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Documentary, Treasures of the Indus - Part 1 - Pakistan Unveiled
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00:00I'm on the mighty Indus River which gave its name to the whole Indian subcontinent and I'm
00:13beginning a journey deep into ancient India a journey that will take me back 5,000 years
00:19into the past to discover some of its most hidden treasures I'll be traveling back in
00:28times the ancient civilization that first grew up on the shores of the Indus I'll be revealing
00:34the lost Buddhist culture of northern Pakistan and luxuriating in the extraordinary architectural
00:41flowering of the Mughal Empire and the exuberant temples of South India all of which produce some
00:47phenomenal artworks as an art historian and museum curator I've looked after these treasures for most
00:57of my life in this series I want to explore their stories and the people who created them
01:13I'm beginning my journey in Lahore home to over 5 million people and the vibrant beating heart of
01:21modern Pakistan today we think of Pakistan as an Islamic country and indeed it was religion that was the
01:30cause of its violent severance from Greater India in 1947 what was India's loss was the birth of a new
01:38nation the Islamic Republic of Pakistan but what I want to explore is this country's very rich more complex
01:45and diverse past which is often forgotten a time when women were celebrated the Buddha was worshipped and
01:54the Mughal Empire recreated paradise on earth
01:58so to do that I need to go to the remains of a city that makes the hall because it was built just yesterday a site that's not just one of the most
02:14the most ancients in Pakistan but in the whole world
02:21well there's always a great sense of adventure to arrive at a station in the subcontinent early in the morning
02:32with coolies carrying people's luggage people have got places to go just like I have
02:37I'm
02:46Pakistan was born less than 70 years ago a much younger country than India
02:51so it's perhaps ironic that it was the birthplace of a far older civilization
03:00I spent years at the British Museum looking after treasures from the Indian subcontinent
03:04but I've never made this particular journey before
03:07it will take me to the cradle of ancient India
03:11so I just got off the train at Harappa we're almost 200 kilometers outside Lahore at this tiny station I seem to be the only person here but it was here about a hundred years ago that under the British
03:40railway workers were creating a passageway to dig this railway to create this railway
03:47and stumbled upon what appeared to be a very ancient mound of terracotta bricks
03:55how convenient the workers must have thought and just use the bricks to help make the railway embankment
04:01but when archaeologists were eventually called in they made one of the great discoveries of the 20th century
04:16what they found defied belief
04:19in this quiet and neglected corner of Pakistan
04:22an enormous city stretching for miles began to emerge from beneath the dusty plains
04:34it's thought the city of Harappa was large enough to house up to 80,000 people
04:39this city was at the height of its success in 2200 BC
04:46it's not until the late 19th century over 4,000 years later that European cities reached anything like this scale and order
04:56even more extraordinary than its size was the realization of quite how old it was
05:01when the archaeologist John Marshall came here in 1921 he was the first person who fully appreciated the significance and the actual antiquity of what this site potentially had to offer
05:16So I brought with me a copy of the illustrated London news from 1924
05:23which was actually when Marshall announced to the world effectively what he had discovered and the significance of it
05:30and it begins
05:32Not often has it been given to archaeologists as it was given to Schliemann at Tyrenes or Mycenae
05:38or to Stein in the deserts of Turkestan
05:41to light upon the remains of a long forgotten civilization
05:44It looks however at this moment as if we were on the threshold of such a discovery in the plains of the Indus
05:55Marshall was trying to rewrite the story of ancient India
05:59with one that began here in the subcontinent
06:02not one that had somehow been imported from Europe or the Middle East
06:06as previous archaeologists had imagined
06:09A history that was India's own, a new beginning if you like, for India's ancient past
06:17The thing that strikes me immediately walking through these ruins
06:21is
06:23how clearly this was laid out on a grid pattern like a modern city
06:27these people really understood their right angles
06:29but what is extraordinary is what isn't here
06:33for a civilization on this scale
06:36contemporary with the pyramids
06:38is there isn't any grand monument to a single ruler
06:41there isn't any celebration of military might
06:44or a ruling theocracy
06:46this was clearly, in a contemporary sense, a much more egalitarian society
06:50and this is not the only city built by what came to be called the Indus Valley civilization
07:02after the mighty river that threaded them together
07:05many others were later found, built to a similar template
07:10and yet more remained to be excavated, still buried under mounds in the desert
07:16this was an empire, albeit one without any rulers
