Pakistan Unveiled Treasures of the Indus


Pakistan Unveiled

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I'm on the mighty Indus River,

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which gave its name to the whole Indian subcontinent.

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And I'm beginning a journey deep into Ancient India.

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A journey that will take me back 5,000 years into the past,

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to discover some of its most hidden treasures.

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I'll be travelling back in time to the ancient civilisation that

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first grew up on the shores of the Indus.

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I'll be revealing the lost Buddhist culture of northern Pakistan.

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And luxuriating in the extraordinary

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architectural flowering of the Mughal Empire...

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and the exuberant temples of South India.

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All of which produced some phenomenal artworks.

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As an art historian and museum curator,

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I've looked after these treasures for most of my life.

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In this series, I want to explore their stories

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and the people who created them.

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I'm beginning my journey in Lahore, home to over five million people

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and the vibrant, beating heart of modern Pakistan.

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Today we think of Pakistan as an Islamic country,

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and indeed it was religion that was the cause of

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its violent severance from Greater India in 1947.

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What was India's loss was the birth of a new nation,

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the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

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But what I want to explore is this country's very rich,

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more complex and diverse past, which is often forgotten.

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A time when women were celebrated, the Buddha was worshipped

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and the Mughal Empire recreated paradise on Earth.

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So to do that, I need to go to the remains of a city that makes

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Lahore look as if it was built just yesterday.

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A site that is not just one of the most ancient in Pakistan,

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but in the whole world.

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SHE SPEAKS LOCAL LANGUAGE

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There's always a great sense of adventure to arrive

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at a station in the subcontinent early in the morning.

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With coolies carrying people's luggage,

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people have got places to go,

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just like I have.

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Pakistan was born less than 70 years ago.

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A much younger country than India.

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So it is perhaps ironic that it was the birthplace

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of a far older civilisation.

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I spent years at the British Museum looking after treasures

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from the Indian subcontinent.

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But I've never made this particular journey before.

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It will take me to the cradle of Ancient India.

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So I've just got off the train at Harappa, we are almost 200km

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outside Lahore at this tiny station, I seem to be the only person here.

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But it was here, about 100 years ago, that under the British,

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railway workers were creating a passageway to dig this railway,

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to create this railway, and stumbled upon what appeared to be

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a very ancient mound of terracotta bricks.

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"How convenient", the workers must have thought,

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and just used the bricks to help make the railway embankment.

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But when archaeologists were eventually called in,

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they made one of the great discoveries of the 20th century.

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What they found defied belief.

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In this quiet and neglected corner of Pakistan, an enormous city -

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stretching for miles -

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began to emerge from beneath the dusty plains.

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It's thought the city of Harappa

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was large enough to house up to 80,000 people.

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This city was at the height of its success in 2,200 BC.

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It's not until the late 19th century, over 4,000 years later,

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that European cities reached anything like the scale and order.

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Even more extraordinary than its size

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was the realisation of quite how old it was.

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When the archaeologist John Marshall came here in 1921,

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he was the first person who fully appreciated the significance

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and the actual antiquity of what this site potentially had to offer.

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So I brought with me a copy of the Illustrated London News

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from 1924, which was

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actually when Marshall announced to the world effectively what he

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had discovered and the significance of it, and it begins...

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"Not often has it been given to archaeologists, as it was given to

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"Schliemann at Tiryns or Mycenae, or to Stein in the deserts of

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"Turkestan, to light upon the remains of

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"a long forgotten civilisation.

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"It looks, however, at this moment, as if we were on the threshold

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"of such a discovery in the plains of the Indus."

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Marshall was trying to rewrite the story of Ancient India with one

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that began here in the subcontinent,

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not one that had somehow been imported from Europe

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or the Middle East, as previous archaeologists had imagined.

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A history that was India's own,

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a new beginning, if you like, for India's ancient past.

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The thing that strikes me immediately,

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walking through these ruins,

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is how clearly this was laid out on a grid pattern like a modern city.

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These people really understood their right angles.

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But what is extraordinary is what isn't here.

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For a civilisation on this scale,

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contemporary with the pyramids,

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is there isn't any grand monument to a single ruler, there isn't

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any celebration of military might or a ruling theocracy.

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This was clearly, in a contemporary sense,

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a much more egalitarian society.

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This is not the only city built by what came to be called

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the Indus Valley Civilisation,

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after the mighty river that threaded them together.

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Many others were later found, built to a similar template.

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And yet more remain to be excavated,

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still buried under mounds in the desert.

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This was an empire, albeit one without any rulers,

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and it is an empire that is still giving up its secrets.

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Gosh, so this was only excavated five or six days before?

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-Yeah.

-Still fresh with the mud.

-Yeah.

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You can see the accentuation of the breasts, the navel,

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the wide hips.

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This is a civilisation, like many ancient cultures,

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that celebrated fertility, for very obvious reasons,

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and these figures appear all over the Indus Valley.

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'These were people who liked their bling,

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'and some of the jewellery found here reveals

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'the use of sophisticated manufacturing techniques.'

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So this delicate bead... made of carnelian was considered

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a highly precious stone and were traded really far and wide.

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What's really remarkable about them is the technology they had,

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using diamonds to drill these

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very uniform holes through.

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So they would then string them together and produce these

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elaborate necklaces for elite citizens to wear.

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'Unlike Pakistan today, this seems to have been a culture that

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'valued, even worshipped, powerful women.

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'And nowhere can this be seen better than in one tiny figure,

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'a priceless treasure from the era known as The Dancing Girl...

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'with the stance of an impudent teenager.'

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She has all the poise of Degas' Little Dancer,

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and some have described her as the Mona Lisa of ancient Indian art.

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Now, the original is priceless,

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and she sits here behind bulletproof glass, which...even being

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a museum curator, on this occasion, I'm not able to access.

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So I have here a replica in my hand,

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and close up you can see...

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what's really interesting about her is her stance.

