's goddess, Meenakshi.
0:17:23 > 0:17:27So Meenakshi you especially go to for marriage?
0:17:27 > 0:17:29Yes, especially for marriage.
0:17:29 > 0:17:31Also for babies?
0:17:31 > 0:17:33SHE SPEAKS IN NATIVE LANGUAGE
0:17:33 > 0:17:37Her son attends an internet college here, she has come to pray to god.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40Ah, right, for success in his studies.
0:17:43 > 0:17:46Today, Tamil is India's last living classical language.
0:17:46 > 0:17:512,000 years ago, Madurai was the centre of South Indian culture.
0:17:51 > 0:17:54Wow, this is extraordinary, isn't it?
0:17:54 > 0:17:56So this is the manuscript.
0:17:56 > 0:18:02This palm leaf manuscript is a late copy of an epic poem composed here in Roman times.
0:18:02 > 0:18:06It's only 100 years old? So, still in Tamil Nadu 100 years ago,
0:18:06 > 0:18:09they were writing palm leaf manuscripts.
0:18:10 > 0:18:13So this is how ancient scribes wrote?
0:18:18 > 0:18:21- One letter... - INDISTINCT
0:18:21 > 0:18:24Typewriting machine.
0:18:24 > 0:18:26Right to left.
0:18:26 > 0:18:28- Really?- Rare, rare.- Rare.
0:18:28 > 0:18:31- Represent rare manuscript. - That's confusing, isn't it?
0:18:31 > 0:18:35- Rare manuscript, left to right. - Normal script, left to right.
0:18:35 > 0:18:37Rare manuscripts, right to left.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43I see, coal and oil. Soot and oil.
0:18:43 > 0:18:45Yeah, yeah, OK.
0:18:50 > 0:18:53It's absolutely great, isn't it?
0:18:55 > 0:18:56Wow!
0:18:58 > 0:19:01So, there you are, an ancient Tamil business card.
0:19:07 > 0:19:12The old Tamil poems mention Greek and Roman traders
0:19:12 > 0:19:16bringing gold to Madurai in exchange for pearls and textiles.
0:19:19 > 0:19:24The city still has 6,000 goldsmiths working in the gold quarter.
0:19:24 > 0:19:29- Your fathers did it before you and grandfathers?- Yes. - It runs in the family?
0:19:29 > 0:19:32My father, my grandfather, my grand-grand-grand father...
0:19:37 > 0:19:43Everywhere around you, you're seeing what a pre-modern city would have looked like.
0:19:43 > 0:19:46Indian textiles have been coveted since ancient times.
0:19:46 > 0:19:49I'm not sure it's quite my colour!
0:19:49 > 0:19:52- There's more colours.- Very nice. This is pashmina...?
0:19:52 > 0:19:54'Cotton, of course, is native to India.'
0:19:54 > 0:19:58- Beautiful!- This is specimen of shirts.- It's lovely.
0:19:58 > 0:20:02'But it's how the Indians dye it that has always dazzled visitors.'
0:20:02 > 0:20:07- You can make one of these in one hour?- One hour.- One hour?!
0:20:07 > 0:20:10No wonder the Greeks loved it, hey?
0:20:10 > 0:20:14The ancient Tamil poems talk about the Greeks wandering around
0:20:14 > 0:20:18with jaws dropping at Madurai, and they still do drop, don't they?
0:20:18 > 0:20:21This building, market, 450 years ago.
0:20:21 > 0:20:23This is a big market, like a stock exchange.
0:20:23 > 0:20:25Madurai's a marketing town.
0:20:25 > 0:20:27Marketing town. It's a centre.
0:20:27 > 0:20:31- Pilgrims are still coming here, but to do shopping.- Happy shopping.
0:20:31 > 0:20:33They do happy shopping here!
0:20:35 > 0:20:39What the Indians wanted most of all was gold.
0:20:39 > 0:20:43India today is the biggest importer of gold in the world,
0:20:43 > 0:20:47although not much of it gets into circulation because the Indians,
0:20:47 > 0:20:52as the Ancient Greeks observed, love above all to decorate themselves.
0:20:52 > 0:20:56So this is a necklace...of coins?
0:20:58 > 0:21:03It's traditional, when we get married and those kind of special occasions,
0:21:03 > 0:21:07our parents give us a dowry of gold.
0:21:09 > 0:21:15Second thing, we like to decorate ourselves with ornaments.
0:21:15 > 0:21:20May I lift up? So, this is the necklace made out of very small coins?
0:21:20 > 0:21:24Size of the little gold coins that the Romans sent over here.
0:21:24 > 0:21:28Ah, Goddess Lakshmi, goddess of wealth.
0:21:28 > 0:21:30Of wealth, yes.
0:21:30 > 0:21:34Roman writers talk about 100 million sesterces
0:21:34 > 0:21:40being sent over to India, and the interesting thing is, back then they were used for adornment, too.
0:21:40 > 0:21:42They weren't used as circulating money.