07:21and it's an empire that is still giving up its secrets
07:25gosh, so this was only excavated five or six days before
07:30still fresh with the mud
07:32yeah
07:34you can see the accentuation of the breasts, the navel, the wide hips
07:38this is a civilization, like many ancient cultures
07:41that celebrated fertility for very obvious reasons
07:46and these figures appear all over the Indus Valley
07:49these were people who liked their bling
07:53and some of the jewelry found here
07:54reveals the use of sophisticated manufacturing techniques
07:58so this delicate bead made of carnelian
08:03was considered a highly precious stone
08:06and were traded really far and wide
08:08what's really remarkable about them
08:11is the technology they had using diamonds
08:14to drill these very uniform holes through
08:19so they would then string them together
08:21and produce these elaborate necklaces
08:24for elite citizens to wear
08:27unlike Pakistan today
08:30this seems to have been a culture that valued
08:33even worshipped powerful women
08:34and nowhere can this be seen better
08:37than in one tiny figure
08:39a priceless treasure from the era
08:41known as the dancing girl
08:43with the stance of an impudent teenager
08:46she has all the poise of Digger's little dancer
08:51and some have described her as the Mona Lisa of ancient Indian art
08:56now the original is priceless
09:00and she sits here behind bulletproof glass
09:03which even being a museum curator on this occasion
09:08I'm not able to access
09:10so I have here a replica in my hand
09:14and so close up you can see
09:17what's really interesting about her
09:19is her stance
09:21for a young woman
09:24at this very early date
09:26she stands incredibly confidently
09:29with her hand on her hip
09:31her head held high
09:33decorated with bangles
09:35there's a confidence and poise about her
09:38which is really surprising
09:40to some of our more traditional conceptions
09:43and notions of women in South Asia
09:46the dancing girl is unusual and almost unique
09:57at her upper
09:59what has been found far more commonly
10:01are these mysterious seals carved in reverse
10:04presumably so they could act as a stamp
10:06leaving a clear image in wax
10:08perhaps to seal a transaction
10:11one of the most amazing features
10:13of these tiny seals that were found at Harappa
10:17was that nearly 50% of them represented the unicorn
10:22which is a mythological animal
10:25that we usually associate with medieval Europe
10:27but actually first originated here
10:30and clearly had great spiritual significance for these people
10:35because it appears over and over again
10:39but then completely disappeared from this region
10:42and traveled through Mesopotamia
10:44into ancient Greece
10:46and into the legends of Europe
10:48that we've all grown up with
10:50this is the first time I've ever held a seal
10:56from the Indus Valley Civilization of this scale
10:59and holding it at this range
11:02you can really get a sense of the very, very fine craftsmanship
11:05that they use
11:06you can see all the individual hoofs
11:09on the reverse of course
11:11is this very practical, pragmatic handle
11:15that would have been used to make the imprint of the ceiling
11:19to mark a commodity that would have been traded
11:22and so competently manufactured at such an early date
11:26that it has survived 5,000 years for us to find today
11:30and for me to hold in this moment
11:31so why did this remarkable civilization disappear without trace
11:40for thousands of years
11:42it's hard to believe in the heat and dust of the excavated city
11:47that a great tributary of the Indus once flowed here
11:50which supplied the city with a wealth of water
11:53there was in fact an indoor bathroom for almost every home
11:56and a sophisticated drainage system
12:00but over the millennia the river changed course
12:05leaving the city and its farmlands without water
12:08it's no wonder then that this civilization eventually collapsed
12:14the great river Indus dominates the history of civilization here
12:17and as the river shifted course
12:20whole cities came and went
12:23it was here that the next great empire emerged in the Indus Valley
12:26with consequences which would last for a thousand years
12:29it was here that the next great empire emerged in the Indus Valley
12:39with consequences which would last for a thousand years
12:43so this is the place in 326 BC where that Macedonian megalomaniac Alexander the Great
12:46crossed the river as he attempted to conquer India
13:00he didn't actually know where he was going
13:02he arrived with no language no maps
13:05and in fact Alexander was so lost
13:07that he thought that he had arrived at a distant source of the Nile
13:12after having seen crocodiles in the Indus
13:14he was simply driven by a testosterone-fueled obsession
13:19to outdo the legendary Darius of Persia
13:24and find this fabled land to the east
13:28which was known only by rumour
13:30Alexander was a master of self-mythologising
13:34and you have to hand it to him
13:36a bit like Winston Churchill
13:38he made absolutely sure that history would be kind to him
13:41by writing the history himself
13:44or at least ensuring that his own biographers came along on his journey with him
13:49One of his historians, Aryan, wrote
13:55when Alexander arrived at the river Indus
