- 24/06/2025
Documentary, BBC Genius Of The Ancient World. Ep.1 Buddha
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00:00Since the dawn of civilization, the forces of nature and the whims of gods held sway over humanity.
00:13But two and a half thousand years ago, humankind experienced a profound transformation.
00:21Suddenly, there were new possibilities.
00:27This is a time when rationality overrode superstition and belief.
00:32This is an ethic which does not rely on the gods.
00:35The world is now explained in terms of natural forces.
00:39We are now responsible for our own destiny.
00:46Upheavals across the globe sparked an ambitious vision of what humans could achieve, spearheaded by three trailblazers.
00:56Socrates, Confucius and the Buddha, great thinkers from the ancient world whose ideas still shape our own lives.
01:06Is wealth a good thing?
01:09How do you create a just as 30?
01:13How do I live a good life?
01:16By daring to think the unthinkable, they laid the foundations of our modern world.
01:23I've always been intrigued by the fact that these men, who lived many thousands of miles apart, seemed almost spontaneously, within a hundred years of one another, to come up with such radical ways of thinking.
01:37So what was going on?
01:42I want to investigate their revolutionary ideas, to understand what set them in motion.
01:49In this episode, I'm on the trail of that most enigmatic of philosophers, the Buddha.
01:55The wandering seeker of truth, who challenged religious orthodoxy.
02:01The caste was not a barrier. Priests were not required.
02:05Analyzing his thoughts and desires sparked game-changing insights.
02:10This is the teaching of Buddha. Everything is subject to change.
02:15Setting the Buddha on his path to enlightenment. A whole new way of being. And an escape from the suffering of life.
02:25Technologically, the world has progressed immensely. But psychologically, I don't think we move very far.
02:31CHEERS
02:54Around two and a half thousand years ago, a young man made a life-changing decision.
03:00CHEERS
03:04We're told that in the dead of night, he left home.
03:07Pausing just once to take a last look at his wife and newborn son, he then slipped out silently into the darkness.
03:19It was the start of a journey that would take him from the foothills of the Himalayas and end here, on the plains of northern India.
03:29His mission was to make sense of human life.
03:36For me, it's genuinely exciting that what the Buddha discovered 25 centuries ago continues to inspire hundreds of millions of people across the globe.
03:47As a religion or belief system, Buddhism has evolved, taking diverse forms within different cultures.
03:57And as a philosophy, its relevance is undiminished by time.
04:02The fact it's still on the rise shows it's a potent way to navigate our modern times.
04:09Passed down from the ancient world that the Buddha inhabited.
04:14Most of what we know about the Buddha is based on oral accounts that were written down a few centuries after his death.
04:29They tell us he was born sometime between the 6th and the 5th centuries BC, in what's now southern Nepal.
04:38We're told he was a prince, Siddhartha Gautama.
04:42Good looking, skilled in weaponry, and prophesied to achieve great things.
04:49But his father, the king, was worried.
04:53Because it was predicted his son would do one of two things.
04:57Stay in the king's palace and become an emperor.
05:01Or leave home and become a great religious leader.
05:07The king, preferring his son to be a more conventional emperor,
05:11surrounded the prince with luxury to attach him to a worldly life.
05:16The streets were cleared of all unpleasant sights, so he was blissfully unaware of the suffering in the world.
05:24But the plan backfired.
05:31One day, whilst out in his carriage, he unexpectedly saw an old man.
05:38Later, he saw a sick man.
05:42And then a corpse.
05:45Witnessing the pain and frailty of human existence shook him to the core.
05:51When the prince saw a holy man, he was inspired.
05:55And his destiny was sealed.
06:02I have to say, this colourful account of the Buddha's early palace life
06:05does have more than a ring of fable to it.
06:08It feels like a kind of textbook, heroic story.
06:11But it does also seem to reflect a real existential crisis.
06:16The Buddha observed that our lives were permeated by suffering.
06:25His quest was to find out if there is a way to overcome it.
06:29He left the remote Himalayan foothills and headed south,
06:41abandoning everything.
06:43His privilege, his family, his homeland.
06:47A small tribal state.
06:49It was run by a council of prominent men from one clan called the Sakyas.
06:54Now, it looks as though his father was probably a clan leader from a prosperous family,
06:59not the great king that we always hear about.
07:06As the Buddha headed south, he experienced the cultures of neighbouring states for the first time.
07:11Arriving here, he'd have seen everything with the eyes of a curious stranger.
07:22Just like those other groundbreaking philosophers of his day,
07:25Socrates in Greece and Confucius in China,
07:28he was the very definition of what it is to be a questioning human.
07:32He refused to be constrained by convention and complacent belief.
07:38He would follow wherever his enquiry led him.