0:21:42 > 0:21:47Romans complained about the balance of payments in their day,
0:21:47 > 0:21:49just as the Indian government is today.
0:21:57 > 0:22:02So that's how India began to trade with the Mediterranean by sea.
0:22:02 > 0:22:05The first glimmerings of a global economy.
0:22:05 > 0:22:11The rulers here in Madurai would even send their own embassies to Emperor Augustus in Rome.
0:22:11 > 0:22:15But at that moment, far to the north, events were unfolding
0:22:15 > 0:22:21that would spread Indian trade and culture and religion by land as far as China.
0:22:25 > 0:22:28Beyond the great chain of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau,
0:22:28 > 0:22:33a powerful new nation was rising in the deserts of Central Asia.
0:22:33 > 0:22:35They would come to rule in India
0:22:35 > 0:22:38and galvanise commercial and cultural exchanges
0:22:38 > 0:22:43between East and West along a new trade way - the Silk Route.
0:22:56 > 0:22:59This is Merv in Turkmenistan in Central Asia.
0:23:02 > 0:23:06And it was in the first century BC out here in Central Asia
0:23:06 > 0:23:12that the merchants of China and the Western world met for the very first time.
0:23:12 > 0:23:17From that moment, the Silk Route was open.
0:23:21 > 0:23:25There are still little places where people come to do worship.
0:23:25 > 0:23:29And it would be the Silk Route which would be the catalyst
0:23:29 > 0:23:34in a new and brilliant phase in the history of India.
0:23:44 > 0:23:46That's just amazing, isn't it?
0:23:46 > 0:23:50Like the interior of a volcanic crater.
0:23:51 > 0:23:55This is just the citadel of ancient Merv,
0:23:55 > 0:23:59and the citadel was one tiny corner of the vast city
0:23:59 > 0:24:03built in the time of the Ancient Greeks and Romans.
0:24:04 > 0:24:09Doesn't that give you an idea of the wealth and importance of the Silk Route?
0:24:16 > 0:24:21The empire that controlled the Silk Route began as a confederation of tribes
0:24:21 > 0:24:27who had migrated from the edge of China across Central Asia to conquer Afghanistan and then India.
0:24:27 > 0:24:31They called themselves the Kushans.
0:24:38 > 0:24:43The story of the Kushans' forgotten empire takes us to Kabul in Afghanistan,
0:24:43 > 0:24:47where they first made their capital on the edge of the Indian subcontinent.
0:24:47 > 0:24:53I filmed this 10 years ago during the first war with the Taliban.
0:24:57 > 0:25:01When they came to rule in India, the Kushans adopted Buddhism
0:25:01 > 0:25:05and fostered a great flowering of Buddhist culture here,
0:25:05 > 0:25:09all paid for by their control of trade on the Silk Route.
0:25:12 > 0:25:18These pieces of Kushan Buddhist art in the Kabul museum have now been smashed by the Taliban,
0:25:18 > 0:25:22just as they blew up the famous Buddhas of Bamiyan.
0:25:22 > 0:25:23Look, here's a...
0:25:23 > 0:25:27here's a Greek-period Buddha.
0:25:30 > 0:25:34This headless statue of a Kushan king was also pulverised.
0:25:40 > 0:25:43But what has survived is a crucial inscription
0:25:43 > 0:25:47in Greek letters addressed to a great king of the Kushan empire.
0:25:47 > 0:25:53It was this text that led to the decipherment of their lost language.
0:25:53 > 0:25:57It was in 1957 that the French archaeologists in Afghanistan
0:25:57 > 0:26:02discovered a complete inscription, and that was, of course, the key.
0:26:02 > 0:26:06It was something to get your teeth into - complete sentences, verbs.
0:26:06 > 0:26:10For a linguist, it's very tiresome having texts on coins and seals
0:26:10 > 0:26:15because they're just phrases, just names and epithets, and no complete sentence.
0:26:16 > 0:26:19The excitement of the code-breaker!
0:26:19 > 0:26:26And the decipherment has continued as further artefacts have come out of war-torn Afghanistan -
0:26:26 > 0:26:28letters, contracts, deals, even magic spells.
0:26:28 > 0:26:35More insights into the Kushan culture that survived for centuries here in Afghanistan.
0:26:35 > 0:26:41This is a legal contract, and the custom was to write serious legal contracts like this,
0:26:41 > 0:26:46to write it in two copies, and then one copy would be rolled up, as you see here, and sealed
0:26:46 > 0:26:51so that it couldn't be altered, and then the second copy would be left open to be read.
0:26:51 > 0:26:57It has opened up a lost civilisation, hasn't it? Or at least a civilisation that most of us knew nothing about.
0:26:57 > 0:27:03Where did the Kushans come from? And what led to them using Greek?
0:27:03 > 0:27:08The Kushans were probably the chief clan, really, of the people known as the Yueh-chi.
0:27:08 > 0:27:13That's the Chinese name for these people. They're first attested in Chinese sources.
