Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00I'm being led somewhere I've never been before so I'm completely in the hands of my guide
00:11but I'm incredibly lucky because I think what I'm about to see is miraculous and certainly
00:18wonderful because the village up ahead of me have been preparing a celebration for over
00:24a month and if things go well then I'm promised that I'll have the chance to experience the
00:31presence of a god.
00:40I'm exploring India's cultural treasures guided by its leading experts.
00:45There is so much to discover here as far as your eyes can see.
00:51Revealing world-class historical riches and game-changing human stories.
00:57A mountain railway that connects ancient and modern, unique enduring wonders of medieval
01:05art and architecture and a 500-year-old abandoned city.
01:15This is the most extraordinary place.
01:18It would have been fantastic inside there would have been buzzing and drumming with
01:24life.
01:27These are some of the greatest treasures of India.
01:43With its extraordinary cultural and geographical diversity, here landscapes have made history.
01:53I've been travelling to India for decades on the trail of the inspirational ideas and
02:02the pioneering philosophies that emerged from the subcontinent and now I'm here to try to
02:08explore how this incredible landscape around me has impacted on the culture of India through
02:15time and also how that culture has impacted the wider world.
02:23Our first treasure is the lost city of Hampi in the heart of southern India.
02:32I've been told that at the top of this hill 1,700 feet above sea level is an awesome experience.
02:47It's just so majestic.
03:00So what you're looking at down there is one of the world's greatest abandoned cities.
03:07There are over 1,600 monuments spread out over 16 square miles, that's 40 square kilometres
03:15and loads of it is still waiting to be explored.
03:22Hampi, named after Pampa, a local river goddess, was rebranded Vijayanagara, City of Victory,
03:30from 1336, the capital of a powerful new empire.
03:37Visitors have actually been coming here for centuries.
03:41There was a Portuguese horse trader called Domingo Pius who climbed up this hill but he said that
03:48even up here he couldn't see it all because bits were hidden behind these ranges of hills.
03:53But despite that, he said it seemed to him to be as big as Rome and a very beautiful sight.
04:04In the 1900s, this was the second largest city in the world.
04:10But within a century, it would be a deserted ruin, reclaimed by nature.
04:19I want to get to the bottom of its intriguing history.
04:28This is Arjun Bhat, who's made this place his life's work.
04:32So I'm hoping he's going to decode it a bit for me.
04:43Nice to see you.
04:45It is my pleasure.
04:47Oh, Bethany, how lovely to meet you.
04:49My name is Arjun.
04:51This is the most extraordinary place. It's so huge.
04:55Yeah, there is stones everywhere, granite structures as far as your eyes can see.
05:00Yeah.
05:01There is so much to discover here.
05:03Every day I get excited, like I'm listening to some new information for the very first time.
05:13This was once a culture at the cutting edge of urbanisation and new technology
05:19with a diverse population of over 500,000 people,
05:24making the most of their natural environment.
05:27So it's a very romantic place here.
05:30I imagine there must be a very practical reason why they built the city here.
05:35Yeah, for sure.
05:36If you look around, these boulder hills provided a natural line of defence.
05:41And the river itself, also difficult to cross.
05:45But the river provided for resources to build a grand city
05:49and sustain a large population.
05:53Its sophisticated water supply, from dams and aqueducts
05:57to step wells and running water, made Vijayanagara an envy of the world.
06:04It's Abdul Razak, isn't it, that Persian scholar
06:06who writes so beautifully about this place in the 1400s.
06:09You can tell he's just completely blown away by what he finds.
06:13He must have walked into a paradise.
06:15We are in a semi-arid, dry desert.
06:19And it's been transformed through irrigation.
06:22And that's why, you know, our city has flourished here in this spot.
06:29Arjun leads me to a hidden corner,
06:31overlooked by hills that are home to sloth bears and leopards,
06:35to give me a sense of the scale of this place.
06:39So this is a marketplace that is almost a kilometre long.
06:43And each of these would have been a shop.
06:46So imagine the population that they are catering to.
06:49And there are seven of these within the city of Vijayanagara.
06:52This is just one.
06:54Do you hear a lot of the things that were traded here?
06:57Yeah. Brocades from China.
06:59Yeah. Spices from the Malabar coast.
07:01Yeah. Horses from the port of Hormuz.