13:58he found gifts of silver, gold and elephants from Taxilis the Indian
14:03and that prince sent word he would surrender to him Taxila
14:07the largest city near the river Indus
14:09nearby was the ancient city of Taxila, a thriving cosmopolitan centre
14:29which was just like the Paris and Mumbai of its time
14:31there was a complete cacophony of different languages, customs and influences
14:39Trusting no one, Alexander marched into Taxila ready for battle
14:43but the governor welcomed him with a tribute of silver
14:53bribery will get you everywhere
14:55and Alexander had made his first ally near the Indus
14:59so I'm being made into a Pakistani lady
15:02never a bad thing
15:08everything the Greeks encountered was new, fresh and exotic
15:11the markets would have held spices and foodstuffs unrecognisable to them
15:20tamarind
15:22it was journalistic gold dust
15:25Alexander's historians were able to give a vivid and sensational account
15:29of an ancient society that had previously been unreported and obscure
15:33and obscure
15:35in the dusty and crowded marketplace in the summer heat of Taxila
15:39Alexander and his men encountered strange customs, languages and influences
15:45it was here that they came across the naked hope men
15:49the Buddhist monks
15:51and where they first encountered the doctrine of the Buddha
15:53the Greeks and their new allies rebuilt the ancient city of Taxila nearby
16:02but this was to be like no other city that India had ever seen before
16:11today the city is known as Sirka
16:13it's actually vast
16:20spread over a really big area
16:22and very quickly it appears
16:25there is a main boulevard
16:29the high street
16:31and that the city was actually planned
16:34very much like a Hellenistic city would have been
16:37so the stamp is clearly here
16:40it's quite amazing actually how many walls are still standing
16:44how neatly ordered they are
16:47and I suspect there would have been a subterranean level
16:51much like you would have found in ancient Athens
16:55it's a quiet, peaceful, very overgrown place now
17:01but it appears here
17:06there were shops
17:08there, residences
17:11there's a great sense of order to it
17:14clearly
17:16which is unusual in a typical city of the subcontinent
17:20which has a completely different way of organising space
17:23and that's the thing I find really striking here
17:26the thing to remember I think is that Alexander's arrival
17:30was really a moment and just the start of this long relationship
17:37between India and Greek culture, Hellenistic culture
17:43which went on for several hundred years
17:48and one result of that Greek invasion
17:51was the effect it had on the local religion of Buddhism
17:54which now changed dramatically in its art and architecture
17:57so in amongst these low-lying stone walls
18:04there's a really complete example of an early Buddhist temple
18:09which has all the hallmarks of Greek influence
18:12you've got the stupa in the middle
18:14the steps leading up to it
18:16this motif here actually shows a double-headed eagle
18:19you can see these beautifully carved acanthus leaves
18:21at the top of each of these columns
18:25so all around in the detail you can see the fusion
18:29the Hellenistic influence with the traditional
18:33local religion of Buddhism
18:36it's beautiful actually
18:38this of course is the path the devotee would have taken in a clockwise motion around the stupa
18:52in the hope of accruing good karma
18:55which is of course good for all of us
18:57when the Greeks arrived Buddhism had already been established for some centuries since the death of the Buddha himself
19:09in around 480 BC
19:11but their arrival had a fundamental impact on the way the Buddha was now portrayed
19:17although we're used to seeing the Buddha represented in human form
19:23in the very earliest manifestations he was actually represented by his absence
19:30he was represented in symbolic form like this magnificent footprint
19:35decorated with symbols of Buddhism
19:37which celebrated aspects of the Buddha's life rather than showing him the human form
19:43and then something really interesting and dramatic starts to happen in this region
19:50after the invasion of Alexander the Great
19:53and that is the representation of the Buddha as a real living person in human form
20:03it's hard to exaggerate how important a moment this was in the history of Buddhism
20:08for the first time the Buddha was given features
20:13he had died too long before for anyone to remember what he really looked like
20:17so the features he was given were idealized ones
20:21and the new ideal came from this innovative Indo-Greek culture
20:26that took Buddhism from its home on the North Indian plain
20:29and embedded it onto a completely new form
20:32one that we might find more recognizable today
20:35here are youthful Buddhas with hair arranged in wavy curls
20:40that resemble Greek sculptures of Apollo
20:43the monastic robe covering both shoulders
20:46is arranged in heavy naturalistic folds
20:49reminiscent of a classical toga
20:51and compared to other more rotund Buddhas
20:54he has the toned body of a Greek athlete
20:56to see more examples of this rare and early Buddhist art
21:09I've been invited to a private museum with a fabulous collection
21:13that the same family has safeguarded for over seven generations
21:16Hello! Nice to meet you! I've heard a lot about you!