0:27:13 > 0:27:17And they come from somewhere in China, far to the north and east,
0:27:17 > 0:27:20and they gradually came to what is now Afghanistan,
0:27:20 > 0:27:24to the northern part of Afghanistan, in about the second century BC.
0:27:24 > 0:27:29And it was only after they arrived there that they came to know
0:27:29 > 0:27:34the Greek script, presumably their language had not been written before that.
0:27:34 > 0:27:39And they learnt the Greek script which is known in the area ever since the time of Alexander.
0:27:39 > 0:27:43And now a second inscription has thrown dramatic new light
0:27:43 > 0:27:47on the greatest king of the Kushans, Kanishka, and his vast Indian empire.
0:27:47 > 0:27:52This inscription is not nearly as well-preserved as the inscription of Surkh Kotal,
0:27:52 > 0:27:55but it's an even more important historical inscription
0:27:55 > 0:28:01because it describes the deeds of the great king and the extension of his power across India
0:28:01 > 0:28:05and the cities which had submitted to him right across the north of India.
0:28:05 > 0:28:09But from other sources we know also that the Kushans extended their power
0:28:09 > 0:28:13well into what is Chinese Turkistan, deep into Central Asia.
0:28:13 > 0:28:18So, above Tibet, up towards the Aral Sea and down towards the Bay of Bengal.
0:28:18 > 0:28:20That's right, it's a huge area.
0:28:20 > 0:28:25The new inscription also tells us about the great king himself.
0:28:25 > 0:28:28It also describes his genealogy - himself, Kanishka,
0:28:28 > 0:28:33and his three predecessors - his father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather.
0:28:33 > 0:28:38He describes himself as the righteous and as the autocrat.
0:28:38 > 0:28:44He has this wonderful word "autocrat", which is a Greek term, of course.
0:28:44 > 0:28:48And he says that he received the kingship from Nanna and from all the gods.
0:28:48 > 0:28:52So he was the ruler with divine right, apparently.
0:29:02 > 0:29:04So, like the Moguls and British after them,
0:29:04 > 0:29:10the Kushans were outsiders who became rulers of one of biggest Indian empires.
0:29:10 > 0:29:15An empire that controlled the Silk Route and stretched all the way
0:29:15 > 0:29:20from Central Asia deep into India, connected by the Khyber Pass.
0:29:23 > 0:29:28The Khyber Pass really came into its own as the connecting trade way
0:29:28 > 0:29:32between India and those great desert oases of Central Asia.
0:29:34 > 0:29:38Under the Kushans, trade grew, the economy thrived,
0:29:38 > 0:29:44and soon they followed the earlier Greek and Indian rulers here by minting coins for trade.
0:29:45 > 0:29:51It was a boom time, the population increased several times in a few generations, and you can still find
0:29:51 > 0:29:57traces of that boom time in the bazaars all the way between Kabul and Peshawar in the coins.
0:29:59 > 0:30:01Basilios.
0:30:01 > 0:30:03King Apollodotus.
0:30:03 > 0:30:10On one side an Indian elephant, and on the other side, with the local script, a hump-backed Indian bull.
0:30:14 > 0:30:18And then the Kushans themselves, the people who really opened up
0:30:18 > 0:30:26the Silk Route to trade, sacrificing at a fire altar with an Iranian god - Oshto, is it,
0:30:26 > 0:30:30on one side? Although on their coins you get the Buddha, you get Atheni,
0:30:30 > 0:30:36"Hercules, Shiva, the gods of everywhere between the Mediterranean and India.
0:30:37 > 0:30:39"Architect of the great salvation,
0:30:39 > 0:30:45"Kanishka the Kushan, the righteous, the just, the autocrat, who obtained
0:30:45 > 0:30:52"the kingship from all the gods, inaugurated year one and proclaimed his edict to the whole of India.
0:30:52 > 0:30:57"May the gods keep him ever fortunate and may he rule all India for 1,000 years."
0:31:07 > 0:31:10The Kushans had conquered north-west India in about 80 AD,
0:31:10 > 0:31:15filling a power vacuum left by the collapse of local dynasties.
0:31:15 > 0:31:21And their first capital inside India was the ancient city of Peshawar in today's Pakistan.
0:31:21 > 0:31:27Peshawar's has been a caravan town ever since, making its money from its old Silk Route contacts.
0:31:31 > 0:31:34Babu said that this was a garden city.
0:31:37 > 0:31:44He said, if you put a blind man towards Peshawar, the moment he is within the environment of Peshawar,
0:31:44 > 0:31:49through every smell and beautiful air, he will say, "I am in Peshawar now."
0:31:55 > 0:31:58This is the Krishti Akbari, during the time of the Akhbar.
0:31:58 > 0:32:00- The Moghul bricks. - Yeah, the Moghul bricks.
0:32:00 > 0:32:03And still the wooden gates we have. Look at this, see the wood?
