The Rest Is History - 110. History of India in 10 Buildings

Episode Date: October 21, 2021

Curator and art historian Aparna Andhare gives Tom and Dominic her selection of the ten buildings that best illustrate India’s past 4,500 years. Ranging from Mohenjo-daro to Narendra Modi, all the Subcontinent’s history is here. A Goalhanger Films & Left Peg Media production Produced by Joey McCarthy Exec Producer Tony Pastor *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. Hello, welcome to The Rest Is History. And with me is Dominic Sandbrook. And Dominic, do you remember, we did an interview with GQ about the podcast. And I'm not saying that to boast. Fashion tips. Fashion tips.

What the well-dressed man in Chipping Norton is wearing. And one of the one of the questions we were asked was uh what fields of history do you know absolutely nothing about yes i do i paid close attention to what you said because i thought that it might prove useful i could store it up and then spring it on you and one of the one of the subjects you mentioned was the history of india yeah you've never been to India. You knew absolutely nothing about it. Well, I've seen Octopussy. And I've also seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

What else is there to know? And I kind of figured that's kind of it, right? I mean... Okay. So the reason I saved that up is that I'm a massive Indophile. India was the very first

foreign country I ever went to. The first foreign country? I landed in Bombay, as it then was, and I spent six months there. Doing what? Not playing cricket, surely? I did play cricket there. Yes, I did play cricket there. Yeah, but you didn't go to play cricket, surely?

I went, because India is so enormous. I mean, it's kind of, it's massive, and everywhere is so interesting. We went there for honeymoon. I've been there actually on two cricket tours. So anyway, I absolutely love it. The producer has sent me a message that says most people went to Benidorm for their first foreign trip. Well, I'd never been to Calais, and I landed in Benidorm.

What a gilded youth you enjoyed. Not at all, because I'd never been abroad. We never had foreign holidays. Oh, it's like the four Yorkshiremen sketch. Yes. Anyway, listen, the last time I went to India, it was with Willie Dalrymple at his amazing literary festival at Jaipur. And in Jaipur, I met the wonderful Aparna Andhare,

who was a curator at the museum in Jaipur. And she showed me around it. And I thought, bearing in mind that you know nothing about India, and that we have tried and tested this format with Rachel Morley, with the British churches, where she did basically her top 10 British churches, I thought it would be fun to ask Aparna if she could do the impossible and give us a history of India in 10 buildings. So going right the way from the ancient world,

right the way up to the modern. And Aparna, you're joining us. Where are you joining us from? I'm in Bombay. In Bombay. Well, then technically, if you're going to get technical then I live in New Bombay which is now in Mumbai which is outside of Bombay it's a twin city so if you're going to be if you're going to be specific then that's where I am well let's be specific okay so

so from New Bombay um and you very bravely and gamely agreed to do this so you've drawn up your list of 10 buildings and And when we say India, we're talking about the Indian subcontinent. So not modern day India. We're including what's now Pakistan, Afghanistan, and so on. Bangladesh. Yes, absolutely. And this wasn't easy, Dom.

This wasn't easy at all. So I'm glad I'm foolish in that sense. No, your game, your game, your game. Well, we like to set people a challenge, don't we? Yes, we do. The challenge it was. So I live with an architectural historian, and I have to say there were fights over this,

about what was important, what was, you know, what was just beautiful. So when we're recounting the history, these are not specifically, so the 10 sites I've chosen, they might not make their cut for being the most beautiful or things that you immediately associate with India, but they're important for the trajectory of Indian history. So no Taj Mahal? Oh, no Taj Mahal, no.

No Taj Mahal, okay. Everyone knows the Taj, I mean, it is gorgeous. It is too obvious. It is too obvious, absolutely. Even Dominic's heard of the Taj Mahal. Okay. Everyone knows the Taj. I mean, it is gorgeous. It is too obvious. Even Dominic's heard of the Taj Mahal. Tom is very obvious sometimes. Apparently, you might have noticed. But have you been?

Have you been to the Taj? Have I been to Taj Mahal? Yes. Yes, of course. And did you like it? I loved it. Except that we went there for our honeymoon. And my wife was sick over a large number

of India's most historic buildings and the Taj Mahal was one of them. Oh, what a lovely story. The other one is Fatima, sickly. Romantic. Appropriately. She's going to kill me for revealing this. Anyway, let's reverse after this particular conversation

of cult attack. Yeah, we've got 10 buildings to get through and we don't want to do a Rachel Morley and leave seven of them to the last five minutes. Okay, so Aparna, what is your first building? Okay, so the first site we'll pick is the Indus Valley Civilization and a site called Mohenjodaro, which means the Mound of the Dead. And this is the high point of Harappan civilization between 2600 to 1900 BCE. I think what is most interesting is the Great Park, which is how every big swimming pool ought to be. It's on top of a citadel and it's got channels around and lots of changing rooms and bathrooms. So it probably was a ritual space and is this fantastic

water. It's like a swimming pool, right? So it's got, it uses tar and it uses gypsum plaster. So it's quite watertight and you could probably look all over from it. Now, Harappans or the Indus Valley civilization thrived on trade, it thrived on commerce, and they also basically set up big city and trading outposts. And they had to then move. Why did the Indus civilization fade out? We don't know. But it perhaps was also a direct result of climate change because water had moved out or... So it's getting hotter. I don't know if it was getting hotter, but I think that the river flowed differently. And so does that mean that basically this is a dead end?