07:04Yeah. There's one account that says that
07:06it's really difficult to get through the streets
07:08because there are so many people and so many elephants.
07:11So you just kind of think there are herds of elephants here
07:14and this absolute throng of a kind of international crowd.
07:20So who exactly were the people of Vijayanagara?
07:25700 years ago, the Hindu rulers of Hampi
07:28extended their kingdom over most of southern India,
07:32combining military might with the patronage of scholars,
07:36poets and artists.
07:38And they did nothing by halves.
07:47That's unbelievably impressive.
07:52This Ganesha is carved out just out of one granite boulder?
07:56Yeah. This is the largest monolith of Ganesha.
08:02When you come to India, you're struck by the fact
08:04that the gods and goddesses and spirits and demigods,
08:06a lot of them are half human, half animal.
08:09Does that tell you something about the psyche of belief here?
08:12Yeah. There is divinity in every possible form.
08:15We are all part of one consciousness or one nature, yeah.
08:18Why has Ganesha been put right at the entrance to the city here?
08:22So he's considered as the remover of obstacles.
08:25So you'll often see Ganesha at entrances of homes.
08:28In this case, right at the entrance of Hampi,
08:31first deity you see is Ganesha.
08:34So there's definitely a message there, isn't there?
08:36It's kind of saying this is a city where anything is possible.
08:39Yeah, everyone's welcome and all things are made possible here.
08:48Inside the 15th-century Vijaya Vittala temple complex,
08:52on the northern fringes of the city,
08:55the chariot-shaped shrine of the demigod Garuda,
08:58finely carved from pure granite,
09:01is a symbol of Hampi's sophistication.
09:04And nearby sculptures offer a vital clue to the kingdom's success.
09:13This is a kind of divine wedding hall
09:16and it's protected by all these warlords dressed in different dress.
09:20And the fantastic thing is it shows you just how multicultural,
09:23how multi-international the influences were here.
09:27So these are locals, and we know they're locals
09:30because they've got a man bun and they've got fantastic Tamil jewellery
09:34and bracelets round their arms.
09:36And then here, he's dressed as a Muslim Turkic warlord
09:42with that fantastic turban and a curved kind of scimitar sword.
09:47Vijayanagara's true eclectic identity is becoming clear.
09:52And then Arjun tips me off about another place to explore,
09:57tucked away in a banana grove.
10:00A tomb to one of Hampi's great generals
10:04with Islamic features, like pointed arches,
10:08flanked by something even more revealing.
10:12Now, this looks like a really typical Hindu temple,
10:16but have a look at this.
10:19So this is a prayer niche and it's facing Mecca.
10:24So because we're here in India, it's facing west.
10:27And that tells you that the building I'm standing in is a mosque.
10:32So what we're getting is this really detailed,
10:36intricate, intricate structure.
10:39What we're getting is this really detailed, intriguing picture
10:43of a kingdom that's attracting and harnessing talent
10:47and influence and ideas from right across the subcontinent.
10:57But these cosmopolitan glory days were destined to end.
11:02In 1565, after centuries of turmoil,
11:06Jayanagara finally succumbed to a coalition of neighbouring powers
11:11invading from the north.
11:14We're told that the atrocities were many and ferocious
11:18and huge areas of the city were burnt to the ground.
11:22Eventually, when the kingdom fell,
11:25the looting here carried on for six months.
11:30The empire never recovered.
11:33Southern India was torn apart by warring dynasties.
11:38Unity wouldn't be restored for another 400 years.
11:46This was a culture who knew how to work with the resources of nature
11:51and also how important it was to invite a new people
11:55across their borders and boundaries.
11:58It's a reminder of the power and value of harmony.
12:02Harmony is a really interesting word
12:04because if you look at it in a number of languages,
12:07in Latin and in the kind of base tongue of many Indian languages,
12:12it's not a soft word, it's something really active
12:15about fitting and fixing and mixing together,
12:18and it tells us that we're actually at our strongest,
12:22at our most harmonious when we're allowed not to be just the same
12:27but all to be different.
12:39I've travelled to Tanjore in Tamil Nadu,
12:43360 miles south-east of Hampi.
12:46From the 9th to the 13th century,
12:50this was the centre of one of the subcontinent's greatest ever empires,
12:55ruled by the Chola dynasty.
12:58Our next treasure is the exceptional art and architecture they left behind.