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For a young woman at this very early date,

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she stands incredibly confidently with her hand on her hip,

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her head held high, decorated with bangles.

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There is a confidence and poise about her, which is

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really surprising to some of our more traditional conceptions

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and notions of women in South Asia.

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The Dancing Girl is unusual and almost unique.

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At Harappa, what has been found far more commonly are these

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mysterious seals carved in reverse, presumably so they could act

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as a stamp, leaving a clear image in wax,

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perhaps to seal a transaction.

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One of the most amazing features of these tiny seals that were found

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at Harappa was that nearly 50% of them represented the unicorn,

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which is a mythological animal that we usually associate with

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medieval Europe, but actually it first originated here.

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And clearly had great spiritual significance for these people,

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because it appears over and over again,

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but then completely disappeared from this region

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and travelled through Mesopotamia into

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Ancient Greece and into the legends of Europe

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that we've all grown up with.

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This is the first time I've ever held a seal from

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the Indus Valley Civilisation of this scale,

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and holding it at this range,

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you can really get a sense of

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the very, very fine craftsmanship they used.

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You can see all the individual hooves. On the reverse, of course,

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is this very practical, pragmatic handle that would have been

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used to make the imprint of the sealing,

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to mark a commodity that would have been traded,

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so competently manufactured at such an early date, that it has survived

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5,000 years for us to find today and for me to hold in this moment.

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So why did this remarkable civilisation disappear

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without trace for thousands of years?

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It's hard to believe, in the heat and dust

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of the excavated city, that a great tributary of the Indus

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once flowed here, which supplied the city with a wealth of water.

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There was in fact an indoor bathroom for almost every home,

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and a sophisticated drainage system.

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But over the millennia, the river changed course,

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leaving the city and its farmlands without water.

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It's no wonder then that this civilisation eventually collapsed.

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The great River Indus dominates the history of civilisation here.

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And as the river shifted course, whole cities came and went.

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It was here that the next great empire emerged in the Indus Valley,

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with consequences which would last for 1,000 years.

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So this is the place, in 326 BC,

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where that Macedonian megalomaniac Alexander the Great

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crossed the river as he attempted to conquer India.

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He didn't actually know where he was going,

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he arrived with no language, no maps, and in fact Alexander was

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so lost that he thought he had arrived

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at a distant source of the Nile,

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after having seen crocodiles in the Indus.

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He was simply driven by a testosterone-fuelled obsession

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to outdo the legendary Darius of Persia

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and find this fabled land to the East,

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which was known only by rumour.

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Alexander was a master of self-pathologising.

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You have to hand it to him.

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A bit like Winston Churchill, he made absolutely sure that history

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would be kind to him by writing the history himself, or at least

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ensuring that his own biographers came along on his journey with him.

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One of his historians, Arrian, wrote,

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"When Alexander arrived at the River Indus,

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"he found gifts of silver, gold and elephants from Taxilus the Indian.

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"And that prince sent word he would surrender to him Taxila,

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"the largest city near the River Indus."

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Nearby was the ancient city of Taxila, a thriving cosmopolitan

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centre, which was just like the Paris or Mumbai of its time.

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It was a complete cacophony of different languages,

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customs and influences.

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Trusting no-one, Alexander marched into Taxila, ready for battle...

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WOMAN SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

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..but the governor welcomed him with a tribute of silver.

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Bribery will get you everywhere,

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and Alexander had made his first ally near the Indus.

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So I'm being made into a Pakistani lady. Never a bad thing.

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Everything the Greeks encountered was new, fresh and exotic.

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The markets would have held spices

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and foodstuffs unrecognisable to them.

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THEY CONVERSE IN LOCAL LANGUAGE

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Tamarind.

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'It was journalistic gold dust.

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'Alexander's historians were able to give a vivid

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'and sensational account of an ancient society that had previously

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'been unreported and obscure.'

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In the dusty and crowded marketplace,

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in the summer heat of Taxila, Alexander and his men

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encountered strange customs, languages and influences.

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It was here that they came across the naked holy men,

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the Buddhist monks,

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and where they first encountered the doctrine of the Buddha.

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The Greeks and their new allies rebuilt

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the ancient city of Taxila nearby.

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SHE SPEAKS LOCAL LANGUAGE

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But this was to be like no other city that India

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had ever seen before.

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Today, the city is known as Sirkap.

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It's actually vast, spread over a really big area.

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And very quickly it appears...

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..there is a main boulevard,

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the high-street...

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and that the city was actually planned...

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very much like a Hellenistic city would have been,

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so the stamp is clearly here.

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It's quite amazing, actually, how many walls are still standing.

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How neatly ordered they are, and I suspect there would have been

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a subterranean level, much like you would have found in ancient Athens.

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It is a quiet, peaceful, very overgrown place now.

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But it appears here... there were shops...

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there, residences.

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There was a great sense of order to it clearly.

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Which is unusual in a typical city of the subcontinent,

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which has a completely different way of organising space,

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and that's the thing I find really striking here.

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The thing to remember, I think, is Alexander's arrival...

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was really a moment and just the start of this long relationship

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between India and Greek culture

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and Hellenistic culture, which went on for several hundred years.

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And one result of that Greek invasion

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was the effect it had on the local legend of Buddhism,

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which now changed dramatically in its art and architecture.

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So in amongst these low-lying stone walls is a really complete example

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of an early Buddhist temple,

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which has all the hallmarks of Greek influence.

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You've got the stupa in the middle,

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the steps leading up to it,

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this motif here actually shows a double-headed eagle.

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You can see these beautifully carved acanthus leaves

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at the top of each of these columns.

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So all around in the detail, you can see the fusion,

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the Hellenistic influence,

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with the traditional, local religion of Buddhism.

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It's beautiful, actually.

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This, of course, is the path the devotee would taken,

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in a clockwise motion around the stupa,

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in the hope of accruing good karma,

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which is of course good for all of us.

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When the Greeks arrived, Buddhism had already been established for

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some centuries since the death of the Buddha himself in around 480 BC.