I mean, what happened to these cities? If they were completely abandoned, were they forgotten about? I don't think they were. Yes, they were probably forgotten about? I don't think they were. Yes, they were probably forgotten about. And if we excavated a lot more, I'm sure we'd find more evidence and more sites. Nobody really knows what happened to them. And, you know, but what they've left behind

are more mysteries and questions than they have left answers. Fabulous. Okay, well, that's a great one. That's a very interesting one. So that's sort of that's a great very interesting one so that's so that's sort of at that point would you say that indus sort of valley civilization is it's one of a handful on the world isn't it i mean this must have been one of the most glittering cities on earth at the time absolutely it had lots of people living there it had people who were traveling and

trade happening so this would have been this would have been a high point of urban life. And I really hope that we can sort of go. And there are more archaeological discoveries that are happening. There are people who are analyzing data. We're looking at objects more carefully. But the fact is that we don't really know very much, but we are finding more every day. OK. We're moving quite slowly, Tom, already, I noticed. But the fact is that we don't really know very much, but we are finding more every day. Okay. We're moving quite slowly, Tom, already, I noticed. Oh, God, are we? We're in a Rachel Morley situation.

We're not going to be in one. Okay, that's good. Those are brave words. Yes, because I have notes, and I have decided to stick to my notes. Okay. Number two, then. Number two. My second site is a site that i don't know if

many people have heard about it's they're called the barabar caves tom do you know where they are uh i know i know intimately no very well yeah no so neither of us have heard of it so you um what you've heard of are rock cut temples right you've heard of are rock-cut temples, right? You've heard of cave sites across India. And these are probably some of the oldest cave sites there are. And they go back to the 3rd century before the common era. And they're basically a link to how architecture grows across the subcontinent. They belong to the Mauryan age. And they have Ashokan rock cut edicts and they're in a part of east of India called Bihar

so these are third century caves and you can see how architecture develops from wood and bamboo to carving in stone so there's a mimicking of various material that you can see you talked about this being the Mauryan empire can you say something about that for those of us of little brain who don't know what that is?

Yes, of course. So the Mauryans is a very large empire that takes over a huge chunk of the country. And the most famous Mauryan king was Ashoka. And he converts to Buddhism at one point and it's basically... Because he's so upset by the battle, isn't he? That's the story. That's what they say. I mean, you know, why do emperors... It makes for a neat story. Do you want to quickly tell us the story, you know, Tom?

No, no, well... It's not Tom's podcast. Tom, get off the podcast. So, I mean, it is a very romantic story that he's this great conqueror and he wins a great battle and he's so upset by the battle that he becomes a Buddhist. But what I've always thought the point of the story was that he only decides to become a Buddhist after he's won the battle. So he's already got the empire. Yes. He's virtue signalling. Is that what he's doing? Well, possibly. That might be one way to put it. So, interestingly, the tales that we get to know about the Mauryans also come from Greek sources, right?

So you have Greek diplomats who are in Pataliputra, which is now Patna in the east of India. And then you've got several people who are traveling in. And Ashoka is a later king who also sort of expands it and leaves a lot of, he leaves stone and rock cut edicts. Now, I should probably tell you that Ashoka was reading around 273 to 232 before Common Era and is one of the greatest sort of, you know, legendary kings of India. But, and also just, I mean, just, you know, you talked about the Greek influences. So this is in the wake of Alexander the Great kind of crashing into the Indus. And so this is a period where you have Greek-Indian influences kind of mixing

and mingling with each other. Not only will Greek influences mix and mingle, but they'll also leave a legacy of art and architecture. And Buddhism will bring beautiful rock, beautiful sculptures that will have Hellenistic influences. But this is happening not only in the northwest frontier province, which is mostly Afghanistan and that sort of region, but you see it across the north of India.

So this is a period. I think the one thing to realise is that you never have watertight, sort of independent civilisations that don't have connections to the world. Everything is a clash of civilisations. Everything is an encounter of different people. And that's what you see reflected in art and architecture. Yeah. So, Panna, we did an episode on Afghanistan and we talked about the way in which the wealth of India is constantly attracting outsiders, mostly coming through the Hindu Kush and so on. So Alexander would be, I guess, an example of that. So number three, what's number three?

Number three is a site called Udaigiri, which literally means that it is the hill of the rising sun, as it were, in Madhya Pradesh, that's the central province in India, and a small town called Vidisha. Now, everyone thinks about this part of the world and thinks about the great Sanchi Stupa, which is where they thought the relics of Buddha would be. But that's not the site we're going to talk about.

