Around the World in 80 Treasures (2005) s01e05 Episode Script

l'm two months into my tour of the world.
Almost half way.
l'm heading into one of my favourite regions,
South Asia.
l'll be visiting some places l know well,
and others l have longed to see for many years.
l'm hoping the treasures
l will see will help me understand
more about man's relationship with his gods.
On the way l will encounter passion,
violence and lust.
So far l have explored the Americas,
Australia and South East Asia.
From Shanghai l have flown to Calcutta
at the start of this leg of my journey
to lndia and Sri Lanka.
l love Calcutta.
Despite the physical decay,
it is so alive spiritually.
As l walk through the city
looking at the people,
seeing the complexity of life
one feels in some bizarre
and remote way that Calcutta
holds the secret to life itself.
According to the history books,
Calcutta was created as trading post
by an English merchant called
Job Charnock in around 1690
and went to become to the greatest city in lndia,
the jewel in the crown of the British empire.
But in truth,
Calcutta's roots go back a lot further
and l'm on a quest to find the heart
and soul of the city.
Calcutta was called 'the city of palaces'
because of the mighty classical piles occupied
by rich European and lndian families.
l'm standing in one of them now.
ln north Calcutta alone, it's said,
there are over a thousand
of these fantastic buildings.
This is the puja hall of this particular palace.
This is like the chapels where the family
worshipped their gods in the alcoves around me.
Although this building, like most of these palaces
dates from the late 18th, early 19th century,
the religion itself, the Hindu religion,
dates back far, far earlier than that.
Perhaps four thousand years old.
The oldest of the world's major religions.
ln this puja hall my treasure should be lurking.
But, l observe the altar is bare.
The treasure has gone.
My treasure isn't permanent.
Each year it's specially created
for a great festival or puja in October.
At the end of the festivities it
disappears for another year.
lt's August and at this time of year
my treasure is being made.
lt's a goddess. Her name is Durga.
She has a reputation for being very
violent indeed. The ultimate destroyer.
Making images for the October
festival is a local industry.
This whole street is full of durgas in progress.
Here's a wonderful, mighty ten-armed Durga here
coated with mud. Still a bit wet actually.
lt's the mud from the Hugli,
sacred river, tributary of the Ganges
and the Durga has sacred power.
Also the mud,
l'm told, used in these images has to be blessed
by a prostitute or come from a prostitute's house.
Why? Well apparently because all the community
of the city must be involved in this festival,
from the highest to the lowest
and so the prostitute,
regarded as the lowest,
is engaged in the - in the practice of making
these images by blessing the mud.
This Durga has her head almost finished.
This lovely smile.
Gosh, the smile of a woman made to kill.
lt's fantastic.
Destroyer but a destroyer of evil.
l continue my search for a finished Durga
in all her gaudy glory.
l soon find what l'm looking for.
This image represents the heart,
the soul, the spirit of Calcutta.
lt may be somewhat garish but
l find it fascinating, moving, intriguing.
lt personifies so much of
what this city is about.
She's fighting evil and she's winning.
ln her arms, her hands are various weapons,
including this trident here
which is plunged into the demon's heart.
The power of female energy,
female forces which in Calcutta are so important,
have been historically,
here it's female goddesses that are venerated.
lt's called shakti, female energy
and that goes right back thousands of years
and she represents the great victory over evil.
Durga is an incarnation of one of the
greatest Hindu goddesses, Parvati,
and she is a warrior born to fight evil.
l want to meet her husband.
One of the three main Hindu gods, Shiva.
He is represented in different forms
but there's one l long to see.
lt's a celebration of his sexual prowess,
or fertility.
Shiva, the great destroyer,
one of the great three Hindu gods,
is represented by a lingam. That's a lingam.
A lingam, a lingam is an image of male
reproductive power or fertility. lt's a phallus.
But it's more than that, because the phallus,
the lingam, sits on a yoni,
which is a vulva, which is an image
of female reproductive power
so it's shakti, the two combined.
Shakti is female energy combined
with male energy, so it's one image.
One has the great creative force of the universe.
Male and female power.
lt's absolutely huge this lingam.
Amongst the biggest in lndia, l believe.
Very old, very big, very big.