21:22You're welcome to Fakihana Museum
21:24Thank you! Thank you!
21:26This is a very beautiful room
21:28Do you want to have a look to my collection?
21:31Absolutely! That would be great!
21:32It's a treasure trove of rare and wonderful objects gathered from all the great civilizations that have arisen along the Indus
21:50including the Indo-Greek culture inspired by Alexander's arrival that became known as Gandhara
22:00What's in here?
22:02It's Gandhara
22:05This Gandhara is a limestone
22:08It has a Greek influence
22:10Like this one
22:12Why these Buddhas are so special, you know
22:15Why these Gandharas are so special
22:16Because their skills are so high
22:18They've made beautiful faces
22:20And look at this piece
22:22It's a broken piece
22:23But look at the beautiful smile of Buddha in it
22:26His lips and his smile and his, you know
22:29Serene
22:31Okay, I'm going to show you something very special of my collection
22:35It is a hidden collection, you know
22:37I've never opened it for anybody else
22:39Especially today, I'm going to do it for you
22:40The special thing I'm going to show you
22:55No other museum will possess
22:57Have this kind of thing
22:59This is original ring of Raja Porus
23:02Porus?
23:04Yeah
23:05As in the man
23:06Who fought against
23:07Alexander the Great in 326
23:09Yes
23:11Gosh
23:12This is done in pure silver
23:14This is incredibly exciting
23:16I'm actually holding the ring
23:17Yes
23:18Worn by Porus
23:20Yes
23:21That's magnificent
23:23Can I put it on?
23:25You may
23:27You can see that the physiognomy is actually very different
23:30Yeah, definitely
23:32Indic
23:33Yeah
23:34Yeah
23:35And he has the turban
23:37Yeah
23:38On his head
23:39Big earrings
23:40Big earrings
23:41And wearing sunflower
23:42And wearing the sunflower, yes
23:44So how did you come across the ring of Porus?
23:48Don't ask me all the questions
23:50Family secrets
23:51Family secrets are there
23:52This was not a one-way exchange in Gandhara
24:04The Greeks themselves took gold, silver and sinned cotton back to Europe
24:09Along what started to become a thriving trade route
24:11But more importantly, they also took with them a myth and a name
24:17The river Indus was the whole subcontinent for the European imagination
24:22As India
24:24And the stories that went back with Alexander and his men
24:27Of a wild fabulous place filled with mystics, seers and gold
24:31Were to influence the European view of India for thousands of years
24:35In some ways, you could say we are still unpicking the reality from that myth
24:43For it was after the arrival of Alexander and the long Indo-Greek culture that followed
24:49That the idea of India was born
24:55Alexander began his chaotic trek back to Europe in 325 BC
25:00Leaving behind him an Indo-Greek culture which took on a life of its own
25:06It was a golden age for the growth of Buddhism
25:10A great Buddhist monastery was built here in Taxila at the crossroads of Asia
25:20So this would have been the original living quarters of the monks
25:24And you can see the cells all around the central courtyard
25:30Which would have been filled with water and overlaid with lotuses
25:34It would have been a very peaceful site
25:40But I suppose the thing to remember is that this wasn't a closed monastic life
25:45In the way that we think of it today
25:47But actually this was a centre of learning which was very open
25:53Very much like the great universities of the modern world
25:59Students at the university came from Persia in the west
26:03India to the south
26:05And from the north along the Silk Route
26:07Perhaps most important of all
26:09Came acquisitive Chinese pilgrims
26:11Many of whom took Buddhist scriptures back with them to China
26:14These were the monks' domestic quarters
26:19Quite intimate little cells
26:22Actually very cool in the heat of the day
26:25Overshadowed by trees, surrounding trees
26:29And two tiny little niches
26:31One of which perhaps would have been for a candle and some prayer beads
26:35And another one perhaps for Willie Dalrymple's latest novel
26:39Having worked in centres of learning for most of my life
26:45I actually find it really moving
26:47To think of the monks living and working here
26:50Transcribing Buddhist scriptures into manuscripts
26:54And preserving them over hundreds and hundreds of years
26:59They've opened up this cell for me
27:01So that I can see a replica of one of the finest of the Buddha statues
27:04Which survived intact for centuries
27:07Because it was protected from the elements
27:11Inside this quiet side chapel
27:14Tucked away in this corner
27:16There's this really beautiful, calm image of the Buddha
27:22Seated in prayer
27:24Now the original has actually been removed
27:26To the museum at Taksila
27:27But this was one of the Buddha images
27:30That Sir John Marshall was really moved by
27:33When he came upon it back in the 1930s
27:36So you can see here
27:39How art began to be used
27:42To spread the message of Buddhism
27:44Through the creation of sensuous form
27:47I find it tragic that so many of the Buddha's sculptures here
28:00Have been vandalised
28:02And now need to be protected from Islamic extremists
28:05While some heads have had to be removed to museums
28:08For their own safety
28:09As a disaster
28:12As I know about the Buddha
28:16This really dramatic representation of the Buddha
28:18Shows him through the six years he understook fasting