13:08I've made my way somewhere that was built to be an incarnation
13:12of the centre of the world, the kind of axis of all the earth,
13:16so you can expect it to be pretty imposing.
13:27This entire temple is made of granite,
13:31so it's just extraordinary the detail that they've managed to cope
13:35with out of this stone.
13:37And what you've got to think is that this is 1,000 years old.
13:42This temple, the Brihadishvara, or Great Shiva,
13:46broke all records when it was completed in 1010 CE.
13:52Its vimana, this central tower, was the tallest structure in India
13:58and one of the tallest in the world.
14:00We're told that a four-mile-long ramp was built
14:04to raise this 80-tonne capstone.
14:07Worships continued in this spectacular treasure
14:10for over a millennium.
14:14And I find myself here on an auspicious day,
14:18celebrating the fertility of the land.
14:24So I'm made to feel especially welcome.
14:27Hello. Hello. Happy to see you.
14:30My name's Bethany. What's your name?
14:32Aditi. Aditi.
14:34My name's Bethany. What's your name?
14:36Aditi. Aditi.
14:38So what do you do today?
14:45So what these lovely ladies have told me,
14:47they've come on this special festival day
14:49and these lovely red necklaces are a sign that they've come here to the temple
14:53and they're going to go away with better luck.
14:55Everybody's got them. They're beautiful.
14:57It's so lovely to meet you.
14:59Thank you. Thank you so much. Bye.
15:05About 10,000 pilgrims make their way here every day,
15:1030,000 during festivals.
15:14The builder of the ambitious complex
15:16left clues on the walls in ancient Sanskrit and Middle Tamil,
15:21thousands of lines dating from the temple's foundation.
15:28Dr Bhavani, a lifelong champion of Tanjore
15:31and one of India's leading inscription experts,
15:34has offered to help me interpret the evidence.
15:37What does it say?
15:41And live, she decodes the Sanskrit messages.
15:49Aha! Like a lion. So he's like the king of the jungle here.
15:53Amazing.
16:02So he wear the diadem of the enemy's king as a garland.
16:07This is not a shy man.
16:09So he's saying he's so powerful, he's so successful
16:12that he's conquered huge areas in other people's territories
16:15and he's going to wear their crowns like a garland round his neck.
16:19You get the sense he's quite proud of what he did, isn't he?
16:22He is now, definitely.
16:25The whole complex,
16:27built to emulate Lord Shiva's mountain home in the Himalayas,
16:31is tribute to its founder, Rajaraja Chola I,
16:35whose name means King of Kings.
16:39The greatest ruler of the Chola dynasty,
16:42Rajaraja was the first to unite peninsular southern India
16:46and to conquer an overseas empire,
16:49extending Chola power and influence
16:51into what's now Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.
16:56The natural resources of his vast domain
16:59were employed in the temple's construction
17:02and recorded on its walls.
17:07So all of this describes the kind of entertainers and performers
17:11who were here, so there were sacred parasol holders
17:15and musicians and drummers,
17:18and it's incredible that 400 dancing girls
17:21were brought in from another temple.
17:23And then there's a detail I just adore,
17:25so there were 40 female conch shell musicians,
17:30and there are still women blowing conch shells here in the temple today,
17:34so it's just this kind of direct line of continuity
17:37and it just makes you begin to appreciate how it just would have been...
17:41It would have been fantastic inside there,
17:44and drumming and humming with life.
17:52The temple's huge logistical supply chain is also set out,
17:56including the 54,000 bananas a year
18:00offered to the elephant-headed god Ganesha.
18:04This was a seriously wealthy empire.
18:07This writing here describes pearls
18:10that were laced on strings of pure gold.
18:13Punj was the word for gold.
18:15And we also know that the kings taxed their empire,
18:19so there was enormous tax on the trade of copper and tin and gold
18:23from places as far afield as the Caliphate in Baghdad and even China.
18:33Two of these metals, copper and tin,
18:36were responsible for firing a pinnacle of Chola culture,
18:40iconic sculptures known as Chola bronzes.
18:47Swamimalai, an hour's drive from Tanjore,
18:50has been producing Chola-style bronzes for centuries
18:54thanks to alluvial soil from the Kaveri riverbed,
18:58an essential ingredient in the bronze-casting process.
19:03The original icons, which once adorned the Chola temples,
19:07can now sell for millions of dollars.
