The Story of India
Encyclopedia
The Story of India is a BBC TV documentary
series, written and presented by historian Michael Wood, about the 10,000-year history of the Indian subcontinent
in six episodes. It was originally aired on the BBC
in six episodes in August and September 2007 as part of the BBC season "India and Pakistan 07", which marked the 60 years independence of India
and Pakistan
. In the United States, PBS
broadcast the series on three Mondays, January 5, 12 and 19, 2009, from 9 to 11 PM. In Australia
, this series was broadcast on ABC1
each Sunday at 7:30pm from 29 March until 3 May, 2009. An accompanying text was published by BBC Books
.
As in most of his documentaries, Wood explains historical events by travelling to the places where they took place, examining archeological and historical evidence at first hand and interviewing historian
s and archaeologists, as well as chatting with local people.
s and oral tales
Wood charts the first human migrations out of Africa
. He travels from the tropical backwaters of South India
through lost ancient cities in Pakistan to the vibrant landscapes of the Ganges plain
. Archaeological discoveries in the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex in Turkmenistan
by Soviet archeologist Viktor Sarianidi
, including horse drawn carts (mentioned in the Rig Veda), cast new light on India’s past. Wood also attempts to re-create soma
, an ancient drink recorded in the Rig Veda.
and Mahavira
. Travelling by rail to the ancient cities of the Ganges plain, by army convoy through Northern Iraq
, and down Pakistan's Khyber Pass
, he shows how Alexander the Great’s invasion of India inspired her first major empire in the form of the Mauryan Empire, ruled by Chandragupta Maurya
and Ashoka
.
; the Greco-Roman navigator Hippalus
discovered monsoons for the Romans. In Kerala
the spice trade opened India to the world, whilst gold
and silk
bazaar
s in the ancient city of Madurai
were a delight for visiting Greek
traders. From the deserts of Turkmenistan Michael travels down the Khyber Pass to Pakistan to discover a forgotten empire, the (Kushan Empire
) of Northern India that opened up the Silk Route and at Peshawar
built a lost Wonder of the World. The Wonder is nowadays known to people as the "Bare Raja Ka Tila". Also offers an interesting theory about the death of Emperor Kanishka
at Mathura.
of the Earth and wrote the world’s first sex guide, the Kama Sutra
. In the south, the giant temple of Tanjore built by emperor Rajaraja Chola and traditional bronze casters, working as their ancestors did 1,000 years ago are shown. Michael Wood calls Tamil Nadu, "The only surviving 'Classical Civilization' in the world.
In an interview to The Hindu
Michael Wood said
"One that’s 2,000 years old like ancient Greece or Rome. Tamil is the last living classical Indian language. The first surviving work in Tamil, a 300 B.C book on linguistics, refers to an already existing culture. Tamil is older than any modern European language. I wanted to remind Western-centric audiences, who implicitly assume the superiority of Western modes of thought, that Tamil is one of 23 official Indian languages, with a literature comparable to any in the West. It makes viewers sit up and question their assumptions".
to the subcontinent and one of the greatest ages of world civilisation: the Mughals. Mahmud of Ghazni
leads an expedition to Somnath
and destroys the temple of Shiva and all idols there. Michael Wood visits Sufi shrines in Old Delhi
, desert fortresses in Rajasthan
and the cities of Lahore
and Agra
, where he offers a new theory on the design of the Taj Mahal
. He also looks at the life of Akbar, a Muslim emperor who decreed that no one religion could hold the ultimate truth, but whose dream of unity ended in civil war.
and India’s struggle for freedom. Wood reveals how in South India a global corporation came to control much of the subcontinent, and explores the magical culture of Lucknow
, discovering the enigmatic Briton who helped found the freedom movement. He traces the Amritsar
massacre, the rise of Gandhi and Nehru, and the events that led to the Partition of India
in 1947.
Documentary
A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...
series, written and presented by historian Michael Wood, about the 10,000-year history of the Indian subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
in six episodes. It was originally aired on the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in six episodes in August and September 2007 as part of the BBC season "India and Pakistan 07", which marked the 60 years independence of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. In the United States, PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
broadcast the series on three Mondays, January 5, 12 and 19, 2009, from 9 to 11 PM. In Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, this series was broadcast on ABC1
ABC1
ABC1 was a United Kingdom based television channel from Disney using the branding of the Disney owned American network, ABC.The channel initially launched exclusively on the British digital terrestrial television platform Freeview on 27 September 2004. On 10 December 2004 it was launched on...
each Sunday at 7:30pm from 29 March until 3 May, 2009. An accompanying text was published by BBC Books
BBC Books
BBC Books is an imprint majority owned and managed by Random House. The minority shareholder is BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation...
.
As in most of his documentaries, Wood explains historical events by travelling to the places where they took place, examining archeological and historical evidence at first hand and interviewing historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
s and archaeologists, as well as chatting with local people.
Episodes
Episode 1 - "Beginnings"
Michael Wood travels throughout the subcontinent, tracing the richness and diversity of its peoples, cultures and landscapes. Through ancient manuscriptManuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
s and oral tales
Oral history
Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews...