07:42One of the first things the Buddha would have encountered was the religion of the Brahmins.
07:59A priestly caste who dominated the cultural landscape of the Indian world.
08:11They're going to offer rice and flowers to evoking the gods now.
08:20Brahmins were responsible for reciting the Vedas,
08:22an ancient body of divine teachings and hymns,
08:25in sacred spaces and in people's homes, just as they do today.
08:34Another key role was to perform sacrifices,
08:38to persuade the gods to sustain the order of the cosmos and deliver prosperity.
08:44They memorised all the old scriptures.
08:53You've seen how the Brahmins here have been just chanting one after the other.
08:59They can go on like for three, four hours.
09:03They memorised all the rituals.
09:05They knew what vibrations, what food, how the water should be,
09:11how the earth should be, what space is required.
09:14They had all the understanding of how to communicate with the gods.
09:18What kind of ritual were they in charge of?
09:21If somebody had died and you need to do the last rites,
09:25it was the Brahmin who would come to do it.
09:27If there was a drought, you'd get the Brahmin to evoke the rain god.
09:31The whole life depended then on the priest, the Brahmin, who had the knowledge.
09:38That must have given them real power.
09:41They've always dominated the rest,
09:43whether you call it the caste system or the different levels.
09:48They had the highest top position and then came the warrior community,
09:54the Rajputs, the fighters, the rulers.
09:57Then came the business community, which is the Vaishnas.
10:00And then came the community that did the service.
10:05The cobblers, the blacksmith.
10:07And that was the Brahminic society.
10:09For the Buddha, the rigid hierarchy of the caste system
10:27and sacrificed to the gods, relied on blind faith and received wisdom.
10:33Not any kind of rational explanation.
10:36He passionately thought that there must be a more robust,
10:39a more credible way to understand and explain our place in the world.
10:43The Buddha's journey continued on, down to the Ganges plain.
11:02It was a world in the midst of rapid transformation.
11:09New cities and prosperous centralised kingdoms had emerged.
11:13The Buddha's said to have entered one, the kingdom of Margada,
11:20and spent time here in the world capital, Rajagraha.
11:26Along these rampart walls, you can still experience the ancient city,
11:30as the Buddha would have known it.
11:32The streets of the city here would have been crowded with brightly painted carriages,
11:37bringing gold and silver, pearls and blue lapis lazuli,
11:41sandalwoods and rich cloths.
11:44And then in the distance, you would have seen great caravans
11:47carrying in more fabulous goods from the Bay of Bengal
11:50and what is modern-day Afghanistan.
11:57There's a lot of evidence in the literature for this time
11:59that cities were expanding.
12:01But do we get evidence in archaeology too?
12:03We get lots of evidence.
12:05This is the period when cities were emerging and expanding all over the country.
12:10These are lovely little belongings here.
12:13Did these all come from cities?
12:14All of them did.
12:15You can imagine the people who used them.
12:17Look at this, for instance.
12:19This is a razor.
12:20That's great.
12:21I love it when design doesn't change.
12:23That's true.
12:24That's exactly the same as a razor.
12:25Yes.
12:26That is one heck of a doornail.
12:27That's right.
12:28So that's quite some door that that's holding together.
12:30And these are lovely as well.
12:32This looks like very fine dining ware, is it?
12:34It is.
12:35This is a very special kind of pottery
12:37that must have been used only by very rich people
12:40for very special occasions.
12:41So do you think this kind of different way of living
12:44is affecting how people feel about their lives?
12:48Yes, absolutely.
12:49And the city must have been a very exciting and also unsettling experience
12:55for somebody who'd walked into one of these cities from a village.
12:58Because something new is emerging, but the old ways of life
13:02and the old kinds of social relationships are dissolving.
13:07This is a time when you have unprecedented and, I think, unparalleled
13:14level of questioning about what it means to live in the world
13:19and how one should live one's life
13:21and all kinds of questions that concern us very deeply.
13:26Cities were a real paradox.
13:39They did offer dazzling new opportunities, but they also cut people loose
13:44from everything that they knew, from their tribe, from their land,
13:48from ways of being that hadn't really changed much for millennia.
13:52So they were wonderful, but they were also actually quite threatening.
13:57People must have wondered what life was all about
13:59and how they should now best live together.
14:02It was a time of intense questioning.
14:09Can we control our desires?
14:12And the Buddha would play a vital role in that debate.
14:15What is justice?
14:18By now, deep into his own personal quest,
14:21he engaged with the most intractable question of all.
14:25What happens to us when we die?
14:41Inspired by the cycles of renewal in the natural environment,
14:44people had come to believe we were part of an endless cycle
14:47of birth, death and rebirth known as samsara.