Durga is also the inspiration behind
one of lndia's most compelling dances.
Can you tell me about the dance
you've just performed?
lt was showing respect and honour
to the goddess power shakti,
and in the beginning part of the Durga.
But what is Durga -
your family comes from Calcutta,
you were born here.
Yes, l'm born and brought up in Calcutta.
So the Durga to you,
what does - what does she mean?
To us - to me Durga is
like a mother image which has enormous power,
but that power if you abuse,
it can backfire on you.
Ultimately it's benign
and brings peace and harmony.
All along the banks of the River Hugli,
there are shrines to Durga
and other Hindu deities.
This is the place where the great festival
will take place in October
and the power of Durga is unleashed.
At the end of the festival the images of Durga
are brought down to the Hugli,
the sacred Hugli and they're simply placed
upon the waters to drift and to sink.
The mud from which the images have been
made has contained the life and spirit of Durga
and now she's gone. She's left the Earth
and gone back to the heavens.
lt's incredible this to me.
Durga defines Calcutta, defines the people
gives them spirit and hope,
protects them, they think.
Gives them their identity, this great goddess.
From Calcutta l fly south to Sri Lanka.
l'll be returning to lndia later,
but for now the mysteries of one of the world's
most verdant and beautiful islands lie ahead.
l've come to Sri Lanka to see a place
with a sensational reputation.
Built by a man who killed his father.
lt has a history, we are told, of hedonism,
of pleasure and of violence.
The city of Sigiriya
was created by King Kasiyapa
in the years around 470, 480 A.D.
lt is an amazing place.
Huge in scale, covering about 130 hectares
with the streets organised
in the most regular way.
But, most amazing, at the heart of the city
is a colossal rock on which was perched,
the fortress and palace.
What's immediately clear from the ruins of the
city are the remains of the irrigation system.
Just how sophisticated Sigiriya was.
Kasiyapa was a Macbeth-type character
with the blood of his father on his hands
and with a powerful and scheming wife.
He built his formidable palace to protect himself
from his vengeful brother.
This looks like the foundation of a -
of a bastion built out of brick.
Beautiful brick. lncredibly hard.
This is over fifteen hundred years old
and in terms of structure as good as the day
it was made. lncredible stuff.
Sigiriya is portrayed as a place of sinful lust
and orgiastic delights.
A playboy's palace of pleasure in the clouds.
lt soon becomes clear why Sigiriya has a
reputation for being the palace of a sensualist.
This is called the cave of heavenly maidens.
lt's more of a actually
an overhang in the cliff face
because we're way above ground.
There are these beautiful women on the wall,
painted over fifteen hundred years ago
and they're incredibly fresh in their
colours and very lively.
l would say realistic, except maybe a little bit
exaggerated in certain departments.
Very narrow waists and large cleavage.
There were once over five hundred
of these maidens along this cliff face,
stretching about 150 metres and 40 metres high.
The biggest picture gallery
in the ancient world really.
Only, sadly, fifteen survive,
the rest having been worn away.
But these are, the few that survive,
among the great works of ancient art.
Each one is different. Each one is powerful.
Each one carries its own little message.
But all of them are casting
these longing looks which um,
l'll tell you what,
carry power over the centuries.
Look at these girls too long
and strange things start to happen.
These delightful females are Apsaras.
The celestial maidens of Hindu theology.
l'm coming round to the idea that King Kasiyapa
was pursuing some kind of spiritual quest.
Half way up the rock
is something quite extraordinary.
A pair of lion's feet, but a gigantic beast.
There they are, with massive claws.
lt's all that remain of a huge lion
rising up there.
lt had a huge open mouth.
The jaw was the entrance to the palace.
People coming here walked
into the lion's mouth, literally.
Sigiriya means 'lion's jaw.'
Significantly,
the lion is sacred to Hindus and Buddhists.
l'm on the top of the rock
and this is the site of the royal palace,
enjoying tremendous prospects
and a wonderful refreshing breeze.
Here my theory is confirmed.
Sigiriya is laid out in a series of squares.
This is divine planning,
used in the creation of temples
to represent the realm of the gods.
Kasiyapa created a model of a sacred world
with himself at its peak.