We're talking about Udaigiri and specifically cave number five in Udaigiri. Another cave. You love a cave. I do love a good cave. It's all caves with you. It is all caves with me. So cave number five is not how you typically imagine a cave, which is a dark space that you have to sort of crawl into. When you walk up Vidishat, when you walk up Udaigiri, where we are, you basically find yourself in an audience sort of hall structure, where there's a massive stone carved Varaha, which is the Bor Avtar of the great god Vishnu.

And he's rescuing Bhudevi, who signifies the earth goddess. And in audience is Chandragupta II, who is a Gupta king. And this is a very, very important site because it also makes a clear link between divinity and kingship and you've got um and while there is the earth is being rescued perhaps the protector of earth in this realm chandragupta is in audience so it's a very important and quite a spectacular cave site and um and that's my choice number three so chandra gupta he is the guy is he the guy that gives a load of elephants to the uh to salukas the one of alexander's successors is that one of his claims to fame okay everyone gives elephants to everyone oh okay all right i'm sorry

is that just that's just a constant theme of indian history the transfer of elephants if you if you came if you came to India, I'd get you an elephant too. Oh, that's such a lovely invitation. Thank you. So Chandrakumar, of course, Chandrakumar II is, of course, a very important king. And this kind of articulation of kingship and power hasn't quite really been seen before. We're looking at this massive site. It also has several other sculptures.

But when I say it's massive, it is taller than Thomas, right? So it is larger than life. And you have to look this site up because while we're in presence of divinity and kingship, you've got several other gods, including the gods of the snake land, so Nagadevdas, who are all in attendance as this boar god rescues Bhudevi. So even the choice of having a person, having the king depicted in presence of this sort of of this tableau is quite significant and we're now in the fifth century so because because upon one of the the things that immediately strikes someone going

from Europe to India so in Europe all the kind of the classical gods are gone nobody worships them anymore in India the you know you talked about Vishnu. Vishnu is still worshipped. So this tradition of temple building remains a living one. And the sense of, you know, that history is alive, perhaps in India in a way that the distant past isn't in Europe is really striking, I always found. Well, I also think that forms of worship change and, you know, religions become fashionable and then they go away. So for a long time, Buddhism, which was so important in building these massive sites with kings turning Buddhists, it just disappeared from the subcontinent. In the same way,

iconoclasm constantly happens to these great sites where you have the rise of a certain kind of religion and then it fades away and then sometimes it's retrieved or or a mythical past gets retrieved constantly to to legitimize rule um is there but it's not in the same way um that religion is practiced so while while temples are being built um they constantly change. And there are newer myths that happen. There are newer sites that get built.

Even visually, things are different. And that's brilliant because it enables you to choose buildings that exemplify certain periods of Indian history. And otherwise, this whole project wouldn't be working. So number three, we've got to say, what's number four? Number four. And it's very interesting that we are talking about, you know, religions, because we're now going to change track from, you know, from a Jain Buddhist site to a Muslim site.

And we're now in the 7th century and in the land of Kerala, to the Cheraman Jama Masjid. So Kerala is in the southth century and in the land of Kerala to the Cheraman Jama Masjid. So Kerala is in the south of India? Kerala is in the south of India, further down from Maharashtra and Bombay. And it's the land where Roman ships would go. It's where supposedly St. Thomas went, isn't it? It is where, yes.

So it's open to the Middle East? It is open to It is. So it's open to the Middle East. It is open to the Middle East and it's open to the Arabs. And that's where you have the first mosque being built. And this mosque was built in the lifetime of the prophet, where the chairman king converts to Islam because he has a dream where the moon splits into two. And it's the same sort of miracle that that the prophet has performed in Mecca for for people, those for people who don't believe him. And he's quite puzzled. The king is quite puzzled about what this this dream means. And an Arab tells him. So there are lots of legends around how Islam got to Kerala

and why the chairman Perumal Ruler basically converted. But what's interesting is that the site of the first mosque still stands. So in about 1505, the Portuguese come in and destroy this mosque, the Jama Masjid. And what is interesting is that there's still a model of what the original looked like and what the original was like. And we have a direct link and references to what a sixth century mosque, what a seventh century mosque in India would be. That's amazing. Can I ask a question, Aparna? Yes, please. Why do you think he converted?

Because often conversion goes hand in hand with kind of politics, with kind of diplomacy. So people would adopt Christianity, for example, because they, you know, Orthodox Christianity, because they wanted to curry favour with Constantinople or something. But if this is in the lifetime of the prophet, what is in it for the Indians in converting to Islam? So we're looking at Kerala, which also has a very different socio-economic structure.