19:11The trail to their living equivalents
19:13has led me to the Sababati family workshop,
19:16where each wonder is created as a living, divine one-off.
19:24CHILDREN SING
19:28Do you know how long your family has been making these bronzes?
19:32How many generations back?
19:34We are the 10th generation working here in Swamimalai.
19:39This is our experience in this field
19:43and our memory of our forefathers,
19:47the heritage from Chola period.
19:51So you're a vessel of history.
19:53That's an incredible, beautiful thing.
19:57The three brothers who work here
20:01use the ancient lost-wax technique.
20:05They sculpt the model out of wax
20:07and then encase it in that alluvial river clay
20:11before heating it.
20:14The wax then melts away,
20:17replaced by molten bronze.
20:22That is why we use the phrase
20:24breaking the mould,
20:26because by the time he's broken this,
20:28there'll be a unique statue that will appear
20:31and there'll be no other one in the future that is exactly the same.
20:35So I'm witnessing the breaking of the mould.
20:42Once a statue is completed as a work of art,
20:45there's one final step.
20:48The prana pratisha,
20:50a ritual in which the deity is invited
20:53to take up residence within the sculpture.
20:58It's a transcendental moment
21:01when the statue's eyes are symbolically opened...
21:08..its five senses awakened...
21:13..and the object becomes a living icon.
21:21This is just so incredible to see
21:23because I know about the statues from the ancient world
21:26that are treated like this
21:28and they have garlands of flowers put on them,
21:30so it's incredible to witness this.
21:33Thank you so much for letting me see this.
21:44Chola culture is a fascinating,
21:47captivating treasure of South India
21:50because it shows how prosperity,
21:53how worldly wealth and the gifts of nature
21:56can be used to create art
21:59that acts as a gateway to experience the divine.
22:03And also now, in the 21st century,
22:06it gives us a window onto a rich,
22:09sensuous, confident, celebratory medieval world.
22:18It's early morning, and I've come to Metapallyam,
22:22a small station in Tamil Nadu,
22:25150 miles from Tanjore.
22:31I'm on my way to our next treasure,
22:34the landscapes and culture of the Nilgiri Mountains.
22:39Travelling by train is basically my happy place,
22:43so if you combine train travel with heritage,
22:47then I am in heaven.
22:49But it's an interesting issue here, of course,
22:52because a lot of the trains were built by colonial powers,
22:56so I'm just about to meet somebody
22:59who's taking me on a journey of my own.
23:02I'm going to meet someone who's taking me on a journey of my own.
23:06So I'm just about to meet somebody
23:09who's taking me to an extraordinary heritage train,
23:12and it'll be really interesting to find out whether, you know,
23:15whether he thinks it's more than just a bit of colonial nostalgia
23:19and architecture.
23:22Hi, Hugh Muggins, how lovely to meet you.
23:25Nice to put a face to the name.
23:27It is, it is, and this must be it.
23:29This is our train. Amazing.
23:32From Metapalayan, the steam train winds up through the Nilgiri,
23:37part of the Western Ghats Range,
23:39separating Tamil Nadu from Kerala up to the town of Ooty.
23:46It's Asia's steepest rail line
23:49and, I'm promised, one of its most enchanting sights.
23:55What's your connection to the train?
23:58Well, I went to boarding school in Ooty, where I spent nine years,
24:02and we watched it climb up and down, you know, under this fog of smoke.
24:07So it was very much a part of our heritage and my childhood.
24:14I have got to ask you this, though, because, you know,
24:17this was a train, it was a railway that was built by the British,
24:20and the railways were built to extract resources from India
24:23and to, obviously, to kind of move that governing class around.
24:26So is it OK to enjoy it?
24:28Yes, I think that's true generally of the railways that the British built,
24:33but I still think, by and large, this is an outlier.
24:38It was built for leisure, it was built for cutting time down.
24:43I don't think there are too many days when it's not full.
24:46People like the ride up.
24:49BUZZING
24:54First dreamt up in 1854, this line didn't fully open until 1908,
25:00but by the time it was completed, it was a pioneering marvel,
25:05boasting 16 tunnels and 250 bridges.
25:13I do get the sense, though, for you,
25:15it's not just the kind of engineering magnificence of this that you love,
25:20it's something else.
25:22Why is it so special to you?
25:24I mean, it's special for a lot of reasons.
