If you happen to be sitting around at home tonight, wondering what to do, PBS is presenting (in collaboration with the BBC) what looks to be like an amazing six-part series about the history and culture of India. I haven’t had much time to poke around the website, but I’m told by a lazy Indian friend who spent the day watching clips from the series that it’ll be fantastic. It comes on at 9 pm here on the East Coast, but the website says that there will be repeat showings of all of the parts of the series if you can’t catch it tonight.
6. January 2009 at 6:32 pm
I saw it last night
My more than $0.02 worth..
I’ll begin with the caveat that I am an admirer of Michael Wood’s work. I enjoyed his documentary on Alexander immensely. So my high expectations may have a large role in my judgment.
Also, I think his audience is different. The documentary is probably aimed at imparting basic knowledge about India to a lay Westerner. So my comments may be off the mark.
Positives
=========
1. Cinematography
2. Passion, Sheer joie de vivre of Wood.
3. Pace
4. No “exotic sitar” music
5. No snake charmers and buffaloes on the road.
6. Soma!
7. Animation of Mohenjo-Daro, Patna.
Things that could’ve been better
==========
1. Overall treatment of Hinduism vis-a-vis Buddhism. The idea of ahimsa began way before Buddhism, but the docu showed as if it all began with Gautama Buddha. Also, Hinduism was shown as a more ritualistic non-doctrinaire set of beliefs while Buddhism was the better articulated one. Not true. Jainsim was shown in a very simplistic manner, while it has huge logic-oriented philosophy within it.
Also, the wildly controversial method of dating Hindu “timeless” texts have its detractors, but Wood posited a one-dimensional view of the same.
The Mahabharata is more than just a description of war. It has one of the greatest treatises on living. IIRC, Wood never mentioned the Gita.
He showed meditative buddhists in a scenic park and then showed a chaotic Benaras scene when he referred to why Buddhism did not take hold in India and joked about 30 million gods etc. Sheet, I didn’t expect this from a scholar like him.
2. Guests: Some good, some bad. Shashi Tharoor to talk about the Mahabharata? Huh? Why not get a good Sanskrit scholar?
3. Inaccuracy: On the one hand, he mentions that “Maurya was lost until the 19th century” and on the other he shows an active jain temple at the site of his meditation/death near Shravana Belagola. Also, Ashoka did not get an epiphany after the kalinga war and convert
himself to Buddhism. His children (iirc, Mahendra and Sanghamitra) joined the Sangha and went to Sri Lanka. His conversion was a long drawn-out meditative soap opera.
The Pandavas fought the Kauravas, not the Kurus. The Pandavas and Kauravas were Kurus themselves.
4. Mention of the Persian Empire/Alexander without mentioning Gandhara!
5. Political correctness: he showed the beautiful (edict) inscription by Ashoka on the brown pillar and mentioned it as one of the great examples of non-violence, animal rights etc. He never mentioned (but showed) that the pillar was defaced by Koranic inscriptions made by one Arab war-lord or the other. C’mon!
6. Bollywood. ‘Nuf zed. Kitschy music and film.
7. Nary a mention of South, East and Western India.
Let’s see how it goes from here….
6. January 2009 at 6:37 pm
Hi! I’m happy to see you started posting again. I just posted about this series as well (after my aunt told me about it). Great minds think alike I guess! What did you think of the series so far? It looks really interesting…
7. January 2009 at 4:05 am
I saw this series a few months ago. The first few episodes were a nice learning experience, learned stuff I dint know before. Its a 10 episode series and most of them are available on Google videos.
I posted the links to it on my blog a while ago.
http://6mile.wordpress.com/2008/07/14/the-story-of-india/
7. January 2009 at 1:06 pm
I’ve never seen any of Michael Wood’s earlier work, but I was pretty disappointed with the ‘documentary’… In general, I thought it was a good overview of Indian history for someone with little or no background, but there seemed to be Orientalist tendencies that I didnt care for…
The specific items I had problems with:
1. The “Soma” consumption in Peshawar… what he was describing to find Soma in the market was basically pines. Any pine would do… boil and drink. Historians and Theologians are still unclear on what exactly it was, so claiming that the “local market” in Peshawar somehow knew naturally is problematic to say the least. Also, Soma is supposed to be a hallucinogen – and we didnt hear anything about that.