14:53Samsara is a powerful idea that was really current at the time of the Buddha.
14:59The idea of a birth followed by a rebirth followed by a rebirth
15:04in the cycle of time.
15:06But humanity has always been aware of the cycle of life.
15:09So what made samsara different?
15:11The cycle of rebirth really means that you go from one life to another
15:15and you can be manifested in a different form in each life.
15:18You could be manifested as a god, you could be manifested as a human being,
15:21maybe a higher or lower caste.
15:23You could even manifest as an animal or an insect, as a cockroach.
15:26So that is really the cycle of rebirth from life to life
15:29through a continuous passage of time.
15:31So do you think people felt trapped by this?
15:34You can imagine somebody thinking that at each birth,
15:37he has to go through the travails of life, of sickness, old age, death,
15:42and then rebirth and the whole cycle goes on.
15:46And so it's tedious.
15:47I mean, it's suffering because the existential reality
15:51was not one that they felt was bliss.
15:54So did people try to work out a way to release themselves from this trap?
15:58Yes.
15:59The great quest at that time was to find ways out of that cycle of rebirth
16:02and re-death.
16:03For the Buddha, the rituals of the Brahmins weren't the answer
16:13to the perennial suffering of life.
16:15They didn't seem to offer a permanent solution to samsara.
16:19But he was convinced that a mechanism to completely break free
16:25from the cycle altogether could be found.
16:30And he wasn't alone.
16:33A wave of truth seekers had left their families and homes
16:36to wander the earth in search of the solution.
16:39Renouncing everything, some chose to live in forests,
16:43which is where, we're told, the Buddha went looking for them.
16:48For the Buddha, self-discovery came from examining your own individual experiences
16:55and then drawing logical conclusions from them.
16:58So, in order to try to evaluate the ideas of these new thinkers,
17:03he decided to try out their methods first-hand.
17:12One of these wandering truth seekers was a man called Alara Kalama.
17:16Now, the solution to the problem of samsara, as he saw it,
17:20lay in directly experiencing the permanence, the eternal part of ourselves,
17:26the part that survived every rebirth.
17:29He was a man called Alara Kalama.
17:31He was a man called Alara Kalama.
17:32He was a man called Alara Kalama.
17:33He was a man called Alara Kalama.
17:34He was a man called Alara Kalama.
17:35To do this, he meditated to block out the distractions of the temporary external world.
17:44Freed from physical and mental interference, such seekers could focus on their goal,
17:50to fully merge their eternal soul with its cosmic counterpart,
17:55a kind of universal soul, the highest reality.
18:02The idea seems to have been that by creating union between the microcosm,
18:06the individual self, and the macrocosm, this world soul,
18:11they would achieve liberation.
18:16Under Alara's tuition, we're told the Buddha showed such remarkable ability,
18:21he could achieve a profound stillness of mind.
18:24So much so, Alara offered him joint leadership of the group.
18:29But he refused.
18:34He found that once he came out of meditation,
18:37he was just returned once again to the same fundamental problems of birth,
18:41sickness, old age and death.
18:44It didn't give him the transformative experience that he sought.
18:48But the Buddha didn't give up.
19:05It's said he next experimented with the techniques of a different type of renouncer,
19:10who focused on extreme forms of self-denial.
19:18These type of renouncers also believed that the material part of our being
19:25is an obstacle to liberation.
19:27Theirs was a much more drastic solution.
19:30Instead of focusing on the mind,
19:32they put all their efforts into subduing their bodies.
19:36Some groups believed that all human action left a negative dust on our soul,
19:50weighing us down in this life and trapping us in future rebirths.
19:55Some fasted, some stood stuck still for months on end.
20:00Others endured the heat of the midday sun,
20:03all to burn off the results of their previous actions.
20:06Extreme measures to allow space for the permanent soul
20:10to expand to the size of the universe,
20:13eventually liberating them from samsara.
20:16It seems the Buddha spent six years experimenting with all kinds of self-denying extreme penances.
20:31He tried a technique of holding his breath for longer and longer periods.
20:36He walked around naked.
20:38He ate tiny amounts of food, just one grain of rice a day.
20:45We're told that he almost died.
20:47His bones were like the rafters of a derelict house.
20:50He could actually feel his backbone through his stomach.
20:54But despite all this, he wasn't making any progress.
20:57The pain was clouding his mind.
21:00The austerities weren't providing a solution to suffering.
21:03They were just making him suffer even more.
21:11So he abandoned the path of self-denial by eating a bowl of rice porridge,
21:16disappointing and angering his five fellow renouncers.
21:22Six years of hardship, experimenting with different methods, had come to nothing.
21:27Now he would go it alone in his quest to break the cycle of samsara.
21:38What the Buddha attempted next was something new.