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But their arrival had a fundamental impact

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on the way the Buddha was now portrayed.

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Although we are used to seeing the Buddha represented

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in human form, in the very earliest manifestations

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he was actually represented by his absence.

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He was represented in symbolic form, like this magnificent footprint

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decorated with symbols of Buddhism, which celebrated

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aspects of the Buddha's life, rather than showing him in human form.

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And then something really interesting

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and dramatic starts to happen in this region after

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the invasion of Alexander the Great, and that is the representation

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of the Buddha as a real, living person in human form.

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It's hard to exaggerate how important a moment

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this was in the history of Buddhism.

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For the first time, the Buddha was given features.

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He had died too long before for anyone to remember what

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he really looked like,

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so the features he was given were idealised ones, and the new ideal

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came from this innovative Indo-Greek culture that took Buddhism

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from its home on the North Indian plain

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and embedded it onto a completely new form,

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one that we might find more recognisable today.

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Here are youthful Buddhas with hair arranged in wavy curls that

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resemble Greek sculptures of Apollo.

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The monastic robe covering both shoulders is arranged in

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heavy, naturalistic folds, reminiscent of a classical toga,

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and compared to other more rotund Buddhas,

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he has the toned body of a Greek athlete.

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To see more examples of this rare and early Buddhist art,

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I've been invited to a private museum with a fabulous collection

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that the same family has safeguarded for over seven generations.

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-Hello.

-Hello.

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Nice to meet you. I've heard a lot about you.

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-You're welcome to Fakir Khana Museum.

-Thank you, thank you.

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-This is a very beautiful room.

-You want to have a look at my collection?

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Absolutely, that would be great.

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Wow.

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'It's a treasure trove of rare and wonderful objects gathered

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'from all the great civilisations that have arisen along the Indus.

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'Including the Indo-Greek culture inspired by Alexander's arrival,

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'that became known as Gandhara.'

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-What's in here?

-It's...

-Goodness me.

-..Gandhara.

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This Gandhara is in limestone.

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-It has a Greek influence.

-Yep.

-Like this one.

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Why these Buddhas are so special,

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you know, why these Gandharas are so special,

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because the skills are so high. They have made beautiful faces.

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And look at this piece.

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It is a broken piece, but look at the beautiful smile of Buddha.

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His lips and smile, you know.

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OK, I'm going to show you something very special of my collection.

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It is a hidden collection, you know.

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I've never opened it for anybody else. Especially for today,

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I'm going to do it for you.

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The special thing I'm going to show you...

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no other museum has this kind of thing.

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This is the original ring of Raja Porus.

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-Porus?

-Yes.

-As in the man...

-Who fought against...

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-Alexander the Great in 326.

-Yeah.

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-Gosh.

-This is done in pure silver.

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This is incredibly exciting,

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-I'm actually holding the ring...

-Yes.

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-..worn by Porus.

-Yes.

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That's magnificent.

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-Can I put it on?

-You may.

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-You can see that the physiognomy is actually very different.

-Definitely.

0:23:270:23:31

-It's...

-Indic.

-Indic.

-Yeah.

0:23:310:23:35

And he has the turban on his head, big earrings.

0:23:350:23:40

-Big earrings, everything, sunflower.

-And wearing the sunflower, yes.

0:23:400:23:45

So how did you come across the ring of Porus?

0:23:450:23:48

-Don't ask me all these questions.

-Family secret.

-Family secret.

0:23:480:23:52

HORNS BEEP FRANTICALLY

0:23:560:23:58

This was not a one-way exchange in Gandhara.

0:24:020:24:04

The Greeks themselves took gold, silver and Sindh cotton

0:24:040:24:08

back to Europe, along what started to become a thriving trade route.

0:24:080:24:12

But more importantly, they also took with them a myth and a name.

0:24:140:24:19

The River Indus was the whole subcontinent for

0:24:190:24:22

the European imagination, as India.

0:24:220:24:24

And the stories that went back with Alexander and his men

0:24:240:24:26

of a wild, fabulous place filled with mystics, seers and gold

0:24:260:24:32

were to influence the European view of India for thousands of years.

0:24:320:24:36

In some ways, you could say we are still unpicking

0:24:390:24:41

the reality from that myth.

0:24:410:24:44

For it was after the arrival of Alexander and the long

0:24:440:24:47

Indo-Greek culture that followed that the idea of India was born.

0:24:470:24:52

Alexander began his chaotic trek back to Europe in 325 BC,

0:24:560:25:02

leaving behind him an Indo-Greek culture

0:25:020:25:04

which took on a life of its own.

0:25:040:25:06

It was a golden age for the growth of Buddhism.

0:25:080:25:11

A great Buddhist monastery was built here in Taxila,

0:25:150:25:18

at the crossroads of Asia.

0:25:180:25:20

So this would have been the original living quarters of the monks,

0:25:220:25:26

and you can see the cells all around the central courtyard,

0:25:260:25:30

which would have been filled with water and overlain with lotuses.

0:25:300:25:35

It would have been a very peaceful site.

0:25:350:25:38

But I suppose the thing to remember is that this wasn't a

0:25:410:25:45

closed monastic life in the way we think of it today.

0:25:450:25:49

But actually this was a centre of learning, which was very open,

0:25:490:25:54

very much like the great universities of the modern world.

0:25:540:25:57

Students at the university

0:26:000:26:01

came from Persia in the west,

0:26:010:26:03

India to the south

0:26:030:26:05

and from the north

0:26:050:26:06

along the silk route.

0:26:060:26:07

Perhaps most important of all came

0:26:070:26:09

inquisitive Chinese pilgrims,

0:26:090:26:11

many of whom who took

0:26:110:26:12

Buddhist scriptures back with them

0:26:120:26:14

to China.

0:26:140:26:15

These were the monks' domestic quarters.

0:26:170:26:20

Quite intimate little cells, actually very cool

0:26:220:26:25

in the heat of the day, overshadowed by trees, surrounding trees.