It isn't the same as the rest of the country is. The Malabar coast, especially this region, has several connections. So it's likely that this sort of movement from or the moving to Islam would be good for, would shake up pre-existing court practices. I'm assuming that there's also a strong socio-economic political reason why a ruler would convert. Apal, do you also say, I mean, so there's Christians get there and there's a synagogue. So you've got Jews and Christians and Islam is a kind of, you know, part of it draws on Jewish and Christian traditions. So perhaps it had kind of warmed things up. And I suppose the contrast between this mosque in Kerala, which is presumably brought by traders and by people crossing the sea, with the subsequent arrival of India,

the Muslims who invade India are coming across what is now Pakistan into the north. They're coming into the north and Kerala is further down south. Yeah, so that's a difference, isn't it? It's an absolute difference, but we have to also remember that there are trade links over the sea. So sea routes exist. And while, you know, while waves of invasion come in from the north, you have sustained trade relationships that happen over the Arabian Sea. So you've got connections to Africa, you've got connections to the Arab world. And it's always been a thriving, vibrant space. Now, I have to also say that if you look at the model of what the original mosque was, it is extremely local to Kerala.

So it's not a dome structure. It doesn't look like anything from an Arabian Nights fantasy. It looks like a building that you'd find in Kerala. And apparently it faced the wrong way. I don't know this. I was reading something online where I found that it was only in the year 1000 CE that they managed to, that they realised, oops, we need to face west, not east. And they had to change the mirror up. So the coming of Islam to India is obviously an absolutely fundamental kind of breakpoint

in the course of Indian history. So we have... I'm not sure I agree with that. Oh, okay. Okay. Yes. Because I think that every encounter so far is important every encounter every cultural encounter um you know whether it was the rise of Buddhism whether it was the the Sanskrit age whether the Vedic age um the you know the the um the Greeks coming into the country and and and and a relationship with China as well I think each each sort of encounter was independent and impressive. I suppose in terms of buildings, that Islam, there is only one God, and that it generally

doesn't encourage the portrayal of the human form, perhaps in the way that previous intraditions have done. Don't you also know that that is not quite true? Well, I'm dealing in very broad brush. Tom, you're being schooled in your own podcast. I know. I'm dealing in very broad brush terms here. But there is, I mean, it does kind of introduce quite a radically new artistic and architectural tradition, don't you think? And iconism, not depicting in human form, was also a Buddhist practice.

You had the Buddha depicted as a tree, as the Bodhi tree, as the wheel, as, you know, just by his feet. So I think the subcontinent was always quite used to creative ways of expressing God or divinity or important figures. What Islam brings, and it does so in waves, right? And in various parts of the country, it again looks different.

In Kerala, it looks different. We're going ahead of ourselves, or at least one stop ahead of ourselves, if we start to think about the impact of Islam on the Deccan, which brings with it an architectural tradition of it. Central India. Central India, from east coast to west coast, and sort of sandwiched between two major mountain ranges. So you've got, Islam is important, but we also think we have several great kingdoms, and two of them we shall discuss now as point number five.

Well, actually, let's discuss after the break. Let's discuss after the break. So we've done four and we've got six to go. So you've worn up on Rachel Morley with the churches. I've done three by this point. So we will take a break now. Tom, don't constantly distract me from my agenda. I'm sorry. I know. I'm really sorry. And I won't in the second half. It's bad. it is bad. We will be back in a minute.

I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman and together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip

and on our Q&A we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets,

head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com. Welcome back to The Rest Is History. Extraordinary scenes here, as Tom Holland has pledged. He has pledged publicly and he pledged privately during the break that he would stop talking in the second half and allow Aparna to take us through her remaining six buildings that will explain all of Indian history.

Very exciting moment. So, Aparna, you're on to number... What are we on? Number five now. Number five. We're on number five. And I have to say that Tom and I had a bit of an email war over this because we've now moved into what people might think of as medieval India. And we're moving specifically south.

We've spoken about Kerala. We're going into the mainland a little bit. And we're thinking about southern superpowers, the kingdoms of Chola and the Vijayanagara kingdoms. Now, each of these kingdoms could and should have their own podcasts and there are experts in this so i am going to only talk about the raja rajeshwara temple um in thanjavur that the cholas built this is a massive temple it's come it is going to completely change the way temple building will happen in India after this. And so, Pranay, when is this temple built? So Raja Rajeshwara Chola builds the Vrideshwara temple between 1000 and 3 to 1010 CE.

So we're in the millennium now. And it's in Tanjavur, which is in southern India. And it's massive. And what you have is that there are several architectural styles that now come in. So you have the Vimana, you have the Mandapa, you have a different style of architecture that's separate from the northern styles of temple architecture, which is called the Nagara. And here we have the Dravidar style of architecture.

The spire, as it were, of this is about 216 feet high. So the Shikara goes right up and everything else is dwarfed against this. So it is a statement of engineering. It's a larger than life temple building that the Cholas have built. And while they build large, they also make these gorgeous bronze sculptures that you see in collections around the world. And they're absolutely sublime. So these are the two. And they're Hindu kings.

If they're building big, then they must be incredibly rich. Is that fair to say? They are very, very rich. Absolutely. And this is what they're sort of establishing themselves as the richest dynasty, as someone very, very influential. And this is just the high point of Chola architecture, the Bredeshwara temple.

