Quotations (23)

1 to 23 of 23 items
60 years ago, India threw off the chains of the British Empire and became a free nation. And now the world's largest democracy is rushing headlong into the future. As the brief heyday of the West draws to a close, one of the greatest…
A few hundred generations cover humanity's attempts to create order, beauty and happiness on the face of the Earth. The beginnings to most of us are lost in time, beyond memory. Only India has preserved the unbroken thread of the human…
This is the sacred city of Mathura on the River Jumna. The cool season is over now. The rains are ending. And the heat is beginning to rise. The Festival of Holi celebrates the coming of light, the triumph of good, the growth of life. And…
From the Buddha to Mahatma Gandhi, Indian history is full of such figures, men and women who contested the idea that history should only be written by the men of war. From the 5th century BC, these ideas shaped one of the most…
Now I understand when the Buddha says, "All fortune is the cause of misfortune." All things must pass, even Buddhism itself. It became the greatest religion of the ancient world. It's still a power in Asia. But in the Middle Ages it died…
Next in The Story of India - silk roads, spice routes and China ships. Epics of the South and lost empires of the North. Ancient India goes global in the happiest time in the history of the world. === Civilisation is made by many things…
Here in India, 2000 years ago in the time of the Roman Empire, these three things - the produce of a weed, of a grass and of the lava of a beetle - changed the course of Indian history, brought about the growth of civilization and caused…
In the early centuries AD, the Kushans had opened up India's horizons, creating a vast multi-racial empire. They put India onto the international map, linking it to the trade systems of the world. They laid the foundations for what would…
All societies in human history, I suppose, have imagined a golden age - a past time when people lived in peace and plenty, when the rulers were just and the division between sacred and profane time had not yet happened. But here in India,…
There are said to be 300 versions of the Rama story in more than 20 different Indian languages. In the days of the Raj, the British called the Rama stories and plays "the bible of India". If you didn't know them, they said, you couldn't…
Purusharth is what a man needs to do, right? Which is "dharma", the whole quality of being a righteous human being. You have "artha", which allows you to...which is gathering wealth. So, it could be just business, it could be governance...…
The name of the place - Thiruvannamalai. Pilgrimage is another living legacy of the Middle Ages. It's one of those things that gave Indian people a sense of cultural identity, long before India achieved political unity. A sense of India as…
Vegetarian cooking, "the food of Shiva", as they call it here, is the great tradition. And the grinding stone... And here, cooking is tied to many important social rituals at the family hearth, especially for married couples. So, it IS…
What's gonna happen in about an hour, is that the bronze images of the gods Shiva, Parvati, Ganesh, will be brought out and put on these chariots here. Then carried round? - Yeah. All round the courtyard? - Yes. And now, everyone's waiting…
There are moments in history when civilisations aspire to greatness. India had done so in ancient times and, at the end of the Middle Ages, it did so again. And it was the coming of Islam that inspired the next great phase of Indian…
That story begins in the city of Multan, in what is now Pakistan, exactly 1,000 years ago. Here in Multan, a series of events began which would shift forever the balance of history in the sub-continent, and the key figure was Sultan Mahmud…
We are talking about specially India and in India it's so diversified as far as religions are concerned. - I think the most diversified country in the world. I think so. As far as the religions are concerned, as far as the cultures are…
There are times in the life of a civilisation when history seems to burst with possibilities. That's India in the 21st century. This is the tale of the British occupation of India, the winning of freedom, and the establishment of…
Here in Tanjore in the late 18th century, the armies of the British East India Company imposed their rule on a civilisation that had come down from ancient times, still with its own distinctive vision of the world. At that time, while the…
But everything would be changed by the great rebellion of 1857. The signs had been there the previous 30 years. The British more intolerant under the growing influence of evangelical Christian missionaries. A decree replacing Persian with…
In 1971, East Pakistan, with India's help, broke away and became Bangladesh. And India and Pakistan have not yet become the friends after the divorce that Jinnah hoped. But when the dust settles on 1947 that surely will come. And as for…
We've seen a transformation of national level politics where we've gone a dominant one-party state to coalition governments. We've seen a transformation in the economy. And its economy is making India a global giant in the new century.…
Great civilisations over time develop responses, habits, cultural immune systems that enable them to absorb the shocks and wounds of history and also to use the gifts of history. Those are the habits of successful civilisations. And India…