The pool is further evidence
of the engineering skills of Sigiriya.
lt's not just the place where the king
and his naked nymphs cavorted,
it too is holy.
Sigiriya remains an enigma.
ls it simply a hedonistic pleasure place,
or a sacred complex?
lt depends on how one interprets the evidence.
lt also raises another intriguing,
rather difficult subject.
Sex and religion.
Here we see in those
lovely celestial ladies the Apsaras,
the epitome of sex and religion in one form.
They are celestial maidens that inspire and
lead to great understanding and insights.
As incredible, beautiful they are,
but they are celestial.
The west may see them simply as titillating
but that's not the point.
They are of course titillating,
but as a means to an end.
Here, in the east, it's not really a question
of sacred or profane but sacred and profane.
Sex and religion are one thing. Sexual energy
is a great powerful, potent force.
The following day l head for Polonnaruwa.
Polonnaruwa is Sri Lanka's ancient capital.
This golden age was in the late 12th century
when King Parakrama Bahu
created one of the greatest cities of the world.
This giant Buddha was created in the 1180s
- and he measures about forty metres,
carved in very hard granite out of the cliff face
behind. With his robes wrapped round his body,
his head reclining on a pillow.
The moment of nirvana.
This is the Buddha escaping the world,
enlightened, all desire extinguished.
And here another image of the Buddha.
Strange this one.
Armed crossed, which is unusual.
Eyes looking down, contemplating himself
as he escapes this world of torments.
Giant Buddhas are fascinating things.
Early on the Buddha
was represented in an abstract way.
As a column, a wheel - there's a wheel
indeed on the end of the pillow. Chackha.
Then, about the third or four century,
it was agreed that
Buddha could be worshipped as a god and he was
given the form of a human being to be venerated,
to be worshipped and this is where you get this
characteristic representation of a Buddha.
Clothed in robes rather Roman.
Of course the inspiration
l suppose was Greek and Roman gods,
this weird body which is both man and woman -
combined with his incredible smile.
And the hair is so interesting, isn't it?
The hair in fact little spirals, maybe it's
not hair at all but little spirals of energy.
These giant Buddhas are so intriguing.
Look at this great reclining figure at the moment
of utter peace and release from earthly troubles.
As worshippers gather round,
the benign smile on Buddha's face
takes on real meaning.
He's beaming love and encouragement on those on
the long road in quest of spiritual enlightenment.
l retreat,
leaving the Buddha suddenly
alive to his devotees.
My pursuit of the Buddha is not yet over.
lt takes me to the charming hill town of Kandy.
For more than two centuries Kandy was the capital
of the island's independent Buddhist kingdom.
Sri Lanka has the oldest continuous
Buddhist history in the world,
going back as far as the second century B.C.
At the temple of the tooth in the heart of Kandy
is my next treasure.
l've come to see the most important
Buddhist relic in the world.
An object which for Buddhist Sri Lankans
who make up the vast majority
of the population here is the foundation,
the root of their national identity.
An object that is a thing of state.
For seventeen hundred years
or so the king's ruling here have had to possess
this object as a sign of their right to rule.
lt's moved from capital to capital
throughout the land,
and now it's right here above my head.
l've come to see the shrine
which contains one of Buddha's teeth.
When the Buddha was cremated in about 540 B.C.,
it is said that four of his teeth
were extracted from the funeral pyre.
Three of his teeth went to other worlds.
One was kept in this world.
And since the fourth century A.D.
it's been in Sri Lanka.
A thing of great power, of great national pride
and people have come today to worship it.
Well, l didn't see the tooth.
Didn't really think l would be able to.
Only shown on very, very, very rare occasions.
But, the casket which holds
it is an astonishing object.
lt's in the form of a bell shaped stupa.
A sort of miniature magic mountain and it's
encrusted with jewels and draped over with pearls,
offerings from kings and queens.
There are seven caskets, one within the other.
We see the outer one. Seven caskets,
but the eighth thing being the tooth itself.
Eight is a very important number
in the Buddhist's -
eight principles of Buddhism.
Correct behaviour, correct prayer,
correct meditation.
These are the way to achieve nirvana.
To escape the cycle of birth and rebirth.