21:41A middle way between the extremes of self-indulgence and the rigors of self-mortification.
21:51Moderation would be his radical new approach from now on.
21:55The Buddha's change of tack would bring greater clarity to his examination of the human condition.
22:10The Buddha believed that all we can know for sure is how we experience the world.
22:22And that it's our minds that determine what kinds of experience we have.
22:26Using his meditation skills, he interrogated the internal workings of his own mind.
22:38And what the Buddha discovered contradicted the assumptions people held about the permanence of the soul.
22:44He realized that the external world as we experienced it was constantly changing.
22:53And that we were constantly changing too.
22:56Our material form, our sensations, our mind, our consciousness, our character.
23:02All in perpetual floods.
23:05This realization exposed a fundamental flaw in the Buddha's thinking.
23:14All efforts to identify a permanent self were futile.
23:19Because a permanent or independent self did not exist.
23:29When the Buddha's looking at how the process of his suffering was developing.
23:34He started looking at it very much like a doctor.
23:36And he started looking at a cause.
23:38And he starts realizing that everything is fleeting, is changing.
23:42There's nothing that he can put his finger on as a cause.
23:44And starts realizing that actually the cause is the identification with an I.
23:50There's no such thing which you can just pinpoint at a certain point in time and say, this is it.
23:55But it changes in the next moment.
23:57So I think that realization that everything is impermanent leads to the idea that
24:02the permanently existing entity of a soul is a concept.
24:05Just explain to me, because I can't quite get my head around this.
24:09What does it mean to have no self?
24:12What does he mean by that?
24:14I'll give you an example.
24:15For example, I say, okay, Bethany, when were you born?
24:17And you say, I was born on so-and-so date and so-and-so year.
24:20And I'd say, really?
24:22Weren't you born nine months before that?
24:24You say, yes.
24:25And I say, weren't you and your mother and father before that?
24:28If I took your mother out of you, you're not Bethany anymore.
24:31Bethany is made of non-Bethany elements.
24:33Bethany is the sunshine, the earth, England.
24:37And then you suddenly start realizing that there was not a single point
24:40when Bethany came about.
24:42So in Buddhism, we don't talk about creation.
24:45We talk about manifestation.
24:47It's not denying that you exist.
24:51We exist.
24:52But it's denying that we have an intrinsically independent entity.
24:58The Buddha believed the idea of a permanent self wasn't part of the solution.
25:07It was actually at the root of the problem, because it made us selfish, self-absorbed.
25:13It created insatiable craving that enslaved us to transient earthly concerns and kept us trapped in samsara.
25:25To rid oneself of this deep-seated delusion of self was the way to liberation.
25:32That realization allows you the freedom not to get caught in the I, me, mine, which is really the fundamental cause of suffering.
25:43And then he says, oh, then there is a way to overcome suffering.
25:49That's a sort of, aha, wow.
25:51So his teaching was based around rediscovering your nature, which is non-self nature.
26:00The Buddha's self-analysis revealed the answer.
26:03If we could extinguish the delusion of self, we would see things as they truly are.
26:09And our suffering would end.
26:11We had the capacity to take control of our lives.
26:16The Buddha seems to have recognized that there's a plasticity to our minds and characters.
26:23Living in the world with the right attitude is fundamentally empowering.
26:28Basically, know yourself and the world is yours.
26:33It's cognitive psychology 25 centuries before the phrase is invented.
26:38The Buddha was ready to throw all his efforts into bringing about his self-transformation.
26:54Arriving on the outskirts of a small village, he found a beautiful stretch of countryside with a pleasant grove nestled on the banks of a sparkling river.
27:03We're told that one night, aged 35, the Buddha came here to Bodh Gaya and calmly sat underneath the ancestor of this very tree.
27:17Today, it's a pilgrimage site for many millions for one key reason.
27:22Because this is where it all came together.
27:25The Buddha entered a deep meditative state in which he experienced a vast number of his previous lives.
27:41He describes a cycle of many life forms and realms of existence.
27:45From hell beings and animals to humans, through to more abstract levels of consciousness.
27:56Yet all these forms were subject to samsara.
28:00Even a god would eventually die and be reborn.
28:03But finally, the Buddha moved beyond these states.
28:10Searching deep in his humanity, he was able to root out and permanently extinguish craving, ignorance and delusion.
28:20He had finally broken free of the cycle of death and rebirth and attained enlightenment. Nirvana.
28:27Unshakeable is the liberation of my mind. This is the last birth. For me, there is no more renewed existence.
28:38Later, the Buddha would discourage speculation about the nature of Nirvana.
28:46Describing it was like asking what happened to a flame once it had been blown out.
