Programme 2: The Power of Ideas
10PM (EST), MONDAY 5th JANUARY 2009 on PBS
Goto: PBS India site
Click on the links below to watch the promotional video:
The Story of India 2: The Power of Ideas Promo video - Low Quality
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The Story of India 2: The Power of Ideas Promo video - High Quality
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“Wood tells the story of India’s pursuit of ideas with a wide-eyed boyishness that can’t help but draw you in.”
Seven Magazine (The Telegraph)
“This is a terrific series, a visual feast that boldly sketches overviews of vast tracts of history...”
The Times
The second episode of Michael Wood ’s journey through Indian history covers the last centuries BC - the age of the Buddha, the coming of the Greeks and the rule of the emperor Ashoka, one of the greatest figures in world history.
Beginning with incredible images of a Jain festival that takes place once every twelve years, Wood sees the Buddha as India’s first protester, follows the invasion of India by Alexander the Great and ends with the birth of the first great Indian empire.
The theme of the episode is the power of ideas in Indian history, and among the people Michael Wood meets is HH the Dalai Lama who explains why Buddhism is still relevant today.
The journey takes us by railway to the famous sites of the Ganges plain, Benares, Sarnath and Bodhgaya; by helicopter and army convoy through northern Iraq to the site of the greatest battle in the ancient world; by truck up the Khyber Pass, then by river to the first great Indian capital Patna, Using archaeology, living traditions, legends, and ’India’s Rosetta stone’, Michael Wood tells the story of the first great Indian state, ‘the forerunner of today’s India’.
We hear the dramatic story of the first great emperor who renounced his kingship and starved himself to death. Finally we meet his grandson, who after a cruel and violent opening to his reign, renounced warfare and introduced the dangerous idea of non-violence, which runs down through Indian history all the way to Mahatma Gandhi and the Freedom Movement. 
Written and Presented by Michael Wood
Producer Rebecca Dobbs
Editor Gerry Branigan
Music Howard Davidson & The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Filmed and Directed by Jeremy Jeffs