25:26It's the only metre gauge track in India, it's the steepest,
25:29it's the only rack railway, for instance.
25:32But to me, apart from all this,
25:34its uniqueness is the fact that it is so slow.
25:38You know, it's the closest thing to taking a walk in the woods
25:41while you're sitting down.
25:43It's interesting because neuroscientists say that we love travelling by train
25:47because we can travel and think at the same time,
25:50so maybe it's a train of ideas, this.
25:52Absolutely. And there's a certain intimacy to the journey.
25:55I mean, just look outside.
25:57It's just, you know, trees almost at arm's length.
26:01It's just beautiful.
26:05And we're stopping.
26:07And we're stopping.
26:10The train makes several stops on the journey
26:13at stations with names like Runnymede, Hillgrove, Lovedale,
26:19where even the local monkeys know the timetable.
26:24That's my lunch.
26:28Is it OK to go up? Fantastic.
26:31I think I might blag my way up at the front.
26:40So this is... Basically, it's incredibly important to Matt,
26:43he's the brake man, because the locomotive's at the back,
26:47so he's the eyes and ears of the train.
26:50Elephant. Elephant.
26:53Just here. Oh, there's elephant poo!
26:56There's elephant poo!
27:00Look! Can I show them?
27:03Elephants on the line.
27:10And it's not just elephants.
27:12These hills are part of India's first-ever Biosphere Reserve,
27:16home to dozens of species of protected animals,
27:19even tigers, and endemic plants, as well as some interlopers.
27:26So you're starting to see this new kind of plant on the hillside.
27:31People like the tea.
27:33And there are kind of mixed feelings about it here,
27:36because it brings a huge amount of economy to the area,
27:39but it is an alien species.
27:41You know, it was originally brought from China,
27:44so there's a kind of love-hate relationship with the tea,
27:47and, of course, with the fact that the tea plantations
27:50were imperial projects.
27:55Udega Mandalam, known affectionately here as Ooty,
27:59is the line's final destination.
28:03A hill station developed in the 19th century
28:07to escape the heat of the Indian summer.
28:17Thank you. Thank you.
28:19Happy memories, eh? Yes. Feels like coming back home.
28:25Ooty's now a popular destination for travellers
28:28and honeymooners from across India.
28:31For the climate, the scenery and heritage of the Nilgiri.
28:36A heritage which stretches right back.
28:42There's evidence from caves in these mountains
28:45that there's been habitation here since the Neolithic.
28:48And actually, early Buddhist communities came to these slopes
28:52in either the 4th or the 3rd century BCE
28:55and started the practice of adoring,
28:58worshipping some of these wonderful trees.
29:01But there's also a centuries-old community that's still here.
29:08These forests and grasslands are the ancestral home
29:12of the Toda people,
29:14who traditionally live alongside wild and domestic buffalo
29:18in their hamlets called muns.
29:23I'm privileged to have been invited to meet a group of Toda women,
29:27the torchbearers of their society's culture,
29:30at their home just outside Ooty.
29:33How are you? How are you?
29:35My name is Bettany.
29:37I'm partly welcome because, like them, I'm a lifelong vegetarian
29:41and I'm immediately envious of their fabulous hairstyles,
29:45twisted, I'm told, with buffalo buttermilk.
29:49The arrival of the train and the development of the hill station
29:53upended the Toda's world.
29:56So, interestingly, they preserved an upbeat heirloom
30:00that documents that collision.
30:02In the 19th century, one lady, she was sitting in the mountain
30:07and she saw the train was going
30:10and she composed a song about the train.
30:13Whenever we saw the train, we used to sing the song.
30:18THEY SING
30:39Beautiful. You can hear the rhythm of the train.
30:42Yeah.
30:44It sounds very positive because the train changed this place.
30:49It brought new people, it brought different ways of life.
30:52But do you still think the train is a good thing?
31:15It feels as though everything that you're putting into the poetry
31:19and into your songs is about how completely a part
31:22of the natural world, of the mountains, that you are.
31:26We are self-sufficient people.
31:28Nature also provides everything for us.
31:31That's why our culture is very close to the nature.
31:35We are blissful people in Nilgiris.
31:38Very happy.
31:41Happiest people.
31:44Aw, thank you. Shall I take my shoes off?
31:47Thank you. Thank you.
31:49It's inspiring to find that spirit living on in the next generation.