28:23This really dramatic representation of the Buddha shows him during the six years he understood
28:36fasting as part of his journey to reach nirvana and you can see it's actually a complete masterpiece
28:43of Buddhist sculpture. It's made out of a single piece of schist and you can see how
28:49the full-bodied form has completely withered away and is shown by his ribs protruding his
28:56arteries his veins and the robes are slipping off him and in particular if you look at his face the
29:03eyes are completely sunken the cheeks are sallow but there is a certain serenity to his expression
29:10you know this is not the expression of a dying man this is the expression of a man who's
29:14on a path looking for something and if you look very carefully into his eyes they're actually open
29:21they're actually looking at you as you stand before him and beneath you can see the narrative sequence
29:29the story that tells that actually he realized this wasn't the way to enlightenment and that he
29:36ended up begging for food to feed himself and continued on his journey to nirvana
29:52in other regions of south asia buddhism ultimately survived only in small pockets whereas this area
29:59surrounding the high indus had a different kind of sacred landscape altogether
30:04here more than 3 000 buddhist institutions flourished across kandhara
30:11it's a very calm place to be here early in the morning in northern pakistan
30:18and there's a sense of sadness at how remote these sites are today
30:24given how important they were in transmitting this incredible world religion right across asia
30:32and the world has not only forgotten but i suspect it doesn't really know
30:37that buddhism as we know it today actually emanated from this part of the world right here in pakistan
30:45and pakistan gets a hard rap for exporting islamic fundamentalism which i think is really quite unfair
30:52and a very limited view of this rich country
31:01so why was it that buddhism spread from here to the four corners of asia
31:08because this area of pakistan was at the heart of one of the busiest trade routes in asia
31:13market towns like these exchanged art ideas and cultural influence just as easily as they did textiles
31:20ivory and spices and as the merchant class grew more prosperous they could afford to turn their
31:26attention to manufacturing
31:33these images of the buddha were being mass produced to cater for expanding markets in the far east
31:40the irony is of course that a religion based on principles of austerity and rejection of the self
31:46its ego and material wealth now found itself enveloped in decidedly commercial concerns
32:03the craftsmen of taxila have always known what sells it may not be serene statues of the buddha anymore
32:10but instead we've got shiny glittering disco leopards which would not look out of place in a durand
32:16durand video
32:21so one of the things you see when you're traveling around pakistan are these incredible bursts of color
32:28which are these painted trucks and i'm here at the moment in a yard where they not only make
32:33the trucks and repair them but also take great care to decorate them it's slightly intimidating it's a
32:41very male environment there aren't any page three pinups but what there are are these magnificently
32:49worked trucks this is one of my absolute favorites it's got all the scale of an american juggernaut but
32:57look at the difference every inch of this vehicle has been decorated painted made colorful it's glittering
33:06in the sunlight here in the center you've got father of the nation muhammad ali jinnah flanked by the
33:12pakistani flag and everywhere there's color symbols of fish which they particularly like here because it
33:22gives them lots of opportunity to provide texture and color and pattern you don't see a lot of color
33:31in what people wear the men are dressed in white earthen colors and the women may be brightly dressed
33:38but many of them are covered in the veil and then you see this incredible bursts of color along the road
33:46for everyone to enjoy there's a lot of detail on the outside there's these wonderful tassels and then
33:53when you look on the inside an absolute driver's boudoir i wanted to have a look in one of the actual
34:02workshops where a lot of the crafting of these designs actually takes place
34:17i like to think that these skills are an echo of the texila craftsmen of old
34:23their fine work with gold silver and precious stones
34:26help build ancient trade routes here and thus the spread of buddhism
34:36it's however successful abroad by the 8th century buddhism had all but disappeared in pakistan itself
34:43so why is there virtually no trace of it in the country that was for so long its home
34:48it's not in pakistan but in china and the far east that gandharan civilization made its greatest impact
34:59and its influence can still be felt today through the early chinese pilgrims that came here buddhism
35:06established a firm foothold in imperial china so it was natural that in later centuries chinese
35:13monks would want to return to see the source of their buddhism what they found however left them saddened
35:27by the time this monastery and stupa at bambala were built more than 500 years after alexander
35:33buddhism in northwest india was being eclipsed by more intruders from central asia
35:38for the stories of grandeur also brought a series of invaders like the white huns upon the region and