0:32:03 > 0:32:05It's just fantastic, isn't it?
0:32:07 > 0:32:10This is the area which was really owned by very rich people,
0:32:10 > 0:32:13rich families with their very commercial background,
0:32:13 > 0:32:16and they had their business investment in Bukhara.
0:32:16 > 0:32:19So, really this is... Salaam.
0:32:19 > 0:32:24So, this is really the riches of the city coming from the Silk Route,
0:32:24 > 0:32:28the old Silk Route connections with Central Asia, Bukhara, Samarkand.
0:32:28 > 0:32:31Exactly, because the trade has been the transport
0:32:31 > 0:32:34for years from the north to the east.
0:32:40 > 0:32:46Peshawar has played like a host, whether they were invaders or they were travellers or they were riders.
0:32:46 > 0:32:49So, this was the place where they intermingle with the people
0:32:49 > 0:32:53for endless cups of the green teas, sipping their green teas.
0:32:53 > 0:32:54Endless cups of green teas!
0:33:10 > 0:33:13And one of the richest cargo on those camel caravans
0:33:13 > 0:33:18that used to ply down the Khyber right up to the 1970s was silk.
0:33:21 > 0:33:26Raw Chinese silk, to be turned by Indian weavers into works of art.
0:33:28 > 0:33:30Seven months time to make one each.
0:33:30 > 0:33:33Fantastic!
0:33:33 > 0:33:36All one piece, no joint in this.
0:33:36 > 0:33:38And look at the back also.
0:33:38 > 0:33:42Pepper on their tables, peacocks in their gardens, silk on their bodies.
0:33:42 > 0:33:47"We must be mad," grumbled Pliny in Rome, "bankrupting ourselves for India."
0:33:47 > 0:33:48Gosh, the work is very fine, isn't it?
0:33:48 > 0:33:51- Yes, sir, thank you very much. - Very fine.
0:33:53 > 0:33:55That is just knockout, isn't it?
0:34:04 > 0:34:06You should be careful, because it's slippery.
0:34:07 > 0:34:10Yeah, it's been a bit washed by the rain, hasn't it?
0:34:10 > 0:34:12Yes.
0:34:12 > 0:34:17It's for the country, for the world, and to my mind this culture belongs to everybody.
0:34:17 > 0:34:20- It's not only ours.- Yeah, yeah.
0:34:20 > 0:34:22It's a human culture.
0:34:22 > 0:34:27Right in the middle of Peshawar, they've started the biggest excavation ever in the subcontinent,
0:34:27 > 0:34:33and it's turning out to be a revelation about the Kushans' role in Pakistani and Indian history.
0:34:33 > 0:34:37Each layer is marked by 10, 15 kinds.
0:34:39 > 0:34:42Even the British are already stratified!
0:34:45 > 0:34:48- So, the Moghuls are about six feet down?- Yes.
0:34:48 > 0:34:50So, that's 500 years.
0:34:50 > 0:34:56You can see that at about ten feet you are covering about 1,000 years.
0:34:56 > 0:35:00The Kushans about 24 feet deep.
0:35:00 > 0:35:03Yes, about 24 to 26.
0:35:03 > 0:35:06And you still haven't got the bottom yet.
0:35:06 > 0:35:09No, no, we haven't reached the bottom. These are the Greek levels.
0:35:13 > 0:35:18So, this is a continuous profile of 2,300 years,
0:35:18 > 0:35:21and this is the earliest living city in the whole of South Asia.
0:35:21 > 0:35:25The earliest living city in the whole of South Asia.
0:35:25 > 0:35:28- So far.- So, what was it about the Kushans' rule
0:35:28 > 0:35:33that brought about this boom time in population, in towns and economies?
0:35:36 > 0:35:41There seems to be some kind of almost revolutionary opening up of the world in the Kushan period.
0:35:41 > 0:35:43Why do you think that is?
0:35:43 > 0:35:46Very simple question. And I still say that to the Pakistanis
0:35:46 > 0:35:48and particularly to my people.
0:35:48 > 0:35:54Because of peace, because Buddhism was the religion of peace, no war.
0:35:54 > 0:36:00And Buddhism is the vital clue to the story of Kanishka.
0:36:01 > 0:36:07When The Buddha himself was here in Gandara, he made a prediction.
0:36:07 > 0:36:14500 years after his death, a mighty king would rise.
0:36:14 > 0:36:17At the stated time,
0:36:17 > 0:36:23Kanishka came to the throne, and he ruled the whole world.
0:36:27 > 0:36:30At first he despised the Buddha's law,
0:36:30 > 0:36:35but one day he was out hunting a white hare when he met a shepherd boy.
0:36:35 > 0:36:38Some say the boy was Indra in disguise.
0:36:40 > 0:36:43And he was building a small mud stupa.
0:36:44 > 0:36:48The Buddha said that, after his death, you would build
0:36:48 > 0:36:51the greatest building in the world to house the remains of his body.