28:50And yet, this was no less than a solution to the human condition without the need for heavens or gods or metaphysical knowledge.
29:02This was a state of pure liberation, directly experienced from within.
29:08The Buddha had harnessed the capabilities of the mind to identify what he believed it fundamentally was to be human.
29:30Extinguishing desire and hatred and delusion had allowed him to fulfill his full potential.
29:37Now, he could live with absolute wisdom and compassion.
29:46The Buddha found he had a new mission. To share what he'd experienced.
29:53He wasn't sure if he could have ever communicated, but his profound empathy for others drove him on.
29:59His starting point was the five former renouncer friends he'd left for his middle way. The sources tell us he found them where I'm heading next. The outskirts of modern day Varanasi. The site of an ancient deer park.
30:14At first, his former companions were reluctant to welcome him. And then we're told they realized that a great transformation had taken place. They greeted him with respect and washed his feet.
30:29And it's now that we get a sense of compelling charisma of the man. Because what the Buddha had to tell them was mind blowing in its insight and clarity.
30:41The Buddha shared his discoveries known as the Four Noble Truths.
30:53The first truth was the inevitability that all life is suffering. But by suffering, the Buddha didn't just mean illness and old age, but the persistent disappointments and insecurities of life.
31:05The second truth was that suffering is caused by craving. The third was that since suffering has an identifiable cause, it could have an end.
31:21But it was the fourth truth that offered the critical, practical answer. This truth was a path, what he called the Eightfold Path, and it offered up an end to all suffering.
31:35With the Buddha's guidance, his small group of disciples made quick progress.
31:38With the Buddha's guidance, his small group of disciples made quick progress.
31:43They gained wisdom, practiced ethical conduct, and achieved mental discipline through meditation.
31:51Finally, they experienced Nirvana for themselves.
31:56But whilst liberation was in theory open to everyone, in practice many couldn't afford the time and the effort.
32:10The Buddha, however, had a message of hope for those who remained trapped in the cycle of death and rebirth.
32:17By completely reformulating the long established concept of karma.
32:25Traditionally, karma referred to significant action, which it was believed could improve the quality of our rebirth in the next life.
32:33In the early days of Brahmanism, karma was synonymous with ritual action performed by priests on behalf of the higher castes.
32:44The lowest castes had little prospect of improving their lot through this ritual form of karma.
32:50Buddha changed karma from ritual action to the thought of that action.
32:58So the intent of that action was more important than the action itself.
33:02If you thought well, if you had good intentions, then you could change your destiny.
33:08Not necessarily in this life, but in future lives as well.
33:11That's a key shift, isn't it?
33:14That is a very major shift in the understanding of the notion of karma.
33:18From ritual action to an individual's choice of doing good.
33:22They have to be good human beings and that's the fundamental thing about Buddhism.
33:26So that's not just a kind of philosophical shift, that's a change in society.
33:30Absolutely.
33:32He took it out of the hands of the priests who were empowered to change the destiny of men and gave it in the hands of people who are practicing Buddhism.
33:39So it doesn't matter what class you're from actually or what gender?
33:42No.
33:43You could be anyone, you could belong to any caste, it didn't really matter.
33:46Everybody had the choice and the freedom to improve, to become a good person.
33:56The Buddha's take on karma was liberating.
33:59Everyone stuck in the cycle of samsara had the chance to improve the quality of their rebirth.
34:09Now you are no longer good or bad, dependent on class or gender or some kind of ritual expertise.
34:16The Buddha sought answers that had the potential to benefit everyone.
34:21Just think what a radical development that is.
34:24The Buddha's democratisation of karma attracted the attention and support of one class in particular.
34:39The merchants and traders who'd fuelled the rise of Indian cities.
34:43According to the conventions of Brahmanism, contact with anyone outside your caste resulted in contamination.
34:53But of course, by definition, merchants were interacting with different people and different cultures the whole time.
35:01Now Buddhism didn't have any kind of a problem with that.
35:04Some merchants felt disadvantaged by the caste system.
35:12The Buddha's inclusive message gave them a greater sense of place in society.
35:17And channelled their aspirational instincts.
35:21The wealth of merchants, like good karma, was by its very nature meritocratic.
35:26It wasn't in some way preordained. It was won and accumulated through your own efforts.
35:36The Buddha's take on the ancient ideas of karma offered ordinary people a way to a better moral life.
35:44He helped to create the belief that action and intention in our everyday lives had real consequences.
35:50Coins like these were a brand new common denominator, just as karma was now a kind of moral currency for Buddhism.
36:01It's easy to imagine how with things like these in your pocket, you could understand how you could secure future benefits by building up merits.
36:11The Buddha had revolutionised ethics. We could no longer blame any external force, like a god, for our decisions.