31:53Yeah, lovely. Thank you.
31:56Lovely to meet you. I'm Bettany.
31:58What's your name?
32:00OK. Amazing to hear those songs.
32:03Does your generation sing those as well?
32:05Yeah.
32:08Yeah.
32:10But do you think it's something that can carry on in the future
32:13in India, this way of life?
32:15I think so.
32:17Buffaloes and embroideries and songs and dances,
32:20we are interested about that because we want that.
32:23We have to live in these places.
32:26The new generation will save the nature and also the malculture.
32:32SINGING
32:45The Nilgiri Mountains are a wonder of India,
32:49not just because of all this extraordinary biodiversity
32:53and the engineering innovations that they've inspired,
32:57but there does seem to be a kind of positive spirit here.
33:01So everyone I've met and spoken to is determined not just to live life
33:06but to respect it and to love the living of it.
33:19Our final treasure is the ancient culture of the Malabar Coast in Kerala
33:25in the country's tropical southwest.
33:29Every year between October and May,
33:32the sacred groves, temples and ancestral homes of North Malabar
33:37play host to extraordinary events.
33:44I've been invited here to witness something incredibly special,
33:49something that's completely unique, this part of Kerala.
33:53It's not just a performance, it's a devotional dance
33:57that some anthropologists think have origins
34:00right the way back in the Neolithic, in the Stone Age.
34:05I've just got to find my friend who's told me to come here.
34:08Rashma, Rashma, Rashma! Hello!
34:11Hello, how nice to see you.
34:13How was it to appear? It was good, it was good.
34:16Hi.
34:22Rashma has brought me here to experience a theyatam,
34:26a ceremony that stretches back to prehistory,
34:29combining potent ancient traditions and matriarchal rites
34:34with contemporary Hinduism.
34:38Theya means God in the local language here.
34:42It's the same as our words like theo, like theology and atheistic,
34:47so it's the same root.
34:49Thea means a dance, so this is a God dance.
35:01Namaskaram. Namaskaram. Namaskaram.
35:04Thanks to Rashma, I get to meet one of the dancers and his guru
35:08as he prepares for his journey from the natural to the supernatural.
35:14So, thank you for letting us come here.
35:17How is he being made up? What's happening to him?
35:32So, after the make-up, when he looks into the mirror,
35:35he's seeing God, he's not seeing himself,
35:38and so he feels within his conscious that he's God.
35:42So what does it feel like when you become a God?
35:48When he becomes the deity, he gets into a trance
35:51and he doesn't feel like a human being at all,
35:54and then he walks on the fire.
35:56If it's burning him, he doesn't feel it
35:58because he's not here anymore, he's not in his body.
36:03So, if they've been happening since before recorded time,
36:06do you think they're going to carry on into the future as well?
36:18He says, as long as the world exists.
36:28These dancers aren't playing the role of gods.
36:32They'll be physically inhabited,
36:35possessed by the deities themselves.
36:48In this case, a much-loved local goddess.
37:04The drummers are unbelievable.
37:07The drummers also get into a trance.
37:09Music is supposed to heal people.
37:12Yes. You can feel it, can't you?
37:16The heart just goes...
37:30The ceremony goes on all night.
37:33A staggering feat of endurance for the spectators,
37:36let alone the musicians and dancers.
37:40CHEERING
37:55And when it's finally over,
37:58the entire community is brought together before the goddess,
38:02who sometimes speaks through the body of the dancers.
38:06SPEAKING IN TONGU
38:27Are you happy? I'm very happy. I'm very happy.
38:36I wasn't expecting a blessing. What a lovely thing.
38:40It was an overwhelming experience.
38:42Rash, thank you so much for bringing me here.
38:44It was fantastic.
38:45It's an incredible thing to experience this,
38:47because it's like the sort of boundaries between past and present
38:51have completely dissolved,
38:53and the boundaries between the human and the divine.
39:07After the thrill of the night, I'm back on the road,
39:11exploring another fragment of living history,
39:15which, like the teatam, has roots reaching back to the Stone Age.
39:20So I'm travelling into Kerala's backwaters,
39:24560 miles of lagoons, lakes, rivers and canals,
39:29which have long drawn traders from around the world.
39:34The most precious commodity traded here was spices,
39:39and we know that that trade stretches back over 5,000 years.