2. The conclusion that the Mahabharat was based on a true story based on the “discovery of Hastinapur”. This identification is based on two things “Painter grey pottery” and the actual name of the town. I am not yet clear why Mr B B Lal (we’ll get to him in a moment too) is convinced that gray pottery = mahabharata city, but to give the writing of mahabharata historical context, it was compiled (as correctly stated by tharoor) between 400BC and 400AD, and consolidated numerous local mythologies into one. This means, as stories are told, names of places familiar to people of those times must be added to gain credibility (and local popularity). So, the turn of the millenia town of Hastinapur was likely inserted to a mythological story relatively recently – certainly not in the mahabharata’s supposed timeline.
3. Mr Lal is a very well known person in the South Asian studies field. He gained fame in the 40′s and 50′s for some great archeological work in the Indus Valley, but in the past few decades, his academic standing has reduced substantially because of several of his far fetched theories… i’ll name a few:
– he claims to have deciphered the Indus Valley script, and claims that Harappans spoke “Sanskrit”…
– he claims that “Aryans” originated in India and later populated Europe and Central Asia.
– he claims that Sanskrit is the root language of all indo-european languages
– he regularly cites the ‘rig veda’ as a historical document.
anyway, at this point Lal is known as the go-to guy for hindu revisionists, and exoticists.
4. Several times, “natives” are interviewed to learn the “history” of India – I don’t think an Indian citizenship qualifies anyone in Indian history. Wood should’ve been interviewing more scholars (indian or otherwise).
5. Translation of “ratha” as specifically a “four wheeled chariot” to tie in the Turkmenistan dig… This is just factually incorrect. The sanskrit word “ratha” just means chariot… number of wheels is not a specification. In fact, even in the Rig Veda, the descriptions vary in wheel counts.
6. The idea that Buddha invented “Ahimsa” is ridiculous. It appears in the Vedas, Puranas and the Upanishads… all of which outdate the Buddha.
7. The idea that the Mauryan Empire was “lost” to Indians is also ridiculous. Chanakya’s “Arthashastra”, and Megasthenes’ “Indika” werewell known even before the post-independence “discovery”, and the Mauryan capital has been continuously inhabited since the fall of the empire.
7. January 2009 at 1:24 pm
I appreciated the cinematography in the show, but, like the others here, I didn’t think it very informative. I don’t think there was any significant chunk of information that new to me.
Some shots were quite pretty, tho.
7. January 2009 at 5:23 pm
I watched this whole thing on 6miles blog a while ago! It is a totally awesome and beautiful series!
7. January 2009 at 11:57 pm
I’ve watched the first episode of the series so far, and like others, I was both struck by the incredible cinematography and disappointed by the lack of information. I felt like it would kind of introduce concepts and ideas in a very vague way that left me wanting to know a lot more. But maybe that’s their strategy…
9. January 2009 at 1:24 pm
I enjoyed the beauty of the first two episodes. I watched the episodes with my husband. He was also disappointed in how Hinduism was represented in comparison to Buddhism. He also thought too much emphasis was placed on Brahmins (I admit I was blown away by the Brahmins in Kerala passing down birdcalls for thousands of years though) and on Aryans. Those three things emphasized to him that it was an outsider’s history of India rather than Indian history from an Indian point of view.
He definitely agrees that many regions of India were overlooked as do I.
Like Mocroidh we were left wanting more. Will we watch the next episodes? Most likely.