And Aparna, can I jump in? You said this was medieval. We're getting into medieval India. But medieval is a kind of European concept, right? I mean, is there such a thing as medieval India? Does that make any sense? No, it doesn't. Because medieval India is different.

But I think how I would think of medieval is basically, I was thinking about this in European terms, where you're sort of bookending it between the 7th century to about the 14th, right? So, you know, birth of Islam to Renaissance, if that's how you understand medieval. So I don't like the term medieval although my degree was called um that i started in edinburgh was called art in the global middle ages and we spent time just sort of pulling that apart saying what is the middle age um i'm also teaching a class next week on medieval india and we're and that's almost early modern um you know, the period I'm going into.

So no, no, no to medieval. But what happens a little bit later, also between 1000 to 1400 CE, is that a capital, a great kingdom is being consolidated. And that is the Vijayanagara kingdom and its capital, Hampi, is founded in about 1343. Hampi is currently in the middle of nowhere. You can't take a direct flight to Hampi. It's either a long train ride, bus ride, or you drive down for hours. And the reason why it is where it is, is because it also stands on an ancient site that has cultural significance and previous religious significance. So Hampi is called, and the regions around Hampi were called Kishkindha, which has a Ramayana reference. But here you have massive temples, you have palaces that are built, you've got these huge, you know, stone structures and chariot sort of structures and temple chariot structures, I mean. And, Apana, you've mentioned it because I said I wanted it, basically. You wanted it, yes.

I was very bullying about this. Tom, that's shocking. I know it is. You invite somebody on and then you toss them around and tell them what to do. I politely suggested. Was it polite? Which is fine. Was it polite, Afana?

It was very polite. So it became 5B at 5B. It's such an amazing place. So I saw it. I must have been 18 when I saw it. And I haven't been back since. But I still remember it vividly as one of the most extraordinary places I've ever been. And certainly when I went there, it was the most extraordinary place I've ever been.

And it is so enormous. And I think I seem to remember it was people saying that it was the largest city in the world outside China, perhaps at that time. And as you say, it's in the middle of nowhere. It's astonishing. And it has this gorgeous river, the Tungabhadra. So, you know, it's in a basin

and it was meant to impress. And they knew what they were doing with this sort of building of this grand city. And Vijayanagara is probably also the empire, you know, was was massive, had great influences. And when the Vijayanagara empire sort of collapsed, it gave rise in that space. The Bahamanids took over and you had the entry of the large Muslim empire that also had links to Iran and Central Asia. So brought about a completely different visual language and architectural style. And what happened to the city then?

If it's in the middle of nowhere, is it just going to decline or do people loot it or what happens so it goes into decline i think people i i think yes a bit of looting would happen because these are also when you have temples they're also repositories of great wealth right so you've got people um who move away and i think it just sort of gets forgotten at some point because you have different building projects, capital shift, people move to where there's trade and commerce, right? So the seat of power is where you will have more people come in and stay. And so when that falls, it's the whole of India then under Muslim rule? Are there any

Hindu kingdoms left? But they're different. So there are different empires. The Bahamanids never quite take over. They don't go sort of the north of the Vindhyas. So they stick to the Deccan. But are there any independent Hindu kingdoms left? Yes, of course, there will be independent kingdoms and there will be kings who are fighting. Varangal would be one. So you do have them in pockets. And we're still, it's such a massive country, right? Such a, you know, so nobody really ever until, and not even, you know, not even English colonisation, takes over completely.

Okay, so these great medieval Hindu kingdoms collapse. Yes, they collapse. With exceptions, India is now largely Muslim ruled. Yes. And we're going into the early modern period. So what do we have at number six? We're now travelling further north. So number six is perhaps one of the most beautiful sites and a very interesting and contested site, too. You've heard of this, you know, slightly tall building called the Qutub Minar, which basically is is a large.

It's a tower of victory as it were and it's a 12th century complex called the Kutub Minar complex in the heart of Delhi now in the heart of Delhi but in one of the old cities of Delhi called Mehroli and it's a set of very interesting sites so 12th century complex built by the sultanates by the sultanate. And you've got a fourth or fifth century pillar. You've got the Qutub Minar itself, which was built around 1192. The pillar is made of iron, isn't it? The pillar is made of iron. And which is kind of very unusual at the time, a whole pillar of iron.

No, not really, because you had several of these sort of monolithic or iron pillars, and they were experimenting, and they were putting them around the country. So Ashokan pillars were everywhere. Most of them were stone. I don't think that this was an exception in that sense. But to pick up on Tom's earlier point about the previous site, they must be incredibly rich to be building pillars, to have tons of iron to be building pillars to i mean have tons of iron to be building they're mining and i also suppose that um they would reuse a lot of this as time goes on right but they're definitely rich aren't they you mean we're a rich country yes poor people yes so so tell us more tell us more about the kutub Minar. So you've got, and the reason why I've

picked the Qutub Minar is not because it's such a fantastic structure with, you know, beautiful calligraphic panels and the use of sandstone and all of that. Why I've picked this is because it's got a set of very interesting structures around it. So you've got the iron pillar, which is for the 5th century of the Qutub Minar itself. You've got the iron pillar, which is for the 5th century, you've got the Qutub Minar itself, you've got the tomb of Iltutmish and Sultan Iltutmish died in 1235. You have the Alaya Minar and Darwaza from 1311. So the Qutub Minar mosque that gets built uses spolia, right? So they... So stuff nicked from other temples and things. Stuff nicked from Jain temples, Hindu temples.