To get away from this wicked world.
The importance of the relic of Buddha's tooth
to Buddhist Sri Lanka
is revealed by the number of attempts that have
been made over the centuries to destroy it.
Destroy the tooth and Sri Lanka is destroyed as
a Buddhist culture, the Buddhist civilisation.
As late as 1998 the Tamil Tigers
attempted to destroy the tooth.
They set a bomb outside, damaged the temple,
the tooth survived.
As l leave l'm perturbed by how deeply-rooted the
tooth is in the world of politics and violence.
lt's become a symbol
for Sir Lanka's Buddhist majority
and its conflict with the Tamil minority,
which is Hindu and Christian.
What on Earth would Buddha, the champion of
tolerance and non-violence, make of this?
l return to lndia.
To a town on the coast of Kerala
l love with a passion.
Cochin, now known as Cochi,
encapsulates lndia's history.
lt goes a long way to explaining
why travellers from all over the globe
were drawn to this magical place.
Over the years they came here,
made their mark and left.
This has been a great trading port
for over two thousand years.
Different nations, different people have battled
to control this port and indeed have traded here.
Phoenicians, Egyptians, Arabs,
Chinese, Portuguese,
Dutch and the British.
And the commodity they were battling
over was something more precious than gold.
l'm on the backwaters of Cochin harbour
and this building in front of me
is a splendid example of the sort
of architecture there is here.
A mid eighteenth century warehouse,
built, l should think,
during the time the Dutch were control here.
l love the central gable with those little sails
flanking the window, that classical pediment.
And it's in buildings like this, these sort of
warehouses that my treasure was stored.
This is my treasure.
Spice.
Cochin was at the centre of the crossroads
of the international spice trade,
making it one of the most
important places on Earth.
A place worth fighting for worth dying for,
to possess, to control.
And here we have some of the local spices
of such value.
Here's ginger.
Oh lovely.
lt tastes wonderful,
this warehouse smells fantastic.
There's ginger here. Also other local spice.
Here you have it. Turmeric.
Now these spices were so valuable
because they made life not just only enjoyable,
but also in many ways possible.
They gave flavour to food but they also made
it possible to preserve food, so important.
Preserve food, or have resources in store,
one could do other things with one's life.
Create art, for example.
May l take? Thank you.
This lady is sorting pepper.
Pepper is the great local speciality.
Um, amazing.
This alone was more valuable
than anything really.
More valuable than gold in the past,
because the quality it gave to life,
pepper was the great - the great spice.
What's interesting is that the people
coming trading across the world,
moving through Cochin all those centuries ago
brought not just money and commerce
but ideas, religion, civilisation.
What excites me most about Cochin is the rich
architectural legacy of international traders
who passed through here over the centuries.
The town boasts
a wonderful collection of buildings.
Not fancy palaces and great castles,
but down to earth churches and warehouses.
l absolutely love these palaces of commerce,
these warehouses and offices,
they're called 'godowns' here.
Look at the sensational colours.
There's yellow ochre, there's beautiful blue
and the detail, incredible.
This is high quality classical architecture.
Again dating from the Dutch period l suppose,
the mid 18th century, late 18th century.
Pilasters, arches above the windows,
very bold,
very correct classical detailing.
As l explore the nooks
and crannies of the old town
l'm saddened by the amount of decay.
But there's charm in these crumbling edifices,
symbols of the great spice trade.
Spice, samosa.
lnfluences from all over the world
were brought together here.
Jewish traders arrived in the 16th century
and the old Jewish quarter with its charming
little synagogue remains to this day,
though the Jewish population has dwindled.
This church, dedicated to St Francis,
is the oldest place of Christian worship
to be built in lndia.
lt tells a fantastic story.
The Portuguese came here to Cochin
in 1500 in the person of Vasco da Gama,
the great Portuguese explorer.
He came here looking for pepper.
On the village green next to the church,
there's a scene unfolding which reminds me
of the Home Counties.
There's another product of the spice business.
To say that cricket
is a legacy of the British is true
but it's to diminish the game here
if one says that really.
Here it has a life an energy of its own.
This is the national sport.
And just look at the energy
and attack of these chaps.