36:22We were entirely responsible for our own moral condition.
36:26The buck stopped with us.
36:29In essence, this is the same rallying cry that we hear from those other great philosophers of the age, Socrates and Confucius.
36:35To find answers to the universe, first look within.
36:41Be your own lamp, said the Buddha. Seek no other refuge.
36:46These are exciting thoughts.
36:49The idea that you don't just have to be a victim, but a master of your own fate.
36:53The Buddha forged ahead with his potent message of personal liberation.
37:09It's said he crisscrossed the central Indian plains, giving public talks in cities and the country to anybody he thought ready to hear his message.
37:17And the community of disciples, who shared his mission and wandering lifestyle, acquired a name.
37:26The Sangha.
37:28At this stage, the Sangha was dispersed and only loosely organised.
37:34But according to traditional accounts, when the Buddha came here to a forest on the outskirts of Rajagraha,
37:40the Buddhist order would take on a whole new direction.
37:48The king of the city, Bimbisara, heard that the Buddha was camped outside and went to visit him with 120,000 Brahmins.
37:56On hearing him preach, we are told that each and every one of them, including the king, begged to be received as lay followers.
38:05We know that with people, when we meet some people, we immediately feel a sense of reverence, you know, a sense of humility in their presence.
38:20And yet, they don't seem inaccessible.
38:23He was, I feel very charismatic. People were, in a way, entranced by him.
38:28I think he was able to understand the psychology of the person. He had a sort of intuitive sense of what the person needed.
38:37He was not saying, I'm the one who knows. He said, you try it.
38:44And this spirit of free inquiry that the Buddha was really encouraging was quite revolutionary.
38:49Following their meeting, Bimbisara was said to have donated a bamboo grove on this very spot as a retreat for the Buddha's growing community.
39:01Winning over wealthy patrons would be crucial for the future of the Buddha's message.
39:06The establishment of permanent bases in places like this saw the Sangha develop from a group of like-minded itinerants into a settled institution.
39:23The Sangha at Rajagraha became the model for something entirely new.
39:27Soon, a network of monasteries, the first known monasteries in the world, sprang up.
39:36Places where the Buddha and his travelling disciples would stay during the monsoon season.
39:43The movement was changing and the Buddha's role would change too.
39:48He taught that each monk was an island and responsible for themselves.
39:52But now, he's believed to have created a comprehensive set of guidelines.
39:58In early Buddhism, there was only few monks.
40:02So there was no need of rules because those who become monks were very highly intelligent and highly, you know, spiritual.
40:13They have the clear intention, comprehension, why I am become a monk.
40:19So they never done anything wrong.
40:22But gradually, you know, when the numbers growing up, to maintain excellence, peace and harmony, he prescribed the different rules and the discipline.
40:35And amazing to think that two and a half millennia later, you're still living by those rules.
40:40I think we need more rules.
40:42Because in the modern time, because we have to face so many things.
40:47That time only India.
40:49Now there is a whole world.
40:51There are 227 rules for monks, enacted every day.
40:56And it is amazing to think that in these words, we could be getting a glimpse into the mind of the Buddha and his early followers.
41:03The Buddha thought to have adapted his rules in an ad hoc way.
41:12He was a pragmatist, not above changing his mind and listening to reason.
41:17Even when it came to the thorny issue of including women.
41:22At the very beginning, they were regarded as a bit of a burden because they needed protecting.
41:29But the logic that liberation should be available to all meant that really they had to be included.
41:36And we're told that the Buddha himself eventually declared that nuns should be part of the Sangha.
41:42The rules of the Sangha are eminently practical.
41:48Self-discipline and resourcefulness are enshrined into daily life.
41:53They dictate what you can own and what you must give up.
41:56Monks are allowed to have eight possessions.
42:03There are three robes basically.
42:06It is to look ugly, you know.
42:08Not to be beautiful.
42:10We have to have a small needle and the threads.
42:13But you know, nowadays we don't stitch because we have ready-made robes.
42:18OK.
42:19This is the razor.
42:21It is very troublesome to keep hair.
42:23Yes.
42:24I believe it, everything.
42:25This is the ball.
42:27Begging ball.
42:28Begging ball of a monk.
42:29So this, you collect food and drinks, alms from other people.
42:33Everything.
42:34And why do you get your food from outside?
42:36Why don't you produce it yourself?
42:39Because monk has to depend on the people, the society.
42:43So we have gratefulness and gratitude.
42:47So what we return to them, our compassion and wisdom.
42:52Monks can be a guide to the people, to the society, to sow the path to wisdom, to sow the path to peace and to sow the path to happiness.
43:06Apart from that, monks has no other connection, relations to the lay people whatsoever.
43:14Whatsoever.