0:26:250:26:29

And two tiny little niches,

0:26:290:26:32

one of which would perhaps have been for a candle and some prayer beads.

0:26:320:26:36

And another one perhaps for Willie Dalrymple's latest novel.

0:26:360:26:39

Having worked in centres of learning for most of my life,

0:26:410:26:45

I actually find it really moving to think of the monks

0:26:450:26:49

living and working here, transcribing Buddhist scriptures

0:26:490:26:53

into manuscripts and preserving them over hundreds and hundreds of years.

0:26:530:26:57

They've opened up the cell for me, so that I can see

0:26:590:27:01

a replica of one of the finest of the Buddha statues, which survived

0:27:010:27:06

intact for centuries because it was protected from the elements.

0:27:060:27:10

Inside this quiet side chapel, tucked away in this corner...

0:27:110:27:16

..is this really beautiful, calm image of the Buddha seated in prayer

0:27:180:27:23

The original has actually been removed to the museum at Taxila,

0:27:230:27:28

but this was one of the Buddha images that Sir John Marshall

0:27:280:27:32

was really moved by when he came upon it back in the 1930s.

0:27:320:27:38

So you can see here how art began to be used to

0:27:380:27:43

spread the message of Buddhism

0:27:430:27:45

through the creation of sensuous form.

0:27:450:27:48

I find it tragic that so many of the Buddha sculptures here have

0:27:570:28:00

been vandalised and now need to be protected from Islamic extremists,

0:28:000:28:05

while some heads have had to be removed to museums

0:28:050:28:08

for their own safety.

0:28:080:28:09

This really dramatic representation of the Buddha

0:28:280:28:33

shows him during the six years he undertook fasting

0:28:330:28:37

as part of his journey to reach nirvana.

0:28:370:28:40

And you can see it is actually a complete

0:28:400:28:43

masterpiece of Buddhist sculpture.

0:28:430:28:46

It is made out of single piece of schist, and you can see how

0:28:460:28:49

the full-bodied form has completely withered away

0:28:490:28:54

and shown his ribs protruding, his arteries, his veins,

0:28:540:28:58

the robes are slipping off him.

0:28:580:29:00

And in particular, if you look at his face,

0:29:000:29:03

the eyes are completely sunken. The cheeks are sallow, but there is

0:29:030:29:07

a certain serenity to his expression.

0:29:070:29:11

This is not the expression of a dying man,

0:29:110:29:13

this is the expression of a man who is on a path,

0:29:130:29:16

looking for something. If you look very carefully into his eyes,

0:29:160:29:20

they are actually open, they are actually looking at you

0:29:200:29:24

as you stand before him.

0:29:240:29:26

And beneath you can see the narrative sequence,

0:29:260:29:30

the story that tells that actually

0:29:300:29:32

he realised this wasn't the way to enlightenment,

0:29:320:29:36

and that he ended up begging for food to feed himself,

0:29:360:29:40

and continued on his journey to nirvana.

0:29:400:29:42

In other regions of South Asia, Buddhism ultimately survived

0:29:530:29:56

only in small pockets, whereas this area surrounding

0:29:560:30:00

the high Indus had a different kind of sacred landscape altogether.

0:30:000:30:05

Here, more than 3,000 Buddhist institutions

0:30:050:30:08

flourished across Gandhara.

0:30:080:30:10

It is a very calm place to be here early in the morning

0:30:110:30:15

in northern Pakistan.

0:30:150:30:17

And there's a sense of sadness at how remote

0:30:180:30:22

these sites are today.

0:30:220:30:24

Given how important they were in transmitting this

0:30:240:30:30

incredible world religion right across Asia.

0:30:300:30:33

And the world has not only forgotten, but I suspect

0:30:330:30:36

it doesn't really know that Buddhism, as we know it today,

0:30:360:30:40

actually emanated from this part of the world,

0:30:400:30:44

right here in Pakistan.

0:30:440:30:45

And Pakistan gets a hard rap for exporting

0:30:450:30:49

Islamic fundamentalism, which I think is really quite unfair

0:30:490:30:52

and a very limited view of this rich country.

0:30:520:30:56

So why was it that Buddhism spread from here

0:31:020:31:04

to the four corners of Asia?

0:31:040:31:06

Because this area of Pakistan

0:31:080:31:10

was at the heart of one of the busiest trade routes in Asia,

0:31:100:31:13

market towns like these exchanged art, ideas

0:31:130:31:17

and cultural influence just as easily as they did

0:31:170:31:20

textiles, ivory and spices.

0:31:200:31:23

And as the merchant class grew more prosperous,

0:31:230:31:26

they could afford to turn their attention to manufacturing.

0:31:260:31:29

These images of the Buddha were being mass-produced to

0:31:340:31:37

cater for expanding markets in the Far East.

0:31:370:31:40

The irony is, of course,

0:31:400:31:42

that a religion based on principles of austerity

0:31:420:31:45

and rejection of the self, its ego and material wealth

0:31:450:31:49

now found itself enveloped in decidedly commercial concerns.

0:31:490:31:54

The craftsmen of Taxila have always known what sells.

0:32:030:32:07

It may not be serene statues of the Buddha any more,

0:32:070:32:11

but instead we've got shiny, glittering disco leopards,

0:32:110:32:15

which would not look out of place in a Duran Duran video.

0:32:150:32:17

The one other thing you see when you're travelling around Pakistan

0:32:210:32:25

are these incredible bursts of colours,

0:32:250:32:28

which are these painted trucks.

0:32:280:32:30

And I'm here at the moment in a yard where they not only make

0:32:300:32:34

the trucks and repair them, but also take great care to decorate them.

0:32:340:32:40

It's slightly intimidating, it's a very male environment.

0:32:400:32:43

There aren't any Page Three pin-ups,

0:32:430:32:46

but what there are, are these magnificently-worked trucks.

0:32:460:32:51

This is one of my absolute favourites.