Wood charts the first human migrations out of Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
. He travels from the tropical backwaters of South India
South India
South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
through lost ancient cities in Pakistan to the vibrant landscapes of the Ganges plain
Indo-Gangetic plain
The northern Plains also known as the Indo - Gangetic Plain and The North Indian River Plain is a large and fertile plain encompassing most of northern and eastern India, the most populous parts of Pakistan, parts of southern Nepal and virtually all of Bangladesh...
. Archaeological discoveries in the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex in Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan , formerly also known as Turkmenia is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic . Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states...
by Soviet archeologist Viktor Sarianidi
Viktor Sarianidi
Viktor Ivanovich Sarianidi or Victor Sarigiannides is a well-known Soviet archaeologist of Pontic Greek descent. He discovered the remains of a Bronze Age culture in the Karakum Desert in 1976...
, including horse drawn carts (mentioned in the Rig Veda), cast new light on India’s past. Wood also attempts to re-create soma
Soma
Soma , or Haoma , from Proto-Indo-Iranian *sauma-, was a ritual drink of importance among the early Indo-Iranians, and the subsequent Vedic and greater Persian cultures. It is frequently mentioned in the Rigveda, whose Soma Mandala contains 114 hymns, many praising its energizing qualities...
, an ancient drink recorded in the Rig Veda.
Episode 2 - "The Power of Ideas"
The second episode in Michael Wood’s series moves on to the revolutionary years after 500BC - the Age of the BuddhaBuddha
In Buddhism, buddhahood is the state of perfect enlightenment attained by a buddha .In Buddhism, the term buddha usually refers to one who has become enlightened...
and Mahavira
Mahavira
Mahāvīra is the name most commonly used to refer to the Indian sage Vardhamāna who established what are today considered to be the central tenets of Jainism. According to Jain tradition, he was the 24th and the last Tirthankara. In Tamil, he is referred to as Arukaṉ or Arukadevan...
. Travelling by rail to the ancient cities of the Ganges plain, by army convoy through Northern Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
, and down Pakistan's Khyber Pass
Khyber Pass
The Khyber Pass, is a mountain pass linking Pakistan and Afghanistan.The Pass was an integral part of the ancient Silk Road. It is mentioned in the Bible as the "Pesh Habor," and it is one of the oldest known passes in the world....
, he shows how Alexander the Great’s invasion of India inspired her first major empire in the form of the Mauryan Empire, ruled by Chandragupta Maurya
Chandragupta Maurya
Chandragupta Maurya , was the founder of the Maurya Empire. Chandragupta succeeded in conquering most of the Indian subcontinent. Chandragupta is considered the first unifier of India and its first genuine emperor...
and Ashoka
Ashoka
Ashok Maurya or Ashoka , popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from ca. 269 BC to 232 BC. One of India's greatest emperors, Ashoka reigned over most of present-day India after a number of military conquests...
.
Episode 3 - "Spice Routes and Silk Roads"
In this episode he traces India in the days of the Roman EmpireRoman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
; the Greco-Roman navigator Hippalus
Hippalus
Hippalus was a Greek navigator and merchant who probably lived in the 1st century BCE. He is sometimes conjectured to have been the captain of the Greek explorer Eudoxus of Cyzicus' ship....
discovered monsoons for the Romans. In Kerala
Kerala
or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
the spice trade opened India to the world, whilst gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
and silk
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
bazaar
Bazaar
A bazaar , Cypriot Greek: pantopoula) is a permanent merchandising area, marketplace, or street of shops where goods and services are exchanged or sold. The term is sometimes also used to refer to the "network of merchants, bankers and craftsmen" who work that area...
s in the ancient city of Madurai
Madurai
Madurai is the third largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It served as the capital city of the Pandyan Kingdom. It is the administrative headquarters of Madurai District and is famous for its temples built by Pandyan and...
were a delight for visiting Greek
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
traders. From the deserts of Turkmenistan Michael travels down the Khyber Pass to Pakistan to discover a forgotten empire, the (Kushan Empire
Kushan Empire
The Kushan Empire originally formed in the early 1st century AD under Kujula Kadphises in the territories of ancient Bactria on either side of the middle course of the Oxus in what is now northern Afghanistan, Pakistan, and southern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.During the 1st and early 2nd centuries...
) of Northern India that opened up the Silk Route and at Peshawar
Peshawar
Peshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan....
built a lost Wonder of the World. The Wonder is nowadays known to people as the "Bare Raja Ka Tila". Also offers an interesting theory about the death of Emperor Kanishka
Kanishka
Kanishka ) was an emperor of the Kushan Empire, ruling an empire extending from Bactria to large parts of northern India in the 2nd century of the common era, and famous for his military, political, and spiritual achievements...
at Mathura.
Episode 4 - "Ages of Gold"
The achievements of the country’s golden age, including how India discovered zero, calculated the circumferenceCircumference
The circumference is the distance around a closed curve. Circumference is a special perimeter.-Circumference of a circle:The circumference of a circle is the length around it....
of the Earth and wrote the world’s first sex guide, the Kama Sutra
Kama Sutra
The Kama Sutra is an ancient Indian Hindu text widely considered to be the standard work on human sexual behavior in Sanskrit literature written by Vātsyāyana. A portion of the work consists of practical advice on sexual intercourse. It is largely in prose, with many inserted anustubh poetry verses...