Now, what's important about the way spolia is used is that it's a very deliberate articulation of power and authority over other religions too. So it's not as simple as saying, hey, I've got this column, I'm going to just use it. But it also, you know, when you invert these things, so spolia is not innocent, is what I'm saying. Yeah, absolutely. I think that the Qutub Minar complex becomes very important and interesting. as iconoclasts and as people who would ruin temple sites just to build their own, is sort of, these sites like these give the whole iconoclasm and iconoclasts idea visual and material proof. Because what has happened is that in the past, everyone is iconoclastic, right? Buddhist cave sites get usurped by Hindu cave sites,

but you don't leave as much visual evidence or that evidence is lost indeed over centuries. But with a lot of Islamic rulers, especially around the 12th century, you have proof that temples were being brought down to create mosques. And I think that the whole narrative of iconoclastic Islam is reiterated constantly because of these very highly visible architectural patterns. So, number seven, what have we got? Number seven is we're now sort of inching closer to the early modern and we have another very important dynasty and that are the Grand Mughals who would never call themselves the Mughals

of course because they think of Mughals as Ankhut, they would think of themselves as Timurid princes but we know them all as the Mughals and Mughals come to India with the young Prince Babar who wants to conquer.

And he's sort of getting thrown out of Central Asia, has to fight for his own land, and decides to head east to India. And one of the first things he does when he captures Kabul in Afghanistan is that he sets up a garden. He creates his own garden. This is a Persian thing, isn't it? The walled garden. It's a Persian idea. Yeah. It's a Persian idea that he brings in. And then his successors also illustrate the fact that Babur is building a garden. Babur was quite garden crazy. I mean, he had a green thumb. He liked his gardens. He missed fruits of Central Asia and cried, which I find that quite endearing about him because he misses his gardens he missed fruits of central asia and cried which i i find that quite endearing about him because he misses his home and he's trying to create a new home for

himself um whether you know other people liked or not um but i like the fact that one of the first things that you would build in the subcontinent and to make it your own is a garden so it's a romantic idea yeah so Yeah. So he founds the dynasty that in the long run the most famous monument is the Taj Mahal. Perhaps we should just very fleetingly... He's desperate to talk about the Taj Mahal. Well, just very fleetingly mention it because

that's... Yes. Well, yes, he founds the Mughal dynasty that builds the Taj Mahal, which is quite a lovely sight, it is. It's not bad, is it? I mean, it's not bad. It's not bad at all, no. But to Mughal architecture, Mughal architecture. Yes, Mughal architecture is great.

But I'll tell you my reservations about the Taj and the way we see it now is that the English came in and flattened all these gardens and gave us lawns there. So that's what I was going to ask, was that I remember going and the guide saying it was much more beautiful before the British came. There you go. Because gardens themselves were designed, and I think that, and which brings us back to Bhagavad Gita and fidelity,

is that you could never have seen the Taj in its entirety. You always got glimpses of it. And while you walk through, there were trees that had flowers and fragrances and fruits. So it was a multi-sensorial experience. And it's very important to also realize that tombs and gardens are not just for commemoration, but they're also a way of keeping land under control. So when you create a large tomb garden, it also means that your family can hold on to the land like that.

You know, more than just, it's not only just the architecture. But I also think that the Taj Mahal, you know, across from the river, if you sort of moved up river a little bit, it was a tomb of Idmat Ad tomb of it was a tomb of that daughter builds um which is just fabulous and and you know the work uh it's it's beautiful all of it is yeah it's the inlay and the marble and the sandstone so yes it's quite it's quite romantic. I like the way that we have actually cleverly smuggled in the Taj Mahal.

That was shameless, Tom. So that was shameless. So on to eight now. We're closing in. We're on to eight. And it's a good thing that we've spoken about the Taj Mahal because guess whom did the land belong to? It belonged to the Amber Jaipur rulers.

So the site for the Taj Mahal was bought from the rulers of the house of Amber, which later becomes Jaipur rulers. So the site for the Taj Mahal was bought from the rulers of the House of Amber, which later becomes Jaipur. And I'm dragging us, kicking and screaming, into the 18th century, where in 1727, the grand city of Jaipur is being built.

So we're in Rajasthan and Dominic will know this because Udaipur is also in Rajasthan and Udaipur is in Octopussy. It is. Go on, tell your story.ipur is in Octopussy. It is. Go on, tell your story. Tell your story. I know what you're doing.

Didn't you bowl out the Maharaja? No, I'm not mentioning it. I'm not mentioning it. In fact, I bowled the crown prince of Udaipur out. Yeah. Middle stump. I'm not going to tell that story. I'm distracting from a partner who's telling us about...