0:32:510:32:54

It's got all the scale of an American juggernaut,

0:32:540:32:57

but look at the difference.

0:32:570:32:59

Every inch of this vehicle has been decorated, painted, made colourful.

0:32:590:33:04

It is glittering in the sunlight. Here, in the centre,

0:33:040:33:08

you've got Father of the Nation, Muhammad Ali Jinnah,

0:33:080:33:11

flanked by the Pakistani flag.

0:33:110:33:14

And everywhere there is colour, symbols of fish,

0:33:140:33:19

which they particularly like here because it gives them

0:33:190:33:23

lots of opportunity to provide texture

0:33:230:33:27

and colour and pattern.

0:33:270:33:30

You don't see a lot of colour in what people wear.

0:33:300:33:34

The men are dressed in quite earthy colours,

0:33:340:33:37

and the woman may be brightly dressed,

0:33:370:33:39

but many of them are covered in the veil, and then you see this

0:33:390:33:43

incredible burst of colour along the road for everyone to enjoy.

0:33:430:33:48

There's a lot of detail on the outside,

0:33:480:33:51

there's these wonderful tassels.

0:33:510:33:53

And then when you look on the inside,

0:33:530:33:56

an absolute driver's boudoir.

0:33:560:33:59

I wanted to have a look in one of the actual workshops,

0:34:010:34:04

where a lot of the crafting of these designs actually takes place.

0:34:040:34:08

I like to think that these skills

0:34:180:34:20

are an echo of the Taxila craftsman of old.

0:34:200:34:23

Their fine work with gold, silver and precious stones helped

0:34:230:34:26

build ancient trade routes here, and thus the spread of Buddhism.

0:34:260:34:30

Yet however successful abroad, by the eighth century, Buddhism had

0:34:360:34:40

all put disappeared in Pakistan itself.

0:34:400:34:43

So why is their virtually no trace of it in the country

0:34:430:34:46

that was for so long its home?

0:34:460:34:49

It's not in Pakistan but in China

0:34:520:34:54

and the Far East that Gandharan civilisation

0:34:540:34:57

made its greatest impact, and its influence can still be felt today.

0:34:570:35:02

Through the early Chinese pilgrims that came here,

0:35:030:35:06

Buddhism established a firm foothold in Imperial China.

0:35:060:35:11

So it was natural that in later centuries Chinese monks would

0:35:110:35:14

want to return to see the source of their Buddhism.

0:35:140:35:18

What they found, however, left them saddened.

0:35:180:35:21

By the time this monastery and stupa at Bombala were built,

0:35:270:35:31

more than 500 years after Alexander, Buddhism in northwest India

0:35:310:35:35

was being eclipsed by more intruders from Central Asia.

0:35:350:35:38

For the stories of grandeur also brought a series of invaders,

0:35:390:35:44

like the White Huns, upon the region,

0:35:440:35:46

and eventually the grand city of Taxila was brought to its knees.

0:35:460:35:50

In the seventh century,

0:35:530:35:55

when the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang came to Taxila to find

0:35:550:35:59

the source of the Buddhism that had transformed China, it lay desolate

0:35:590:36:03

and in a state of half ruin, a mere shadow of its former glory.

0:36:030:36:07

He described the monasteries as "filled with shrubs

0:36:130:36:17

"and solitary to the last degree, wasted and desolate",

0:36:170:36:21

and the monks as "indolent and given to indulgence and debauchery."

0:36:210:36:25

And in some ways one could say the old tolerance of Taxila,

0:36:270:36:31

the cosmopolitan university open to all faiths,

0:36:310:36:34

also now lies in ruins.

0:36:340:36:37

There's a lovely echo around the valley here,

0:36:440:36:46

and you can just imagine how it would have sounded

0:36:460:36:49

when all the Buddhist monks here would have been chanting.

0:36:490:36:53

It does feel desolate.

0:36:590:37:01

It feels like you've happened upon something that's hidden away

0:37:010:37:04

that was once a great civilisation,

0:37:040:37:08

much of it is still to be excavated,

0:37:080:37:12

and there's a sense of desertion here,

0:37:120:37:14

which is really quite poignant.

0:37:140:37:16

There are real contemporary echoes today,

0:37:210:37:24

in terms of the desecration of Buddhist monuments in Bamiyan

0:37:240:37:28

and also in this region, by the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban.

0:37:280:37:32

Greater Pakistan is probably confused by its Buddhist history,

0:37:380:37:43

only because there's been a state-sponsored Islamic agenda here,

0:37:430:37:48

which really denies the texture and longevity of this land,

0:37:480:37:54

which was always a frontier province,

0:37:540:37:56

it was always many different groups of people, and you can't

0:37:560:38:00

really undo and unpick that complexity without leaving a vacuum.

0:38:000:38:06

The invaders who destroyed the old Buddhist cultures were

0:38:190:38:22

followed out of the Afghan mountains centuries later by more horsemen

0:38:220:38:25

from the north, who brought with them a new religion.

0:38:250:38:29

Islam.

0:38:320:38:34

CALL TO PRAYER

0:38:340:38:35

And to explore the Muslim legacy they left behind, I've come back

0:38:370:38:41

to the city they founded,

0:38:410:38:43

the cultural centre of modern Pakistan - Lahore.

0:38:430:38:46

I've just arrived in Lahore, it's the middle of Eid,

0:38:480:38:51

the greatest celebration - it's sort of Christmas, Easter

0:38:510:38:55

and everything rolled into one.

0:38:550:38:56

There's great excitement on the streets, children out playing,

0:38:560:39:00

big national holiday, and it's just wonderful to be here.

0:39:000:39:03

It's the best time of year in the Muslim calendar.

0:39:130:39:16

Although perhaps not if you're a goat or a cow that's being

0:39:160:39:19

fattened up for the occasion.

0:39:190:39:21

CALL TO PRAYER

0:39:260:39:28

I love being in this city.