0:36:51 > 0:36:56So, Kanishka ordered a stupa to be built around the boy's mud stupa.
0:36:56 > 0:37:02But however high his stupa rose, the small one always exceeded it, until eventually
0:37:02 > 0:37:07it rose 700 feet high.
0:37:12 > 0:37:17So, legend says that Kanishka made the greatest building on earth -
0:37:17 > 0:37:20a giant domed stupa.
0:37:20 > 0:37:24Across Asia he's still remembered as one of the four pillars of Buddhism.
0:37:24 > 0:37:27But all trace of his great monument has vanished.
0:37:27 > 0:37:31We know the site lay outside the town, in open fields
0:37:31 > 0:37:35where traces were located a century ago by a French explorer.
0:37:36 > 0:37:44He says this, "If we set out from the Lahore Gate and take the Cherat Road or Khaz al Kani..."
0:37:44 > 0:37:46- Yes, Khaz al Kani this way.- OK.
0:37:46 > 0:37:50Today the site has been completely swallowed up by modern Peshawar.
0:37:50 > 0:37:56THEY SPEAK IN LOCAL DIALECT
0:37:56 > 0:38:00- About two, three kilometres from here.- OK. That's fantastic.
0:38:00 > 0:38:02This is the largest graveyard of Peshawar.
0:38:02 > 0:38:04OK. Shokria, shukria.
0:38:04 > 0:38:05Thank you very much.
0:38:05 > 0:38:13HE SPEAKS IN LOCAL DIALECT
0:38:13 > 0:38:17Ah, great, great. Does he know anything about the story of the place?
0:38:17 > 0:38:22THEY SPEAK IN LOCAL DIALECT
0:38:22 > 0:38:26Great news. This gentleman knows this was the place,
0:38:26 > 0:38:29Shah-ji-ki Dheri, the mound of the great king.
0:38:29 > 0:38:34He doesn't know who the great king was, but that was the place. Thank you very much!
0:38:38 > 0:38:42THEY SPEAK IN LOCAL DIALECT
0:38:46 > 0:38:47This is it?
0:38:47 > 0:38:51HE SPEAKS IN LOCAL DIALECT
0:38:51 > 0:38:54- That is the mound?- Yes.
0:38:54 > 0:38:59The stupa is described by several Chinese Buddhist pilgrims of the late Roman period.
0:39:00 > 0:39:06This whole great mound here was the complex that Kanishka built
0:39:06 > 0:39:12with not only the giant stupa but a huge monastery with other buildings.
0:39:12 > 0:39:13It extended over vast areas.
0:39:13 > 0:39:18And it's just been plundered for bricks by the locals for centuries.
0:39:19 > 0:39:23And, as so often in the subcontinent, the site is still sacred.
0:39:23 > 0:39:25- Sufis still come here?- Yeah, yeah.
0:39:25 > 0:39:28- Every year.- Every year?
0:39:30 > 0:39:38When I was in Calcutta, they have a big stone model of a stupa from here from Peshawar.
0:39:39 > 0:39:41And I drew the monument.
0:39:41 > 0:39:44I think this is what it looked like.
0:39:44 > 0:39:47The Chinese pilgrims talk about five stages.
0:39:47 > 0:39:52Sometimes they say the stupa itself was 300 feet, but I think maybe that's too big.
0:39:52 > 0:39:56And then on top was a huge kind of wooden structure.
0:39:56 > 0:40:03You would have had great flags coming out at an angle, blowing in the wind, huge long silk streamers.
0:40:06 > 0:40:08"Of all the stupas in the world,"
0:40:08 > 0:40:14the Chinese said, "not one could compare to this in solemn beauty and majestic grandeur."
0:40:16 > 0:40:21When the Chinese pilgrims came here 500 years later, they say
0:40:21 > 0:40:26that everybody agrees this was the most wonderful stupa in the whole of the inhabited world.
0:40:26 > 0:40:32You can imagine coming into the plain of Peshawar, can't you, with this gigantic structure?
0:40:34 > 0:40:39"It radiated brilliance. And when the breeze blew, the precious bells sounded in harmony."
0:40:50 > 0:40:55Like all great rulers of Indian history, the Kushans accepted and supported all religions.
0:40:55 > 0:41:01In their patronage of Buddhism, they developed a new art form, representing the Buddha's story
0:41:01 > 0:41:08as a series of miraculous fairytale events, inventing the way we see the Buddha today.
0:41:08 > 0:41:13Melding Greek and Indian style, they created an international art
0:41:13 > 0:41:20that was transmitted down the Silk Route and conquered the whole of the eastern world.
0:41:20 > 0:41:27Legend said that Kanishka buried a small portion of the Buddha's ashes under his great stupa.
0:41:27 > 0:41:28Thank you very much.
0:41:28 > 0:41:32And tucked away in a corner case in the museum
0:41:32 > 0:41:36is a small bronze casket, found on the site, which had contained ashes.