Yes, but you do know that if you can beat them at polo,'s the story to tell okay i've never played polo tom tom you've never seen someone a horse i mean no that's a very different uh very very different story we're galloping we've got to be running out of time here we're talking about me on a horse so stop dominic stop misbehaving apana so what we've got what we've got is got is that in the early decades of the 18th century, you have the great Mughal Empire that begins to crumble because Aurangzeb is dead. In the Mughal court, you've got Rajput rulers at very high positions and everyone sort of knows that there is a lacuna in power.

And what Savaiya Jaisingh II, who's a very high ranking official, what he does is that he abates on the wrong person to take over after the death of Aurangzeb, but also realizes that this is his chance to move into a kingdom of his own and to move from being a high ranking courtier to being a Maharaja of his own. He founds Jaipur in 1727 and designs it he is also an astronomer a mathematician so which is why you've got an observatory and Jaipur as a city is the world city is very cleverly designed in grids and he invites people to live in Jaipur it's an architectural marvel it's it has this unified facade of sand of of terracotta and um and it's plastered so it

you know which is why it's called the pink city um so it looks a certain way it's meant to wow it's meant to get when you go into for you to realize this is a very prosperous capital it's not a traditional uh capital city that's heavily fortified but it has axes um where the the king's palace is at the center right next to the the temple of govind devji who's the presiding deity and a form of krishna so it it's a city that works on several layers of religion of kingship of commerce and of prosperity and that's it stays. Why is it not heavily fortified, given that this is quite, correct me if I'm wrong, but this is quite an anarchic period in Indian history, kind of crumbling empires and competing kingdoms

and so on. So why wouldn't they fortify it? Well, they're making friends with the English. They have an army of their own. And it is a walled city, so you have gates that they can seal shut. But it doesn't have, and it has forts nearby. The location of Jaipur is also such that it has mountains, there are ugly ranges that surround it, but it's not, you know, and it is just off a highway, of a very important, prosperous trade route between Agra and Ajmer.

So it is a city that is meant to be prosperous. Why would you not fortify it? Because you dealt with things diplomatically. Jaipur rulers always sort of knew which way their bread was going to be buttered. So they were very, you know, they were high ranking officials. When the Mughals were high ranking officials with um when the muhals were powerful um they made friends with the english quite quickly they had a resident in um who lived in jaipur they also in fact offered their army to um to the english at um some point and supported the the english side when the rebellion first happened okay so so you you you talk about that

you talk about the english the british uh we we have two two places left on your your top 10 do the british feature are they number nine do they i think we have to talk about that at some point i was you know and i think that an interesting point for us to talk about the intervention and especially because we're talking about architecture, is that we think about the formation of a new style of architecture, which is called the Indo-Saracenic style, which we've got lots to thank Samuel Swinton Jacob, who also was in Jaipur for a long time. It's an amalgamation of various Indic elements and European taste. Right. So it's basically England meets India for architecture. And one of the most beautiful pieces of that is the Gateway of India, which is in Mumbai. And it faces west and it's sort of the gateway to the east. Because when George V came with his concert for the Delhi Darbar in 1911,

they landed at Apolobandar and this gateway was then created, was constructed a few years later to commemorate that. So it's kind of like a triumphal arch, is it? It is sort of. But it's also where we said goodbye to the last of the colonisers and put them on a ship. And that's where ceremonially England left India. So that's the point. But we can't only talk about British intervention in the 20th century without talking about the partition. So when India and Pakistan become separate countries. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh in 1947.

So when we think about the partition, we always sort of think about the partition towards the West. So India and Pakistan, we frequently forget that there was an equally tumultuous time for when Bangladesh, which is at that time East Pakistan. So there was a country that was separated with a large landmass between it. And then Bangladesh also had its own independence.

So India being part of the Indian subcontinent, getting partitioned into Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. This was such a massive tragedy that we can't quite think of a monument. In fact, it was only in 2015 that the Partition Museum was set up in Amritsar that started to gather artifacts and oral histories. It was the largest migration that happened in the history of humanity.

Several thousand people died. I don't think that this country or any of these three countries have really addressed the trauma and have gotten over the trauma of partition. It has been 75 years. So I'd like to think about a small story called Tabatek Singh, which was written by Sadat Hassan Manto, where India and Pakistan has been, you know, the partition has happened and now they're trying to figure out what happens to the lunatics so there are two there's an asylum for the mentally challenged the lunatics and one of

them wants to go back to toba teksing which is where his ancestral land was and no one could really figure out whether it was in india or was it in pakistan and it's a very touching story of a fictitious village in the middle of you know that is caught between these two countries getting so brutally sliced up without much thought um and on that simple note i think i think the only way we can deal with partition and to think about that is perhaps through literature until we get to a point where we can create a monument for it which i hope will happen where would where would such a monument be that's an interesting question will happen. Where would such a monument be? That's an interesting question.