0:39:450:39:46

The sights, the smells, the sounds, it's like an assault

0:39:460:39:49

on the senses, but it really, really brings you alive.

0:39:490:39:52

Around 1000 AD, the Muslim sultan Mahmud of Ghazni gained control

0:40:040:40:09

of the Indus Valley, and Lahore rose up as a great city under his rule.

0:40:090:40:14

Scholars and poets gathered from as far away as Iraq and Samarkand

0:40:150:40:19

and made Lahore a city of music and the arts.

0:40:190:40:23

HE SINGS IN OWN LANGUAGE

0:40:230:40:26

'Today, Ali Sethi typifies a younger group of Pakistani artists

0:40:260:40:31

'who are rediscovering how much their country's past

0:40:310:40:34

'still has to say to them.'

0:40:340:40:36

Is there something about the fact that it's a song of suffering

0:40:360:40:40

-that draws people do it?

-Yeah, absolutely.

0:40:400:40:42

Every person that I've ever heard singing it,

0:40:420:40:44

like, sublimates or channels, whatever it is they're feeling,

0:40:440:40:48

whatever pain or angst or, like, you know,

0:40:480:40:52

achy emotion they're feeling, into this song.

0:40:520:40:55

And I've heard, you know, traditional musicians,

0:40:550:40:58

people you would call minstrels,

0:40:580:41:00

singing it with tattered clothes at shrines in deserts,

0:41:000:41:04

and I've heard kids in jeans and t-shirts,

0:41:040:41:08

with joints in their hands, singing this, you know,

0:41:080:41:12

with great feeling and fervour, and taking great ownership of it.

0:41:120:41:16

And that seems to me to be a great miracle of life here,

0:41:160:41:21

is that despite so much...

0:41:210:41:25

truncation, and so much revisionism,

0:41:250:41:29

you know, and so much loss of

0:41:290:41:32

what ought to have been memorialised,

0:41:320:41:34

-there is still this...

-Persistence.

0:41:340:41:37

..persistence. This really amazing persistence of things that

0:41:370:41:41

are ancient and that are very strong and that continue to live in us,

0:41:410:41:47

and that we continue to, sort of,

0:41:470:41:49

pour into newer forms, ever newer forms

0:41:490:41:52

and styles and situations, and yet we're not conscious of those things.

0:41:520:41:57

Politically, we are very young, and culturally we're very old.

0:41:570:42:02

So what does that make us?

0:42:020:42:04

Interesting. It makes Pakistan very interesting.

0:42:040:42:07

I agree, I agree.

0:42:070:42:09

THEY SING IN OWN LANGUAGE

0:42:100:42:13

To see how Islam has lasted for 1,000 years in Lahore,

0:42:170:42:21

I've come to this ancient shrine.

0:42:210:42:23

Even though Taliban suicide bombers killed 42 worshipers

0:42:250:42:28

here in 2010, the congregation still comes to praise Islam

0:42:280:42:32

in verse, song and dance.

0:42:320:42:34

You know, spiritual music is very powerful,

0:42:370:42:41

and I think all the people who go to shrines,

0:42:410:42:46

they lose themselves.

0:42:460:42:51

It's like going into another space and...

0:42:510:42:53

-It's like a trance.

-It's a trance, it's the trance music.

0:42:530:42:57

I've seen 500 people going into a trance for hours.

0:42:570:43:01

You get caught up in the energy of it as well. There's a momentum.

0:43:090:43:13

You get caught up in the energy,

0:43:130:43:15

and the best thing is that they do it not alone.

0:43:150:43:19

They're doing it with friends, and hundreds of them doing it.

0:43:190:43:24

And it's like headbanging

0:43:240:43:26

or something that you do at a rock concert.

0:43:260:43:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:43:290:43:31

SONG ENDS

0:43:340:43:36

By the 10th century, Lahore was being described as a place

0:43:460:43:50

with impressive palaces, large markets and huge orchards.

0:43:500:43:54

500 years later,

0:43:560:43:58

this thriving cultural hub of a city became a natural choice

0:43:580:44:02

for a capital for the greatest of Muslim connoisseurs - the Mughals.

0:44:020:44:06

For this is where Islam from Persia met

0:44:080:44:11

the land beyond the Indus, to recreate a paradise on earth.

0:44:110:44:15

Lahore is often described as the city of gardens,

0:44:170:44:21

of gardens watered by the Indus.

0:44:210:44:23

The city reached the peak of its glory during the Mughal rule.

0:44:260:44:30

Not only did they build lavish monuments

0:44:300:44:32

and splendid gardens, they bestowed upon Lahore

0:44:320:44:35

customs and traditions that have echoed down the ages.

0:44:350:44:38

And it's Islam which is often credited with introducing

0:44:430:44:47

a new concept to Pakistan,

0:44:470:44:49

the concept of purdah.

0:44:490:44:51

Purdah or purd-ah was originally a Persian word

0:44:560:44:59

that came to India with the Mughals,

0:44:590:45:02

and means veil or curtain, and was a way for a wife to show

0:45:020:45:07

complete loyalty to her husband.

0:45:070:45:09

Eventually it was also taken up by high-class Hindu woman

0:45:090:45:13

as a form of protection.

0:45:130:45:15

Previously in the subcontinent, all women were uncovered

0:45:150:45:20

from the waist up,

0:45:200:45:22

as we've seen previously in the Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro.

0:45:220:45:26

And here we have these wonderful architectural metaphors

0:45:260:45:30

for the veil in these jali screens,

0:45:300:45:34

which would have been a way to separate the women from the

0:45:340:45:37

world outside, but also for them to create their own world within.

0:45:370:45:41

So what lay behind these walls was

0:45:410:45:43

often very intriguing to the commoner.

0:45:430:45:46

The politics of the harem was much more complex than we might imagine.

0:45:460:45:51

Nowhere can this be seen better than in the relationship

0:45:560:45:59

between the Mughal emperor Jahangir and his charismatic wife Nur Jahan.