0:41:36 > 0:41:41But even this intimate gift is a testimony to the open-mindedness
0:41:41 > 0:41:45of the rulers of this vast, multi-cultural empire.
0:41:46 > 0:41:53And outside, a series of images that's just wonderfully typical of Kanishka's era.
0:41:53 > 0:41:57There's the Buddha on the top with his "fear not" gesture,
0:41:57 > 0:42:02but the figures by him, the devotees, are actually great Hindu gods.
0:42:02 > 0:42:09There's Indra with his flat crown, and there with his long hair,
0:42:09 > 0:42:12Brahma, the creator god.
0:42:13 > 0:42:16If we move it round,
0:42:16 > 0:42:20there's Kanishka himself,
0:42:20 > 0:42:22wearing the royal garb of the Kushan kings.
0:42:22 > 0:42:29The great big boots that have clod-hopped all the way across the Hindu Kush.
0:42:29 > 0:42:35The big coat that look like a Tibetan chuba, and the double crown, the king of kings.
0:42:35 > 0:42:38Maharaja Kanishka.
0:43:07 > 0:43:11You can see why Kanishka and the Kushans chose this as their capital,
0:43:11 > 0:43:15looking towards the Khyber Pass and those routes in central Asia...
0:43:18 > 0:43:20..across westwards to the Mediterranean
0:43:20 > 0:43:26and eastwards above Tibet to their ancestral home on the edge of China.
0:43:26 > 0:43:32And yet they also ruled 1,500 miles or more that way across the plains of India.
0:43:36 > 0:43:41So, by AD 130, when the Emperor Hadrian ruled the Roman Empire in the west
0:43:41 > 0:43:47and the Han Chinese far to the east, the Kushans under Kanishka ruled the middle of the world,
0:43:47 > 0:43:49from the Aral Sea to the Bay of Bengal.
0:43:58 > 0:44:00HE CRIES OUT
0:44:00 > 0:44:06Around that time, Kanishka conquered the plains of India and made his new Indian capital the city of Mathura.
0:44:07 > 0:44:13An early English traveller in India said that when you come down the grand trunk road from Afghanistan,
0:44:13 > 0:44:18it's only when you reach Mathura, with its sacred turtles in the river
0:44:18 > 0:44:24and monkeys scampering through the streets, that you get the flavour of the real Hindustan.
0:44:27 > 0:44:29Mathura then was an international city.
0:44:29 > 0:44:32Sacred to the Hindu God Krishna, whom the Greeks and the Kushans
0:44:32 > 0:44:39identified as Hercules, it was a famous pilgrimage place, as it still is today.
0:44:47 > 0:44:49See, we've lost all this in the west, haven't we?
0:44:49 > 0:44:52But if you'd had come to Canterbury in the time of the Canterbury Tales,
0:44:52 > 0:44:56with the hundreds and hundreds of coaching inns for the pilgrims,
0:44:56 > 0:45:01it would have been like this, a city teeming with pilgrims like this at festival time.
0:45:05 > 0:45:08Where have you come from?
0:45:08 > 0:45:10We come from Madhabad!
0:45:10 > 0:45:13Madhabad? This is a very long way.
0:45:13 > 0:45:16- And your husbands? - Husbands are there!
0:45:16 > 0:45:18You've got rid of them!
0:45:18 > 0:45:21You got rid of husbands!
0:45:21 > 0:45:23- Yeah!- Nine ladies, only ladies.
0:45:23 > 0:45:28Well, I hope you have a very happy rest of your Tirthayatra.
0:45:34 > 0:45:40The ancient Greeks called this city Madoura ton Theon - the City of the Gods.
0:45:48 > 0:45:52If you'd been here in the second century AD at the height of the Kushan Empire, you would have seen
0:45:52 > 0:45:58Greeks, Romans, Bactrians, Persians, maybe even the odd Chinese.
0:45:59 > 0:46:03All the result of the opening up of the Silk Route
0:46:03 > 0:46:07and the contacts between the Mediterranean world, India and China.
0:46:07 > 0:46:11It was an incredibly exciting time, and this city was at the centre of it.
0:46:11 > 0:46:15Dynamic economy, very diverse ethnically in its religious life,
0:46:15 > 0:46:20just the place to be, and that explains why you have
0:46:20 > 0:46:24such tremendous achievements in ideas and in art here.
0:46:24 > 0:46:27MEN CALL OUT
0:46:27 > 0:46:31A great historian of the Roman Empire, Edwards Gibbons, said
0:46:31 > 0:46:37this period, second century AD, was the happiest time for humanity in the whole history of the world.
0:46:44 > 0:46:48Like the Moghuls and the British, the Kushans were outsiders,
0:46:48 > 0:46:51a foreign military elite ruling the people of India.
0:46:53 > 0:46:57But by encouraging long-distance trade and religious tolerance,
0:46:57 > 0:47:00the Kushans brought peace to a vast area for more than two centuries.
0:47:00 > 0:47:05And with this peace, they could foster the arts, literature and science.