. In the south, the giant temple of Tanjore built by emperor Rajaraja Chola and traditional bronze casters, working as their ancestors did 1,000 years ago are shown. Michael Wood calls Tamil Nadu, "The only surviving 'Classical Civilization' in the world.
In an interview to The Hindu
The Hindu
The Hindu is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded and continuously published in Chennai since 1878. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it has a circulation of 1.46 million copies as of December 2009. The enterprise employed over 1,600 workers and gross income reached $40...
Michael Wood said
"One that’s 2,000 years old like ancient Greece or Rome. Tamil is the last living classical Indian language. The first surviving work in Tamil, a 300 B.C book on linguistics, refers to an already existing culture. Tamil is older than any modern European language. I wanted to remind Western-centric audiences, who implicitly assume the superiority of Western modes of thought, that Tamil is one of 23 official Indian languages, with a literature comparable to any in the West. It makes viewers sit up and question their assumptions".
Episode 5 - "The Meeting of Two Oceans"
The documentary series about the history of India charts the coming of IslamIslam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
to the subcontinent and one of the greatest ages of world civilisation: the Mughals. Mahmud of Ghazni
Mahmud of Ghazni
Mahmud of Ghazni , actually ', was the most prominent ruler of the Ghaznavid dynasty who ruled from 997 until his death in 1030 in the eastern Iranian lands. Mahmud turned the former provincial city of Ghazni into the wealthy capital of an extensive empire which covered most of today's Iran,...
leads an expedition to Somnath
Somnath
The Somnath Temple located in the Prabhas Kshetra near Veraval in Saurashtra, on the western coast of Gujarat, India, is one of the twelve Jyotirlinga shrines of the God Shiva. Somnath means "The Protector of Moon God". The Somnath Temple is known as "the Shrine Eternal", having been destroyed...
and destroys the temple of Shiva and all idols there. Michael Wood visits Sufi shrines in Old Delhi
Old Delhi
Old Delhi , walled city of Delhi, India, was founded as Shahjahanabad by Mughal Emperor Shahjahan in 1639. It remained the capital of the Mughals until the end of the Mughal dynasty....
, desert fortresses in Rajasthan
Rajasthan
Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...
and the cities of Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
and Agra
Agra
Agra a.k.a. Akbarabad is a city on the banks of the river Yamuna in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, west of state capital, Lucknow and south from national capital New Delhi. With a population of 1,686,976 , it is one of the most populous cities in Uttar Pradesh and the 19th most...
, where he offers a new theory on the design of the Taj Mahal
Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal is a white Marble mausoleum located in Agra, India. It was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal...
. He also looks at the life of Akbar, a Muslim emperor who decreed that no one religion could hold the ultimate truth, but whose dream of unity ended in civil war.
Episode 6 - "Freedom and Liberation"
This episode examines the British RajBritish Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
and India’s struggle for freedom. Wood reveals how in South India a global corporation came to control much of the subcontinent, and explores the magical culture of Lucknow
Lucknow
Lucknow is the capital city of Uttar Pradesh in India. Lucknow is the administrative headquarters of Lucknow District and Lucknow Division....
, discovering the enigmatic Briton who helped found the freedom movement. He traces the Amritsar
Amritsar
Amritsar is a city in the northern part of India and is the administrative headquarters of Amritsar district in the state of Punjab, India. The 2001 Indian census reported the population of the city to be over 1,500,000, with that of the entire district numbering 3,695,077...
massacre, the rise of Gandhi and Nehru, and the events that led to the Partition of India
Partition of India
The Partition of India was the partition of British India on the basis of religious demographics that led to the creation of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan and the Union of India on 14 and 15...
in 1947.
Merchandise
- A 2-disc Region 2DVD region codeDVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region...
DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
was released by 2 Entertain2 Entertain2 Entertain is a British video and music publisher, formed by the merger of BBC Video and Video Collection International in 2004....
on 5 November 2007 (BBCDVD2375), featuring all six full-length episodes. - A 2-disc Region 1 DVD was released by PBS Home VideoPBS Home Video-Logos:Their first distinctive logo was a "Public Broadcasting Service" on the center of the screen, a sky. It was originally released in October 5, 1970...
on 10 March 2009. - A 2-disc Region A Blu-ray DiscBlu-ray DiscBlu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
was released by PBS Home Video on 14 April 2009. - A 2-disc Region 4DVD region codeDVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region...
DVD and Blu-ray DiscBlu-ray DiscBlu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
was released by ABC DVD/Village Roadshow on 1 July 2009. - An accompanying hardback book and audio book has been published by BBC Books on 16 August 2007, titled Michael Wood: The Story of India (ISBN 9780563539155).
External links
- The Story of India at PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
- The story of India and me
- The Hindu : Magazine : "A journey called India" - Interview with the creator Michael Wood