35:46eventually the grand city of taxila was brought to its knees
35:53in the 7th century when the chinese pilgrim shuan zeng came to taxila to find the source of the buddhism
35:59that had transformed china it lay desolate and in a state of half ruin a mere shadow of its former glory
36:08he described the monasteries as filled with shrubs and solitary to the last degree
36:19wasted and desolate and the monks as indolent and given to indulgence and debauchery
36:27and in some ways one could say that the old tolerance of taxila the cosmopolitan university open to all
36:33faiths also now lies in ruins
36:43there's a lovely echo around the valley here and you can just imagine
36:48how it would have sounded when all the buddhist monks here would have been chanting
36:51it does feel desolate it feels like you've happened upon something that's hidden away
37:04that was once a great civilization much of it is still to be excavated and there's a sense of desertion
37:14here which is really quite poignant
37:20there are real contemporary echoes today in terms of the desecration of buddhist monuments in
37:27bamian and also in this region by the pakistani and afghan taliban
37:32greater pakistan is probably confused by its buddhist history only because there's been a state-sponsored
37:45islamic agenda here which really denies the texture and longevity of this land which was always a frontier
37:55province it was always many different groups of people and you can't really undo and unpick
38:03that complexity without leaving a vacuum
38:18the invaders who destroyed the old buddhist cultures were followed out of the afghan mountains centuries later
38:24by more horsemen from the north who brought with them a new religion
38:32islam
38:37and to explore the muslim legacy they left behind i've come back to the city they founded
38:43the cultural center of modern pakistan lahore
38:48just arrived in lahore it's the middle of eid the greatest celebration it's sort of christmas
38:54easter and everything rolled into one there's great excitement on the streets children out
38:59playing big national holiday and it's just wonderful to be here
39:12it's the best time of year in the muslim calendar
39:15although perhaps not if you're a goat or a cow that's been fattened up for the occasion
39:24i love being in this city the sights the smells the sounds it's like an assault on the senses but it
39:50really really brings you alive
40:04around 1000 a.d the muslim sultan mahmud of ghazni gained control of the indus valley
40:10and lahore rose up as a great city under his rule
40:15scholars and poets gathered from as far away as iraq and samakan and made lahore a city of music and the arts
40:23today ali seti typifies a younger group of pakistani artists who are rediscovering how much their
40:32country's past still has to say to them is there something about the fact that it's a song of
40:38suffering that draws people to um yeah every person that i've ever heard singing it like sublimates or
40:45channels whatever it is they're feeling whatever pain or angst or like you know achy emotion they're
40:52feeling into this song and i've heard i've heard you know traditional musicians people who would call
40:59minstrels singing it um with tattered clothes at shrines you know in deserts and i've heard kids in jeans and
41:06t-shirts with joints in their hands um singing this you know um with great with great feeling and
41:13fervor and taking great ownership of it you know and that seems to me to be a great miracle of life
41:20here is that despite so much um truncation and so much revisionism you know and so much um loss of
41:31of what ought to have been memorialized there is still this persistence persistence this really
41:38amazing persistence of things that are ancient um and that are very strong and that that continue to
41:44live in us and that we continue to sort of sort of pour into newer forms ever newer forms and styles
41:52and and situations and yet we're not conscious of those things politically we're very young um and
42:00culturally we're very old so what does that make us interesting it makes pakistan very interesting i agree
42:08i agree see how islam has lasted for a thousand years in lahore i've come to this ancient shrine
42:25even though taliban suicide bombers killed 42 worshippers here in 2010
42:29the congregation still comes to praise islam in verse song and dance
42:34you know uh spiritual music is very powerful and uh uh i think all the people who go to shrines they
42:46lose uh they they lose themselves it's like going into another space and it's like a trance it's it's
42:54a trance it's the trance music uh i've seen five five hundred people going into trance for hours
43:04so you get caught up in the energy of it as well you get caught up in the energy and the best thing
43:16is that they do it not alone they're doing it in their friends and hundreds of them doing it
43:24and it's like head banging or something that you do it on a rock concert also
43:34by the 10th century lahore was being described as a place with impressive palaces large markets and
43:52huge orchards
43:56500 years later this thriving cultural hub of a city
44:00became a natural choice for a capital for the greatest of muslim connoisseurs
44:05the moguls for this is where islam from persia met the land beyond the indus to recreate a paradise