0:45:590:46:04

MUSIC: Wonderwall by Ryan Adams

0:46:040:46:08

Born on a caravan travelling from Tehran to India,

0:46:080:46:12

she became the last but most beloved wife of the Emperor.

0:46:120:46:16

Jahangir's two brothers had died of alcoholism and, as Crown Prince,

0:46:160:46:21

he was not much better himself,

0:46:210:46:23

being heavily addicted to opium.

0:46:230:46:25

So when he came to the throne,

0:46:270:46:28

he depended completely on his favourite wife to run

0:46:280:46:31

the kingdom, while he built rock star extravaganzas like this -

0:46:310:46:35

a minaret in which to keep one of his favourite pet deer.

0:46:350:46:39

It's perhaps a little unfair to

0:46:390:46:41

think of Jahangir as the Noel Gallagher of the Mughal Empire,

0:46:410:46:46

because, despite being a playboy,

0:46:460:46:49

he had many other qualities.

0:46:490:46:52

This was, of course, the long summer of the Mughal Empire,

0:46:520:46:56

and in that time he patronised the arts,

0:46:560:46:59

he built beautiful buildings and he was a very just emperor.

0:46:590:47:04

And he had Nur Jahan by his side,

0:47:040:47:06

with whom he had this complex, romantic, intimate relationship,

0:47:060:47:13

which involved, obviously, love, but also political power,

0:47:130:47:17

and in a sense they ruled the empire together.

0:47:170:47:21

Just a step behind the magnificent public balcony where the Emperor sat

0:47:360:47:40

to give audience is this darker chamber, which was actually

0:47:400:47:46

the nerve centre of power.

0:47:460:47:49

And who was here? It was Nur Jahan, his beloved wife, the Empress,

0:47:490:47:52

the Mughal empress.

0:47:520:47:54

And she actually held a lot of power in the Mughal court

0:47:540:47:58

and made many of the decisions.

0:47:580:48:00

So she was effectively standing just over his shoulder

0:48:000:48:03

whispering in his ear, directing him

0:48:030:48:05

while he was holding court to his public just beyond.

0:48:050:48:09

So this series of chambers, private chambers,

0:48:130:48:17

was actually built for Nur Jahan by Jahangir,

0:48:170:48:22

and she traversed these spaces in privacy,

0:48:220:48:27

but completely connected to the public government

0:48:270:48:31

imperial decisions that he was making just a few feet away.

0:48:310:48:36

So, despite the dust and graffiti of centuries,

0:48:360:48:40

including King Jahangir's phone number,

0:48:400:48:45

you can really get a sense of how magnificent

0:48:450:48:47

these private quarters would have been.

0:48:470:48:51

I mean, there's still a lot of intricate paintwork

0:48:510:48:54

to be seen down here,

0:48:540:48:56

and there's an image of the sun-god right in the centre up there.

0:48:560:49:00

So you have to imagine that these internal chambers would have

0:49:040:49:07

been really sumptuous.

0:49:070:49:10

The floors were laid with marble,

0:49:100:49:11

they would have been covered with Persian and Mughal carpets,

0:49:110:49:15

and the walls would have been very, very colourful,

0:49:150:49:20

a rich palette of colours, which would have painted the stuccowork.

0:49:200:49:23

And here in particular, you see a very Persian motif of the

0:49:230:49:27

vase of flowers, which, of course,

0:49:270:49:30

the Mughals brought with them to India.

0:49:300:49:34

I particularly love this space

0:49:350:49:38

because if you look up, the ceiling is covered with mirrors.

0:49:380:49:42

And there's also a little bit of restoration work that's taken place

0:49:420:49:46

which shows you the depth of colour

0:49:460:49:49

that actually there would have been

0:49:490:49:52

during the time that Nur Jahan would

0:49:520:49:54

have been walking through these rooms.

0:49:540:49:56

And there are remnants, still, of gold paint and blue,

0:49:560:50:00

to be seen on the stuccowork above the doorway here.

0:50:000:50:05

And if you imagine that all of this Technicolor would have been,

0:50:050:50:09

with the lighting,

0:50:090:50:11

would have shone off and reflected from the mirrors

0:50:110:50:14

that are overhead. This really would have been a sumptuous

0:50:140:50:18

interior chamber for the Empress Nur Jahan.

0:50:180:50:20

Her grip on the reins of imperial power was absolute.

0:50:240:50:28

But such were the rules of purdah, that no other men ever got to see

0:50:280:50:31

her face. Not even, bizarrely, the artist who painted her portrait.

0:50:310:50:36

So, Salima, this is a very intimate image of the private quarters...

0:50:380:50:43

Yes.

0:50:430:50:44

..of a high-class lady.

0:50:440:50:46

Yes, and preparing herself for her toilette,

0:50:460:50:50

and obviously preparing herself for something important.

0:50:500:50:52

And when you consider that it is invariably a male artist who

0:50:520:50:56

is doing this and with no access...

0:50:560:51:00

So there would have been no access, certainly not this kind?

0:51:000:51:02

Absolutely. No, no.

0:51:020:51:04

No access at all. So this is kind of second-hand information which

0:51:040:51:07

was fed to the artist and presumably...

0:51:070:51:10

Through who?

0:51:100:51:12

Presumably through the informants.

0:51:120:51:14

So there's a lot of imagination,

0:51:160:51:19

a little bit of fantasy, which is involved in this.

0:51:190:51:23

But then the other ways in which, presumably,

0:51:230:51:26

they got to know what women did, what they got up to.

0:51:260:51:29

So you find you do have works... I mean, for example,

0:51:290:51:32

that one, in which there's a rival life

0:51:320:51:35

going on in the women's quarters.

0:51:350:51:38

Amongst the women themselves.

0:51:380:51:40

Yeah, and they are enjoying themselves.

0:51:400:51:43

They have some of the same pastimes as men, actually.

0:51:430:51:46

-They're smoking, they're...

-Drinking.

0:51:460:51:49

Uh, I don't know whether they were drinking the same things,

0:51:490:51:52

but presumably they were having a jolly good time.