20. January 2009 at 9:38 pm
I’m Indian and overall I enjoyed watching a westerner’s take on India. I appreciate his passion for India. I googled Mr. Wood and he named his daughter Jyoshti.. he & his wife adore India. However, I didn’t like him presenting the discredited aryan invasion theory… this theory has been widely discredited. the aryans originated from India. there is a wealth of info supporting this which i’m sure u all are aware of. the harappan civilization preceded the time of the rig veda.. if there was some type of invasion, this civilization like most conquered peoples would have documented this.. the chants, customs etc of the aryans resembled those of the harappans hence making it impossible that the aryans were foreign to india. more over the aryans rode chariots, which would not make it through the highly mountainous terrain of the hindu kush. this invasion theory arose around the time of the british invasion which was asserted to justify their power in India… besides this I enjoyed Wood’s appreciation for India. he pointed out many good things i.e. india was always a bureaucracy before the brits making reference to highly systematic irrigation ways in so india. also in the last segment around the time of brit invasion, he pointed out in the end that india will always be a proserous nation b/c of the ability of its ppl to absorb and come up with new ideas. great guy im sure he’ll reach moksha!!
20. January 2009 at 9:47 pm
http://www.sanghparivar.org/blog/rkm/hindu-group-in-america-objects-to-the-story-of-india
20. January 2009 at 9:48 pm
Aditya’s comment regarding slyky (he’s too busy playing FIFA ’09 to write it out himself): “this is an example of Hindu revisionists.” Then he shook his head and went back to playing against Valencia.
20. January 2009 at 10:00 pm
im acutally buddhist..but nice try =)
20. January 2009 at 11:18 pm
Dude… you linked to Sangh Parivar… they are the very definition of Hindu Revisionists… arguably, the Hindu equivalent of Jamaat-e-Islami…
21. January 2009 at 7:25 pm
Come on Aditya…Dont be a shame to India..and a big suck up to the Gore chamde waley…Aryan Invasion theory is a Myth…THERE IS NO PROOF…do you get it…
It really pisses me off when my fellows Indians dont even care to do enough research on the topic…forget the Sangh Parivar link…there are innumerable sites which have detailed information if you care to read…
You cant have rudra symbol in Indus valley and RUdra mentioned all over vedas without any link between…Think!!!
25. January 2009 at 9:40 pm
This would be a good read
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?na...
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?na...
18. February 2009 at 3:46 pm
http://www.gosai.com/chaitanya/saranagati/html/...
4. March 2009 at 10:45 am
Regarding “AIT”, Wood did not say “invasion” did he? I thought it was “migration”.
Whereas the theory of a great invasion holds no proof and is speculatory at best, migrations both in and out of India were possible, feasible and probable, as well as being the new terminology used in Acedemia for at least last 10 years. So it's AMT – aryan migration theory.
No one can deny that there has been migrations going on in that part of the world since pre-historic times.
Whether a group of people who called themselves “aryans” migrated into what we presently call “India”, is just a theory. The theory that Aryans originated in India and migrated out is also a theory.
What happened is that migrations have taken place both in AND out for millenias and these in and out migrations created new cultures.
4. March 2009 at 7:09 pm
Actually, the Aryan migration theory is pretty well established in academia.
Migrations out of India being the source of western civilization is much a “theory” as creationism is.
4. March 2009 at 7:58 pm
Everything in science is a theory so that's not saying much…
5. March 2009 at 6:14 am
The difference is that scientific theories are testable and is accepted by the scientific community only after considerable testing. I don't think creationism is a testable hypotheses, and that probably was Aditya's point.
5. March 2009 at 4:00 pm
Am-Mallu, how did we get from PBS's STORY OF INDIA , the Aryan Migration Theory and Hare Krishnas to “creationism”??????????
13. May 2009 at 3:20 pm
hi gorigirl,
stumbled on your blog – it's smashing!
you might be interested in this – http://www.amazon.com/India-History-John-Keay/d...
i'm indian, and i think it's the best short introduction to india out there. i'd recommend it to quite a few who'd commented earlier.
13. May 2009 at 5:01 pm
Thanks, MadGenius, both for the compliment and the book recommendation! I'll add it to my (sadly, extensive) list of books that I need to read.