Pretty aggressive batting,
pretty aggressive bowling.
Oh nice bat, thank you very much.
Oh yes, been years.
There's one more intriguing legacy of Cochin's
role as the hub of the international spice trade.
These amazing engineered structures
are fishing nets.
Nets are lowered into the water
and with counterweights are brought up again.
Happens during the day and when the booms
come up the nets are meant to be full of fish.
Not too many in them tonight,
but that's how they work.
Now they're called Chinese fishing nets
because this type of contraption occurs here
in Cochin and in China.
Nowhere else in the world.
So it confirms the Chinese presence here
in the 14th century,
certainly in the early 15th century.
This is a toddy made from coconut, very strong,
and not meant to be drinking it in public.
Here we go.
Not bad at all actually, for coconut.
Where's the bottle?
Madurai, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu,
is one of lndia's most vibrant cities.
Of the thousands
of glorious Hindu temples in lndia,
l've chosen the Meenakshi temple
in Madurai as my treasure
because it's so full of life.
l'm here looking for a very special woman.
A woman that holds the key to my treasure,
will open the door to it.
She is the ancient Tamil goddess Meenakshi
and somewhere here there's an image
of her in this great hall,
now a market, originally part of the temple.
l know l'll recognise her because
she has a strange appearance. Ah, here she is.
She must have been an ancient fertility goddess
because she has three breasts
and fish-shaped eyes
and has the aroma of a fish about her.
Well here's the great gate
to the Meenakshi temple.
lt's called the Gate of the Eight Goddesses.
l'll try and get across the road and have a look.
The gate reveals
how the fertility goddess Meenakshi,
another incarnation of Parvati,
met the god Shiva,
fell in love and was transformed,
losing her third breast and her fishy aroma.
The Meenaskhi temple
goes back almost a thousand years,
but it's not been preserved in aspic.
This technicolor paintwork is regularly refreshed
and this larger
and life decoration lovingly renovated.
These south lndian temples are worlds
within worlds, cities within cities.
Temples are conceived here as concentric courts
and the more one penetrates
the centre of the temple
of course the holier it gets.
This is one of the outer courts
and from the start this is,
l suppose organised as a place
for pilgrims to come, to have shops,
to have their kitchens, to have their lodgings
and that tradition survives.
From the market area you step
into the Thousand Column Hall.
The sensual heart of the temple.
Gosh, just look at this fantastic female.
She's a - a dharsi
and it for was her and her sisterhood
that the Thousand Column Hall was built.
These girls were recruited by the Brahmins
to work here as dancing girls -
to entertain the king and the nobles,
to raise money for the temple.
And these girls would perform sacred dances,
also dances there were
no doubt highly provocative.
This is a good one.
This is Shiva naked in the guise of a beggar.
This whole column is a story about him,
as a beggar,
going with the wives of the sadhus
of poor holy man, enthralling them.
This is a holy man's wife in love,
indeed in lust, with Shiva.
And a spectacular woman here,
another of the sadhu's wives.
Her trousers completely down and her gosh
- her maidenhood exposed.
Oh, a whole one, and why not?
And there some incense too please.
So here's my puja kit and also
there's some betel nut to chew on l think.
Okay, how much is that? A hundred rupees.
The main purpose of the temple
of course is to worship the gods.
So l'm going to dojust that
and make an offering,
a puja to one of my favourite Hindu deities.
This is where my true journey begins.
l'm now getting towards the heart
of the temple the holiest part,
and here's the tank in front of me.
The tank containing sacred water.
Water that's capable
of purifying the darkest sin.
The people are gathered here
in large numbers today.
A wedding,
this must be a wedding day.
And in front of the great Jaipurums
loaded with imagery,
celestial beings, divinities,
animals, fierce-looking guardians,
the whole of the Hindu world really represented
on that great pyramid structure.
lncredible sense of expectation in the air.
lt's marriage.
l'm going to make my offering to Ganesh,
the overcomer of obstacles,
the lovely elephant-headed god,
the son of Meenakshi and Shiva.
A wedding party leaving Ganesh,
overcomer of obstacles indeed.
- Your name?
- Dan.
The money?
The money? How much?
- Five. - Five?
Five.