0:51:520:51:55

Jahangir's reign was a golden age that only came to an end

0:52:030:52:06

with his death in 1627.

0:52:060:52:08

The tomb that was built for him was magnificent in its ostentation.

0:52:100:52:13

The building was clad in zigzags of white and yellow marble,

0:52:190:52:23

and there was once an ornate pavilion built here on the roof.

0:52:230:52:27

But not far away is the much smaller mausoleum of Nur Jahan.

0:52:290:52:33

She had tried to intervene with Jahangir's succession,

0:52:350:52:38

and as a consequence was confined to Lahore for the rest of her days.

0:52:380:52:43

She lies not alongside the love of her life, but beside her daughter,

0:52:430:52:48

in an unassuming tomb she had to build for herself.

0:52:480:52:51

She left a message that expresses her sorrow.

0:52:560:53:00

Nobody would come to light a lamp,

0:53:000:53:03

no moths would come to burn their wings on such lamps,

0:53:030:53:07

and no cuckoos would even sing within the tombs

0:53:070:53:12

of Nur Jahan and her daughter.

0:53:120:53:14

But to remember Nur Jahan best, I've been allowed to

0:53:280:53:32

return to the beautiful Palace Of Mirrors in the

0:53:320:53:35

women's quarters of the Lahore Fort,

0:53:350:53:37

at night, when it's empty and deserted.

0:53:370:53:40

This surely is her true spiritual resting place -

0:53:510:53:55

as a woman who patronised the arts

0:53:550:53:57

and helped make Lahore a glittering centre for artists and writers.

0:53:570:54:03

As it still is.

0:54:030:54:04

OVERLAPPING CHATTER

0:54:080:54:11

THEY SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE

0:54:120:54:16

Hi, I'm Sona.

0:54:160:54:17

Hello, how are you?

0:54:170:54:21

Lahore is a very spiritual city

0:54:210:54:24

because here you find all the arts.

0:54:240:54:27

It is also a city of music and of politics.

0:54:280:54:33

If this wasn't a dry country,

0:54:400:54:42

I could have sworn there was something in this orange juice,

0:54:420:54:45

but it's at parties like this that you can really sense that

0:54:450:54:49

visual artists, writers, poets in Pakistan today are

0:54:490:54:54

really engaging with the rich cultural past

0:54:540:54:57

and unpicking it and exposing it,

0:54:570:54:59

and exploring it, to reveal that this isn't just a country

0:54:590:55:04

with a 50-year Islamic history, but something much, much deeper.

0:55:040:55:08

So what I've done is... She has raised all the funding.

0:55:080:55:12

One of the artists at the party has produced a work that has

0:55:120:55:15

become famous and which explores the tensions

0:55:150:55:17

between old and new Pakistan,

0:55:170:55:21

and its relationship with the West.

0:55:210:55:23

I've been particularly drawn to this remarkable series

0:55:240:55:29

that you did called The Veil.

0:55:290:55:31

Can you tell me, firstly, what inspired you?

0:55:310:55:34

What was the moment that made you choose this subject?

0:55:340:55:39

I was intrigued to see in this post-9/11 period, to see

0:55:400:55:47

Western media in particular, whenever there was a mention of

0:55:470:55:51

a Muslim country, it will be referenced

0:55:510:55:55

with the image of a veiled woman.

0:55:550:55:58

So, in a way, I think it kind of reduces

0:55:580:56:02

the representation of women from a certain part of the world,

0:56:020:56:07

which made me think of another simplification of the woman

0:56:070:56:11

in the minds of the men, especially, from the non-Western world,

0:56:110:56:17

because of their exposure to pornography.

0:56:170:56:19

So in this work Rashid has used this process of photomontage,

0:56:210:56:26

where, when you enter the room,

0:56:260:56:29

you encounter one particular image

0:56:290:56:32

which on this occasion is a series of burqa-clad women,

0:56:320:56:36

completely veiled, including the face.

0:56:360:56:38

And then when you come in closer,

0:56:380:56:40

you're opened up to a whole other landscape.

0:56:400:56:43

The pixelations are tiny images of pornography,

0:56:430:56:47

which are captured from the internet,

0:56:470:56:50

and widely disseminated all over the world.

0:56:500:56:53

So he's playing on that idea of contradictions

0:56:530:56:57

of the perceptions that we have in this apparent distinctions

0:56:570:57:00

between what goes on in the East and the West.

0:57:000:57:04

Pakistan has a population of over 200 million people,

0:57:080:57:12

greater than Russia. Its position at the crossroads of Asia

0:57:120:57:16

makes it crucial to world politics.

0:57:160:57:19

And yet my journey through the country has been

0:57:190:57:21

a reminder of how little outsiders know about its complicated past,

0:57:210:57:27

and equally complicated present.

0:57:270:57:28

Today, Pakistan is searching for its identity.

0:57:300:57:33

Not because it doesn't have one, but because this civilisation,

0:57:330:57:38

this 5,000-year-old civilisation, is so textured and multilayered.

0:57:380:57:43

And some of that history is shared and contested with

0:57:430:57:48

its neighbour India, but a lot of isn't,

0:57:480:57:50

because this was always a frontier land between India to the south,

0:57:500:57:54

China to the North, Afghanistan, Iran and Ancient Babylon and Greece.

0:57:540:58:00

And running through this, like an artery, nourishing civilisations

0:58:000:58:04

that have lived here, has been the River Indus.

0:58:040:58:08

In the next episode of Treasures Of The Indus, I'll explore

0:58:100:58:14

what happened when the Islamic conquerors who swept into

0:58:140:58:17

Lahore in the 16th century travelled even farther down into India,

0:58:170:58:23

when the Islam of the Mughals collided

0:58:230:58:25

with the kingdoms of Hindustan

0:58:250:58:27

and created some of the finest architecture

0:58:270:58:30

the world has ever seen.

0:58:300:58:32

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