44:15on earth lahore is often described as the city of gardens of gardens watered by the indus
44:25the city reached the peak of its glory during the mogul rule
44:29not only did they build lavish monuments and splendid gardens
44:33they bestowed upon lahore customs and traditions that have echoed down the ages
44:43and it's islam which is often credited with introducing a new concept to pakistan
44:48the concept of purdha
44:56purdha or purdha was originally a persian word that came to india with the moguls and means veil or
45:03curtain and was a way for a wife to show complete loyalty to her husband eventually it was also taken
45:11up by high class hindu women as a form of protection previously in the subcontinent all women were
45:19uncovered from the waist up as we've seen previously in the dancing girl of muhenjadharo
45:25and here we have these wonderful architectural metaphors for the veil in these jali screens
45:33which would have been a way to separate the women from the world outside but also for them to create
45:38their own world within so what lay behind these walls was often very intriguing to the commoner
45:45the politics of the harim was much more complex than we might imagine
45:50so nowhere can this be seen better than in the relationship between the mogul emperor jahangir
46:00and his charismatic wife nur jahan today's gonna be the day that they're gonna give it back to you
46:08born on a caravan traveling from tehran to india she became the last but most beloved wife of the
46:14emperor jahangir's two brothers had died of alcoholism and as crown prince he was not much
46:21better himself being heavily addicted to opium so when he came to the throne he depended completely
46:29on his favorite wife to run the kingdom while he built rock star extravaganzas like this a minaret in
46:36which to keep one of his favorite pet deer that's perhaps a little unfair to think of jahangir as the
46:42noel gallagher of the mogul empire because despite being a playboy he had many other qualities this
46:51was of course the long summer of the mogul empire and in that time he patronized the arts he built
46:59beautiful buildings and he was a very just emperor and he had nur jahan by his side with whom he had this
47:08complex romantic intimate relationship which involved obviously love but also political power
47:17and in a sense they ruled the empire together
47:22just a step behind the magnificent public balcony where the emperor sat to give audience is this
47:43darker chamber which was actually the nerve center of power and who was here it was nur jahan his beloved
47:51wife the empress the mogul empress and she actually held a lot of power in the mogul court and made many
47:58of the decisions so she was effectively standing just over his shoulder whispering in his ear directing
48:05him while he was holding court to his public just beyond
48:09so this series of chambers private chambers was actually built for nur jahan by jahan gear
48:22and she traversed these spaces in privacy but completely connected to the public government imperial decisions that
48:33he was making just a few feet away so despite the dust and graffiti of centuries including king jahan gear's phone number
48:44you can really get a sense of how magnificent these private quarters would have been
48:50i mean there's still a lot of intricate paintwork to be seen down here
48:55and there's an image of the sun god right in the center up there
49:03so you have to imagine that these internal chambers would have been really sumptuous
49:09the floors were laid with marble they would have been covered with persian and mogul carpets
49:15and the walls would have been very very colorful rich palette of colors
49:19to which would have painted the stucco work and here in particular you see a very persian motif
49:27of the vase of flowers which of course the moguls brought with them to india
49:35i particularly love this space because if you look up the ceiling is covered with mirrors
49:42and this also there's a little bit of restoration work that's taken place which shows you
49:47the depth of color that actually there would have been during the time that nur jahan would have
49:53been walking through these rooms and there are remnants still of gold paint and blue to be seen
50:01on the stucco work above the doorway here and if you imagine that all of this technicolor would have been
50:10with the lighting would have shone often reflected from the mirrors that are overhead this really would
50:16have been a sumptuous interior chamber for the emperor's north jahan
50:23her grip on the reins of imperial power was absolute but such were the rules of purdah
50:29that no other men ever got to see her face not even bizarrely the artist who painted her portrait
50:35so salima this is a very intimate image of the private quarters yes of a high-class lady yes and
50:46preparing herself for you know her toilet and obviously preparing herself for something important
50:52and when you consider that it is invariably a male artist who's doing this and with no access so there
51:00would have been no access certainly no no no no access at all so this is kind of secondhand information
51:06which is fed to uh the artist and presumably through these presumably through the informants
51:15um but so that you know there's a lot of imagination a little bit of fantasy which is involved in this
51:21so but then there are other ways you know in which presumably they got to know what women did what