Ganesh, provider of wealth.
l know where he gets it from now,
from me, asked a lot of money.
This is my puja going on now.
So there we are, Lord Ganesh.
One of the great Hindu gods, most loved.
Okay thank you, thank you.
lt's all surprisingly moving.
Funnily enough it's my birthday today
and l love elephants,
sometimes l think l am an elephant.
And so to have this puja for Ganesh
on this particular day, an auspicious day,
well for marriages anyway,
is er, it's strange the way the gods work.
lt's actually lovely.
This is the scene of one
of the great annual events -
related to the temple at Madurai.
l'm about four kilometres
from the great temple itself.
The atmosphere here is very lively.
Food being sold,
lovely temple elephants over there.
Lovely, lovely, lovely.
Now it's very, very, very,
very good luck to meet
and have - and have a relationship
with a temple elephant.
l'll try and have a relationship.
Will he go over with my hat off?
- A blessing.
- Stand here.
You're gonna give me a blessing?
Oh my goodness.
l'm getting blessed by the elephant.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
So charming.
He gave me a kiss on my head with his trunk.
A procession will wind its way slowly back
to the Meenakshi temple in the centre of Madurai.
And there goes Shiva.
The image has been pujaed, that means worshipped,
a coconut been offered to it.
And this is Meenakshi coming up,
bringing up the rear.
lt's eleven o'clock at night.
lt's all hauntingly quiet in the temple,
but the day is not yet over.
Well l'm going now to see Meenakshi put to bed.
Put to bed with her husband, Shiva.
This happens every night.
The image has been brought back
and she's been bathed, dressed
and put into her bed chamber
and every night her husband Shiva,
in the form of a pair of feet,
is brought to her and um, they're put to bed
together as husband and wife. Through here.
Only Hindus allowed in that entrance.
Fair enough.
Ah, the sadhu.
Now, the Brahmins are going off
and are clearly going to wake Shiva up.
Make enough noise.
So getting a bit tense waiting for Shiva.
Will he show?
Ah, now something's happening.
Ah, there is it,
inside this box is the lingam Shiva.
So in there we have Shiva's lingam.
lt's a phallus really.
l say very, very tempting to take a peek
but l know if l do l'll be in serious trouble.
Well that was a bit quick and sweet.
l mean, what happened is the priest came out
and they anointed them,
pujaed them and that obviously
made the feet become alive l suppose.
Husband and wife have gone to bed.
Goodbye.
My heart is full and my head is spinning.
What a way to spend my birthday.
There's only way to travel around lndia.
By train.
All of life is found in lndian railway stations.
lt's a far cry from the bullet train in Japan,
but l know which l prefer.
Oh. How do you do, how do you do.
And how do you do?
Lovely trains these, aren't they,
very comfortable trains. Lovely trains.
Do you like trains?
l love trains.
Jaipur is a city l've longed
to visit for many years.
lt may seem hectic and chaotic,
but it's one of lndia's great planned cities.
lt was laid out in the early 18th century
on a gridiron plan
with long boulevards and busy crossroads.
Thank you.
l've come to Jaipur in north lndia
to find my treasure in this dazzling cosmic city,
this city of the sun.
Jaipur is a visionary city. A celestial city.
The creation of one man. Jai Singh.
He build here a diagram of the universe.
The heart is Jai Singh's own palace.
Jai Singh's palace is spectacular
and among the finest in lndia,
but is not my treasure.
Within its walls lies something
which intrigues me much more.
Something which reflects
Jai Singh's true passion. The cosmos.
The Observatory was started in 1728
and really is an amazing,
an astonishing, creation.
What these instruments do
of course is read the heavenly bodies,
the movement of the sun
and the planets.
This is a master instrument of the Observatory,
invented, it's said, by Jai Singh himself.
lt's a map of the heavens.
We have the North Pole, the Equator,
and suspended on a wire here
is an image of the sun
casting its shadow on the planets below
and l see marked the signs of the Zodiac.
So it's also for casting horoscopes.
Astronomy, astrology in one.
l'm surrounded by twelve instruments,
each facing a different constellation.
These relate to the Zodiac
and they are for the accurate telling,
casting of horoscopes.