0:47:06 > 0:47:12They were behind the development of Sanskrit as a language of international scholarship
0:47:12 > 0:47:15in the east, like medieval Latin in the west.
0:47:18 > 0:47:22And another important area of their patronage was medicine.
0:47:32 > 0:47:36One of founders of Indian tradition of medicine, Ayurveda,
0:47:36 > 0:47:39is said to have been Kanishka's guru and chief minister.
0:47:39 > 0:47:41His name was Chanaka.
0:47:44 > 0:47:48Here in Mathura, the Gupta family are doctors who for many generations
0:47:48 > 0:47:51have followed the tradition handed down from the Kushan era.
0:47:53 > 0:47:59300 different medicinal plants are growing here for healing different kinds of problems.
0:47:59 > 0:48:02So, everything for your medicine, you grow here yourself?
0:48:02 > 0:48:04Yes.
0:48:06 > 0:48:08This is called amaltas, aregveda.
0:48:08 > 0:48:10It is a family of cassia fistula.
0:48:10 > 0:48:15That's very good for constipation.
0:48:15 > 0:48:19A system based on natural cures, Ayurveda was transmitted east
0:48:19 > 0:48:24in the early centuries AD by Buddhist monks on the Silk Route to China.
0:48:27 > 0:48:32This is now aloe vera, which is going very famous now all over the world. Aloe vera gel.
0:48:32 > 0:48:37And this is what the ladies use for their skin cream and all this sort of stuff?
0:48:39 > 0:48:41May I look?
0:48:41 > 0:48:43Sure, sure.
0:48:43 > 0:48:45Oh, yeah, look at that. How about that?
0:48:45 > 0:48:48This is the gel.
0:48:52 > 0:48:55Ayurveda is a science of life.
0:48:55 > 0:49:00The whole body and whole nature is made by natural five elements -
0:49:00 > 0:49:03earth, water, fire, air and ether.
0:49:03 > 0:49:0650 years old...
0:49:06 > 0:49:11So, the Kushan era was a great time for the codifying of India's traditions of knowledge.
0:49:15 > 0:49:19Like all ancient Indian sciences, Ayurveda originally
0:49:19 > 0:49:22was orally transmitted from master to pupil, father to son.
0:49:22 > 0:49:25Only later was it committed to writing.
0:49:25 > 0:49:29And this in a form of poetry, so the people can remember the poetry
0:49:29 > 0:49:32because it is difficult to remember the full book.
0:49:32 > 0:49:35So, just the poetry, poetry.
0:49:35 > 0:49:39All disease names, disease symptoms, medicines,
0:49:39 > 0:49:43descriptions, are in the poetry form.
0:49:43 > 0:49:45How long, far back in time does it go?
0:49:45 > 0:49:49This is like all the literature on the earth's planet.
0:49:49 > 0:49:54It started near about 5,000 years before, like 3,000 years before Christ.
0:50:10 > 0:50:15But the most important legacy of the Kushan age in world history was brought about by
0:50:15 > 0:50:21Kushan Buddhist monks and traders who travelled the Silk Route and took Buddhism to China.
0:50:24 > 0:50:29Buddhism reached another great nation, China,
0:50:29 > 0:50:31around the second century.
0:50:31 > 0:50:34I always was
0:50:34 > 0:50:38showing my sort of respect to the Chinese Buddhists
0:50:38 > 0:50:44because historically they are elder students of Buddha.
0:50:44 > 0:50:47We are younger, so I always respect them.
0:50:47 > 0:50:52Buddhism is one of the rich India's traditions.
0:50:54 > 0:50:56Of course, recent time,
0:50:56 > 0:50:59certain sorts of ideology or certain sort of political reasons,
0:50:59 > 0:51:04there's a lot of destructions happen,
0:51:04 > 0:51:08but time changes and things become more open.
0:51:10 > 0:51:14So, it is really very right that China,
0:51:14 > 0:51:19Chinese, again as a student of Indian master!
0:51:21 > 0:51:27Nearly 2,000 years on from first receiving the Buddha's message, the Chinese government has announced
0:51:27 > 0:51:35it wishes to find harmony by rediscovering its Buddhist past, seeking again the wisdom of India.
0:51:42 > 0:51:45As for Kanishka, his end is a mystery.
0:51:45 > 0:51:48All we have is a strange legend from China.
0:51:50 > 0:51:56Riding his world in circling steed, Kanishka had conquered three of the world's four regions.
0:51:56 > 0:51:59Only the east remained.
0:51:59 > 0:52:04So, he set off on one last war of conquest
0:52:04 > 0:52:08with an army of Hu barbarians, who were riding white elephants.
0:52:10 > 0:52:14But when he reached the snowy peaks of the north, a mountainous wall
0:52:14 > 0:52:19of ice, his horse reared up, unwilling to go any further.
0:52:19 > 0:52:23The King spoke to his magic horse.
0:52:23 > 0:52:25"I have ridden you on all my victorious campaigns.