43:15But you've had to leave your family in order to become a monk.
43:19Yes.
43:20In fact, family life is always full of that kind of miseries, that kind of obstacles and troubles, so many.
43:29So, living in a family life, one cannot practice a simple holy life in order to achieve the spiritual heights.
43:41When monks leave home, it can be hard for those left behind.
43:49The Buddha is said to have acknowledged the grief he caused his family, and proclaimed that monks needed parental permission to join.
43:57Buddhism is a philosophy or religion that's sometimes criticised for only benefiting the practitioner, that rather coldly sees social and family bonds as attachments to the world, and therefore a barrier to achieving nirvana.
44:13But what I get a sense of here is a real commitment to collective well-being.
44:28The Buddha hadn't shut himself away after his enlightenment.
44:32His insights had heightened his concern for others, and he'd spend over half his life helping those around him to alleviate their suffering.
44:44The Buddha's insistence on the absolute value of compassion is something that really impresses me.
44:50Just listen to these words of his, some of the very earliest ever written down.
44:55Let no one deceive another, nor despise anyone anywhere.
45:01As a mother protects her child, with boundless loving-kindness, cherish the world.
45:09Love without limit.
45:12How can you argue with that?
45:23By tirelessly expressing and explaining his ideas, the Buddha had nurtured a committed following, dedicated to his principles of intellectual rigour and deep humanity.
45:35But the Sangha couldn't rely on the leadership of its founder forever.
45:42We're told that when the Buddha reached his eighties, thoughts turned to the continuation of his message.
45:49His faithful attendant, Ananda, asked what would happen to the Sangha after he died.
46:00He said, the Sangha doesn't need a leader. It just needs my Dharma, my teaching.
46:05After accepting a meal at the house of a humble blacksmith, it's believed he contracted food poisoning and quickly became very ill.
46:18Yet, having achieved Nirvana, the Buddha had no fear of death.
46:25His suffering had ended with the moment of his enlightenment.
46:29He would not be reborn.
46:31And what followed death was, like Nirvana, beyond comprehension.
46:44Just before he died, he told his fellow monks to simply keep seeking enlightenment.
46:51It is the nature of things to decay.
46:54Be attentive and you will succeed.
46:56The Buddha's death robbed the Sangha of their founder and leader.
47:14With this vacuum, there was a real danger. His ideas would be lost or corrupted.
47:20The Buddha had encouraged the Sangha to reach consensus on day-to-day concerns by holding regular meetings.
47:30And now the monks did as they've been taught.
47:37They're said to have convened a council of 500 prominent monks here to this cave.
47:43To determine the content of Buddhist doctrine.
47:45Ananda recited the sermons and the teachings of the Buddha.
47:51Another monk, the Pali, recited the monastic rules.
47:55They now had a definitive account of the Buddha's ideas.
48:03For the next few centuries, the Buddha's message was kept alive by the Sangha.
48:08But ironically, Buddhism's expansion to the wider world would come courtesy of a despot.
48:18200 years after the Buddha's death, most of what is modern India was ruled by the ruthless emperor Ashoka.
48:39This well in Ashoka's ancient capital, Patna, is believed to have been his purpose-built torture chamber.
48:51We're told that here, Ashoka's sadistic head torturer would prise open the mouths of his victims and pour molten copper down their throats.
49:00But then, around 262 BC, following a particularly pitiless and bloody victory, Ashoka suddenly had a sickening realisation of all the suffering that he'd caused.
49:17And his change of heart could not have been more dramatic.
49:22Invoking the non-violent teachings of the Buddha and declaring his heartfelt remorse for all his murderous actions, he vowed that from here on in, he would govern righteously.
49:34The reformed emperor set his new beliefs in stone.
49:41He sought out sites associated with the Buddha's life and erected pillars up to 15 metres high.
49:51In doing so, he marked them out for the benefit of future pilgrims.
49:54He had inscriptions like this, carved into stone, right across his empire.
50:02But these edicts didn't lionise his victories in battle.
50:06Instead, they declared his revulsion of violence and urged his subjects to live moral and compassionate lives.
50:18Ashoka gave up conquest and abolished the death penalty.
50:21He liberated slaves, set up free hospitals, animal sacrifice was banned in the capital, and a wide range of animals, including parrots, tortoises, porcupines, became protected species.
50:37He sent missions out of India, taking Buddhist principles to Sri Lanka, the Middle East and across Asia.
50:44Buddhism would continue to dominate the Indian subcontinent for the next one and a half millennia.
50:53Wealthy patrons donated generously.
50:57Stupas containing what was said to be relics of the Buddha and sculptures depicting his life emerged across the landscape.
51:04But, to my mind, the greatest legacy of this time is here, at Narlanda.