39:49Now, our evidence are tablets from Sumeria in the Middle East
39:53that date back to 3,000 BCE,
39:56and they describe Kerala as the Garden of Spices,
39:59and those spices would be transported on boats pretty much like this.
40:03Hi. Is it OK to come in?
40:05Thank you. Thank you.
40:11These are ketuvalams, literally tied boats,
40:15made from bamboo and planks of jackwood,
40:18tied together with coconut fibre ropes
40:21and painted in pitch, produced from boiling cashew nutshells.
40:25They're unique to Kerala.
40:30I've always wanted to come
40:32because there's this sort of fabled port called Mazuris,
40:36which crops up in the Roman sources,
40:39and the author Pliny the Elder writes about it,
40:42and he says it was the Emporium of India,
40:45and we never really knew exactly where it was,
40:48but recently they've discovered Roman coins and Roman jewellery
40:52and amphorae here, so we know that the Romans were here.
40:56It's even better because we actually hear about the Romans
40:59from Tamil sources,
41:01so they describe them arriving in large, beautiful boats
41:05packed with gold and cool, fragrant wine,
41:09which they traded for pepper.
41:15Waves of visitors and settlers have shaped
41:18and fed into Kerala's vital mix of cultures and faiths
41:22and to its amazing cuisine.
41:25So these are just some of the spices.
41:27We're familiar with these, so cardamom and clove and pepper,
41:31which was described as black gold.
41:34And the brilliant thing about spices is their name.
41:37So it comes from the Latin species,
41:40which meant something that was traded that was of particular value.
41:45So spices are literally special.
41:49The ship's cook, Rahul, uses some of Malabar's aromatic treasures
41:54to whip up a quick lunch for the team...
42:01..while Tanya Abraham comes to share her expertise
42:05on the cultural influence of spices.
42:10It's so abundant here.
42:12I mean, we're just sort of surrounded by this beautiful flock of birds
42:15just going past on the coconut palms.
42:17You can just sort of feel the fertility oozing out of the land here.
42:21Absolutely.
42:22I think the main reason we have such an eclectic cultural make-up
42:29in Kerala is because of the trade that we've had over centuries.
42:38Jewish, Christian and Arab populations all made Kerala their home.
42:44It was the spice trade that first brought Arab Muslims and Islam to India.
42:49Arab traders took Indian spices to East Africa,
42:53Western Asia and the Mediterranean,
42:55and then European colonial empires extended those roots to the Americas.
43:02The Portuguese brought chillies from South America,
43:05and chillies have become such an important ingredient in our cooking today.
43:09It's an incredible fact, though,
43:11because I think people always associate chilli with India,
43:15and particularly with southern India.
43:17They don't think of it as an import.
43:19The spice trade has had a huge, huge impact here.
43:23This is who we are.
43:24I mean, I can't imagine Kerala without spices.
43:27I can't imagine our food without spices.
43:29I can't imagine relationships without spices.
43:32It's the soul of the land.
43:35It shows how just ecology and nature and the natural world
43:39really impacts human history.
43:42We wouldn't have this history, we wouldn't have these cultures,
43:45we wouldn't have these religions,
43:47we wouldn't have such harmony between the people
43:50if it was not for the spice trade.
43:52The Malabar coast of Kerala is a treasure and a wonder,
44:06because it's the most brilliant example
44:09of how really specialized, unique environments
44:12can impact not just on local, but on global culture.
44:16The profusion of plenty and bounty here
44:20has generated really remarkable homegrown traditions,
44:24but has also tempted in traders and invaders across the centuries
44:29who brought their own customs
44:31that are now a part of India's rich, diverse,
44:35incredibly varied cultural ecology.
44:39I'm extraordinarily lucky that many South Indians,
44:50buffalo herders and pilgrims, historians and artists,
44:57have offered to share their treasure-filled heritage with me.
45:02Because India is a cradle of civilizations
45:07and a cauldron of the human experience.
45:11This is somewhere that the millennia has helped to ferment
45:15ideas and innovations, currents of culture
45:19that have merged to create a wide and wonderful river of history,
45:25a river that nourishes India itself and many others beyond.
45:38I spoke to the Open University about our exploration of India.
45:43To watch this exclusive interview
45:45and to discover more about past and present global cultures,
45:49go to the Open University's website,
45:52connect.open.ac.uk forward slash treasures.