0:52:25 > 0:52:30"Why do you hesitate now? Why will you not go forward on this road?"
0:52:30 > 0:52:31I wonder, my king.
0:52:31 > 0:52:35Will the conquest of the East satisfy you?
0:52:35 > 0:52:36Your hunger is boundless.
0:52:36 > 0:52:40What will you do when there are no more worlds left to conquer?
0:52:40 > 0:52:44On seeing the king's magic horse hesitate,
0:52:44 > 0:52:49his army spoke amongst themselves and decided to get rid of the king.
0:52:49 > 0:52:51VOCAL PERCUSSION (KONNAKOL)
0:52:53 > 0:53:00The legend tells a tale of assassination and regime change here in Mathura.
0:53:00 > 0:53:03History gives us no clue.
0:53:03 > 0:53:08We know Kanishka died around 150 AD and was succeeded by others of his dynasty,
0:53:08 > 0:53:15but could there be a distant echo of these events in Mathura's famous cycle of mystery plays?
0:53:22 > 0:53:26The tradition of drama here in Mathura goes back to the ancient world.
0:53:26 > 0:53:30Every year, a cycle of plays is performed about the god Krishna.
0:53:30 > 0:53:35SHE SINGS
0:53:38 > 0:53:43These plays tell the story of the overthrow of a great tyrant here in Mathura.
0:53:43 > 0:53:46His name is Kans, or Kansa.
0:53:46 > 0:53:53HE SPEAKS LOCAL DIALECT
0:53:55 > 0:54:01Now we come to the best bit, the killing of the wicked tyrant of Mathura, Raja Kans.
0:54:01 > 0:54:04EVIL LAUGHTER
0:54:27 > 0:54:32Great as the Kushans were in the history of India, they were, after all, foreigners.
0:54:37 > 0:54:41Just outside Kanishka's former capital of Mathura,
0:54:41 > 0:54:45there's one last clue to the fall of India's forgotten Emperor.
0:54:53 > 0:54:56Could we just ask, do you know place called Tochari Tila?
0:54:56 > 0:55:02HE SPEAKS LOCAL DIALECT
0:55:02 > 0:55:04Raja Kanishki.
0:55:04 > 0:55:06Raja Kanishki!
0:55:10 > 0:55:13They found a statue of King Kanishka.
0:55:15 > 0:55:18Oh, there's a mound in front, yeah. Can you see?
0:55:18 > 0:55:22This is Tochari Tila here? Ah, right.
0:55:22 > 0:55:27The place still preserves one of the ancient names of the Kushans from the time
0:55:27 > 0:55:32when they lived on the edge of China before their long march into history.
0:55:32 > 0:55:36Unfortunately, the dig wasn't very well done back in 1912,
0:55:36 > 0:55:39but what they found in this little mound was a temple
0:55:39 > 0:55:44about 100 feet long by 60 feet wide Inside, a big circular feature,
0:55:44 > 0:55:50and statues of the great kings of the Kushan dynasty.
0:55:50 > 0:55:53The biggest mystery, though, is when the excavators
0:55:53 > 0:55:59picked over the remains of the place, the place had been devastated by vandals, destroyed,
0:55:59 > 0:56:06right at the end of the Kushan period, not in some later period by the Huns or Muslim invaders.
0:56:06 > 0:56:08And one statue in particular, great royal statue,
0:56:08 > 0:56:13seven or eight feet high, had been smashed to bits with almost deliberate venom.
0:56:21 > 0:56:25And today, in Mathura Museum, you can still see the headless statue
0:56:25 > 0:56:29of Kanishka, the King of Kings, ruler of all India.
0:56:29 > 0:56:33"May his reign last for 1,000 years."
0:56:45 > 0:56:48In the early centuries AD, the Kushans had opened up
0:56:48 > 0:56:53India's horizons, creating a vast multi-racial empire.
0:56:53 > 0:56:58They put India onto the international map, linking it to the trade systems of the world.
0:56:58 > 0:57:01They laid the foundations for what would follow in the Middle Ages,
0:57:01 > 0:57:08adding another layer to story of India through peace, trade and tolerance.
0:57:10 > 0:57:17But above all is the simple civilising influence of contact,
0:57:17 > 0:57:20exchange and dialogue.
0:57:20 > 0:57:27In the second century, AD the Indian subcontinent had the world's biggest population, as it does today,
0:57:27 > 0:57:29and one of the biggest economies.
0:57:29 > 0:57:37And now, as the wheel of history turns full circle, that age looks like a precursor of our own.
0:57:53 > 0:57:59Next in The Story of India, the genius of early Indian technology,
0:57:59 > 0:58:03the astounding living traditions of the south...
0:58:07 > 0:58:12..where God is the great dancer.
0:58:12 > 0:58:20And in medieval India, they didn't just invent zero - they even wrote the first great manual on sex!
0:58:24 > 0:58:28The next chapter in The Story of India is the Golden Age.