So, you know, where would you put the monument? On the partition line? It's a very long line. The one between India and Pakistan has a barbed wire throughout. There is one entry point between the two, which is called the Vaga border, and they have ceremonial armies of both sides that have these tattoos. Yes, the guards are kind of very fancily dressed, aren't they?

Yes. Kind of march up to each other. Exactly. And I think that the atmosphere is us versus them, which is not how this needs to be, because ultimately we have more in common with each other than differences. needs to be because ultimately we have more in common with each other than um then yeah than differences and i think politics has really sort of stepped in um where would this be and and

and and of course also on the on the eastern end where bangladesh was was such is is still is such an important and integral part of culture of Bengal. So the final countdown, number 10. Number 10 is a building that no longer stands. Oh, that's radical. Well, there you go. And I think that it sort of tells us the story of a very fast changing India. And I'd like to think about the Hall of Nations and the Nehru Pavilion, which was built in 1972

in New Delhi again at Pragati Maidan as an exhibition space. It was the high point of brutalist architecture and built by an architect called Raj Rawal, who saw his building getting built, celebrated, won awards and then destroyed in front of him. That must have been depressing. I think it took it rather, I mean, it was anger inducing.

I think it was infuriating rather than depressing because nobody wanted the building to go. And essentially what they're doing is that they flattened Pragati Maidan out to create these new modern edifices and conference centers with air conditioning, which is also a sub. It basically takes on Nehruvian ideas and philosophy of what the Indian nation needs to be. And current political leaders want to rewrite history and erase it in a very specific way. So Hall of Nations is the beginning of a large-scale demolition and destruction of what secular forward-thinking free and liberal India used to be. Gosh I'm looking at the building now I'm looking at picture online it's an amazing looking building as you say it's a kind of it's a it's a it's a classic kind of post-war brutalist sort of modernist building and yet well i mean that's being very harsh tom it doesn't look like a car

park i just ignored tom holland um uh and and it was demolished what 2017 2018 or something 2017 and this was still being challenged in court and overnight they brought it down um so and and is this part of a sort of backlash against yeah against that image of a of a kind of democratic secular um yes of of of narrow in india essentially because um indira gandhi took great interest in when this building was being built in 72. It is a backlash against a progressive secular India and it escalates greatly. So I have to talk about this because Kaivan Mehta who's an architectural historian and writer and a friend of mine basically says that you can sum up the you can bookend the story of modern Indian architecture between two demolitions,

one of Babri Masjid in 92 and then Holocaust in 27. So just tell us about that one, because that is, I mean, really important and a very contested site. It is a contested site. So Babar, whose garden we discussed, also allegedly built a mosque on an old temple site, which is not unheard of. I mean, you would do people have have done this, but apparently this was the site that was the birthplace of the god Ram from the Ramayana, which is ultimately a story and an important religious figure. And in 92, a Hindu right wing organization gathered several thousand people and they went off to Ayodhya where they believe that that was where Ram was born and demolished this temple. And I think that after 92, India really changed.

And the idea of secular india was challenged and we're seeing um so many years later we're seeing the uh the result of it and the prime minister narendra modi laid the foundation stone of a new temple to rama on the site what was it two years ago i think it was two years was it last year was it last year i think actually no I think it was two years ago. Was it last year? No, I think it was two years. It had to be before. I think it was two years ago. And he's a modest man because he's also named the largest cricket stadium in the world is named after him.

There's a story there, isn't there, Tom? There is a story. How do you know? So England were playing India in the, I think think in was it january or february test match there in it's in amitabad and uh and and i said i tweeted um you know very modest of of the prime minister to have a the world's largest cricket stadium named after him and it got picked up by various um angry supporters of narendra modi who thought that i was spider-man so they they launched they launched a boycott of marvel films

a single throwaway tweet and i destroyed marvel films you see uh apana tom spends a lot of time complaining that how hard done by he is that he has the same name as Tom Holland, the real Tom Holland. But imagine being the real Tom Holland and living in fear that this elderly historian is going to get you cancelled and destroy your film career at any moment. Tom with great power comes great responsibility. You know what the great thing is? He never hears that.

No one ever tells him that. Well, it was a shock to realize that i'd i'd uh yeah i basically destroyed the publicity program for the new spider-man film um as a batman fan i don't mind you just stay away from bruce wayne exactly i'm not going to mention that. Apana, that was fabulous. I mean, what a sweep. So all the way from Mahenja Daro, all the way up to modern Delhi. Yeah, I don't think we've done 2,500 years or more, probably longer.

There's so much I've left out. There's so much we've left out. We haven't gone to Northeast. We haven't spoken about the Himalayan kingdoms. I forgot to say lots of things that I'd made notes about because it's brilliant here the clock ticking it was absolutely fantastic i mean i didn't think it was possible to do a history of india through 10 buildings in a in just with just over an hour um but it's a challenge that you've triumphantly passed so thank youiest congratulations and many, many thanks. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you. So that concludes the entire history of India. We will see you on The Rest is History next time for more historical meanderings. Goodbye. Bye-bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. That's restishistorypod.com.