This one is Virgo, my star sign.
There's nothing else like this in the world.
This is the only machine
of this accuracy anywhere
and here it is in Jaipur, amazing.
This is an astrologer's dream, isn't it?
This is the largest sundial in the world.
That great ramp rising at 27 degrees,
casts a shadow on this calibrated quadrant
that tells the time to within
an accuracy of two seconds.
What's amazing about this great instrument
is that no one's quite sure how
it was designed and constructed
with such accuracy nearly 280 years ago.
l love these structures because they have
a powerful, abstract sculptural quality.
They're utilitarian, functional in purpose,
yet they have an overwhelming beauty.
l'm living the dream of many.
l've come to see one of the world's
great buildings, a building dedicated to love.
l've come to see it at sunrise.
There's no building more romantic
or more tragic than the Taj Mahal.
On June the 17th, 1631,
Mumtaz Mahal,
the wife of the Mogul Emperor, Shah Jahan,
died while giving birth to her fourteenth child.
So, in response to the death of his wife,
Shah Jahan created one of the most
famous buildings in the world. The Taj Mahal.
A vision of perfection, of paradise on Earth.
The emotional power of the Taj Mahal
comes not just from its ruthless symmetry
and its dazzling white material,
but also from the purity
and simplicity really of its forms.
ln line with lslamic thinking,
it is not loaded with images of living beings,
banned in the Koran,
but by simple abstract decoration, lettering.
ln this sense very much less ornamentation
gives more emotional power.
At the moment the authorities
in lndia regard the Taj Mahal
as a key target for terrorists so a lot of
restrictions apply here at the moment.
One of those, bizarrely, is that no video cameras
are allowed to go beyond this point.
So from here on the crew stay behind
and l go it alone.
As you approach nearer the Taj Mahal its scale,
its craftsmanship become almost overwhelming.
lt took twenty thousand people twenty years
to complete this great structure
and its white marble is inlaid
with twenty-eight different sorts of precious
and semi-precious stones.
But, this isn't a palace or a mosque.
lt's a mausoleum. lt's a monument to grief.
At this level and so near, l can see just
how exquisite and subtle the Taj Mahal is.
The inlay is amazing, like ajewel box.
And the white marble is carved and
the surface is mottled in architectural detail.
lt was a great surprise,
being inside the Taj Mahal
is like being inside a living being.
lt moans and it groans.
There's no question about it,
as a monument to grief and to heartbreak
and the expression of agony and pain
that lost all that was precious in this world
and longing for the next,
the Taj Mahal has no equal. lt's unsurpassed.
The a twist to the story of the Taj Mahal
is in the nearby Red Fort where the final tragic
episode of Shah Jahan's life was played out.
lt's here that the myth of the Taj was born,
where it enters the world of legend.
Shah Jahan, the great emperor became ill,
he suffered a stroke
and this provoked a ruthless,
vicious struggle
for power among this four sons.
They fought, they battled and Aurangzeb,
the most skilful,
the most vicious l suppose of the four sons,
prevailed.
He killed his three brothers in battle
and by treachery and when he had his father,
Shah Jahan in his power,
he imprisoned him here in the Fort.
So for Shah Jahan his great empire
had been reduced to the area of his courtyard -
and he would stand where l am standing now,
contemplating the view,
looking at the great mausoleum over there.
This is a spectacular view,
but it could have been more spectacular still.
lt is said that Shah Jahan,
if he hadn't lost control of his empire,
would have built himself
a mausoleum opposite that of his wife,
and his one would have been clad in black marble
to match the white marble of the Taj Mahal.
The story of the black Taj
is an invention of the 18th century,
but one that reflects, reinforces the fantasy
surrounding a building dedicated to love
and to what could have been.
My journey through lndia is almost over.
lt's flown by
and l wish l could stay longer,
but there's no better place
for it to end than here.
A poem, a prayer in white marble.
For many the Taj Mahal is the image of lndia.
But it has a perfection that perhaps
belongs in the world of dreams.
For me lndia is the raw,
savage, hot beauty of Calcutta.
A place that is full of passion,
full of life
in a way that's larger than life.
That is where my heart dwells
and what inspires me
when l come to this wonderful land.