51:13It is just such a treat to be here, because this place has a claim to be the oldest university in the world.
51:28We know there was a serious educational establishment here from at least the 5th century AD, and you have to try to imagine it in its heyday.
51:37It would have been buzzing with international scholars who came from as far afield as Indonesia, Tibet, China, Turkey and Japan.
51:46It had a huge campus with thousands of students.
51:53200 villages supplied the students practical needs.
51:56Maths, politics, literature were all studied here, but there was particular emphasis on Buddhism.
52:04Thousands of Buddhist manuscripts were housed in a nine-storied building.
52:09It was the envy of the medieval world.
52:11One Chinese scholar clearly adored it here.
52:16There are richly adorned towers and fairytale turrets.
52:20Rooves covered with tiles that reflect the light in a thousand shades.
52:25There are observatories and the upper rooms tower above the clouds.
52:30These things add to the beauty of the scene.
52:33Renewed interest in Nalanda's legacy of inquiry has been led by Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen.
52:46Do you think that the Buddha would have approved of what went on at Nalanda?
52:50I would think that he very much would have approved.
52:55It was inspired by his ideas.
52:57It was inspired by the idea that we have to solve problems by reflection, by knowledge, by critical examination.
53:07You know, he tried fasting and it didn't do anything for him.
53:10And he decided that by torturing the body, you don't improve your mind.
53:16You improve the mind by cultivating the mind.
53:18Some people might think it's counter-intuitive that Buddhism is being taught at Nalanda alongside maths and science and grammar.
53:27But it's part of that kind of practical understanding of the world, isn't it?
53:31Well, it's part of a Buddhist understanding of the world, too.
53:35Namely, that you have to be concerned with those issues that move people, which include mortality, disability, morbidity.
53:44It wouldn't be seen in any kind of conflict with Buddhist studies, because Buddhism is also about human life.
53:53What would you say the Buddha has to offer the world today?
53:57One of the things that Buddha identifies is that it's possible for you to agree on good action without necessarily agreeing on a bigger metaphysical view of the universe.
54:12When I was fortunate to get the Nobel, I gave the bulk of that money to have elementary education, elementary healthcare and gender equity.
54:22At the same time, I don't have any great belief in religion and God.
54:26But it was the Buddha who changed the question from, is there God, to questions like how to behave no matter whether there is God or not.
54:39And I think that's a game changer.
54:42Buddhism had been in the ascendancy, but from the seventh century, changes in patterns of patronage began to affect big institutions like Nalanda.
55:00Gifts from rich benefactors ebbed away.
55:05Brahmanism had always remained a strong presence and people drifted back in greater numbers.
55:11It began to dominate state governance at Buddhism's expense.
55:15Muslim conquerors in the 12th and 13th centuries sacked monasteries and temples.
55:24Nalanda is said to have been put to the torch and to have burnt for three days.
55:31The Buddhist way of life all but disappeared in the land of its birth.
55:49But Buddhism was already on the move.
55:51It had already travelled at a furious pace throughout Asia and would continue its journey to become a truly global religion.
56:04With no single sacred language, no inflexible dogma, Buddhism was ripe for export.
56:11It's an adaptable philosophy that's become a diverse belief system.
56:16As it spread, it cross-pollinated with other cultures in numerous unexpected ways.
56:23For some, there is life after death, and the Buddha is a figure of devotion.
56:34Since the 20th century, it's even been implicated in violent nationalist struggles.
56:40But at its heart, the Buddha's message remains the same.
56:45That whilst change is inevitable, we all have the power to direct that change.
56:53By gaining wisdom, we can reduce suffering.
57:00The Buddha's life is a fascinating one from an age that made history.
57:04But we can relate to him on a very personal level.
57:09His need to find answers to the human condition in the here and now is one that I'd argue, deep down, we all share.
57:22He offers practical solutions to help overcome the desires and delusions which fuel hatred, jealousy and greed.
57:31And arguably, his greatest gift is deceptively simple.
57:37That it's compassion, empathy and knowing who we truly are that makes both us and the world better.
57:46Whether you're a Buddhist or not, the humanity and hope of that message still burns bright today.
57:52If the mind of the Buddha has made you think, explore further with the Open University to find out how great minds have influenced our world.
58:10Go to the address on the bottom of the screen and follow the links to the Open University.
58:14Next time, I investigate a philosopher who influenced the whole of Western thought, Socrates.
58:25His rigorous methods and uncompromising questioning made him the moral conscience of the city he loved, Athens.
58:32Yet his dogged pursuit of truth would end with a death sentence.
58:43Coming up next this evening here on BBC4, we're on the trail of the secretive sloth bear with David Attenborough and Natural World.
58:51Stay with us.
58:52Good alert.
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