51:27they got up to so you find you do have work time for example that one in which um there there's a there's
51:34a rival life going on in the women's quarters in which the women amongst the women themselves yeah and
51:41then they're enjoying themselves they have some of the same pastimes as men actually they're smoking
51:47they're you know drinking uh i don't know whether that they were drinking the same things but presumably they were having a jolly good time
52:02jehangir's reign was a golden age that only came to an end with his death in 1627
52:09the tomb that was built for him was magnificent in its ostentation
52:17the building was clad in zigzags of white and yellow marble and there was once an ornate pavilion built
52:25here on the roof but not far away is the much smaller mausoleum of north jehan
52:35she had tried to intervene with jehangir's succession and as a consequence was confined to lahore for the rest of
52:41her days she lies not alongside the love of her life but beside her daughter in an unassuming tomb she had
52:50to build for herself
52:55she left a message that expresses her sorrow nobody would come to light a lamp no moths would come to burn
53:04their wings on such lands and no cuckoos would even sing within the tubes of north jehan and her daughter
53:28but to remember north jehan best
53:30i've been allowed to return to the beautiful palace of mirrors in the women's quarters of the lahore fort
53:36at night when it's empty and deserted
53:51this surely is her true spiritual resting place as a woman who patronized the arts and helped make lahore
53:58a glittering center for artists and writers
54:03as it still is
54:04in the women's quarters
54:10is
54:12i'm
54:14I'm Shona.
54:16Hello, how are you?
54:18How are you?
54:20Lahore is a very special city because here you find all the arts.
54:28It is also a city of music and of politics.
54:34If this wasn't a dry country I could have sworn there was something in this orange juice,
54:44but it's at parties like this that you can really sense that visual artists, writers,
54:50poets in Pakistan today are really engaging with the rich cultural past,
54:56and unpicking it and exposing it and exploring it to reveal that this isn't just a country
55:03with a 50-year Islamic history, but something much, much deeper.
55:11One of the artists at the party has produced a work that has become famous
55:15and which explores the tensions between old and new Pakistan
55:20and its relationship with the West.
55:24I've been particularly drawn to this remarkable series that you did called The Veil.
55:30Can you tell me firstly what inspired you?
55:34What was the moment that made you choose this subject?
55:38I was intrigued to see in this post 9-11 period, to see Western media in particular.
55:48Whenever there was a mention of a Muslim country, it will be referenced with image of a veiled woman.
55:55So in a way I think it kind of reduces the representation of women from certain parts of the world.
56:05Which made me think of another simplification of the women in the minds of the men,
56:13especially from the non-Western world, because of their exposure to pornography.
56:18So in this work, Rashid has used this process of photomontage, where when you enter the room,
56:28you encounter one particular image, which on this occasion is a series of Burka Cloud women,
56:34completely veiled, including the face.
56:37And then when you come in closer, you're opened up to a whole other landscape.
56:43The pixelations are tiny images of pornography, which are captured from the internet,
56:49and widely disseminated all over the world.
56:52So he's playing on that idea of the contradictions of the perceptions that we have
56:58in this apparent distinctions between what goes on in the East and the West.
57:07Pakistan has a population of over 200 million people, greater than Russia.
57:12Its position at the crossroads of Asia makes it crucial to world politics.
57:17And yet my journey through the country has been a reminder of how little outsiders know about its complicated past,
57:25and equally complicated present.
57:29Today, Pakistan is searching for its identity, not because it doesn't have one,
57:35but because this civilization, this 5,000-year-old civilization, is so textured and multi-layered.
57:42And some of that history is shared and contested with its neighbour, India.
57:47But a lot of it isn't, because this was always a frontier land,
57:51between India to the south and China to the north,
57:55Afghanistan, Iran, and ancient Babylon and Greece.
57:59And running through this like an archery, nourishing the civilizations that have lived here,
58:05has been the River Indus.
58:07In the next episode of Treasures of the Indus, I'll explore what happened
58:14when the Islamic conquerors who swept into Lahore in the 16th century
58:18travelled even further down into India.
58:22When the Islam of the Mughals collided with the kingdoms of Hindustan
58:26and created some of the finest architecture the world has ever seen.
58:30And the BBC's India season continues here on BBC4 Tomorrow,
58:39as William Dalrymple unearths the story of the White Mughals.
58:42Love and Betrayal in India is here at 9.
58:45Love and Betrayal in India is here at 9.
58:48Love and Betrayal in India is here at 9.
58:50Bye.
58:54Mother of the Mother, mother of the Mother,
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