This is the first of a series of lectures given by the French-Indian historian Michel Danino covering recent findings in ancient Indian history that I will be showing in the weeks to come.
The Buddha’s teaching did not, of course, arise in a vacuum, but came within the development of a culture that had already had 1,000s of years of progress and change, and, because of that, to understand the teaching properly, it is important to know the background.
In this opening lecture, Danino looks at the ancient Indus Valley civilisation, and traces its development over a few thousand years, through different phases as it grew and declined. At its height the civilisation covered an astonishing 1 million sq. kms, and had made great technological advances.
He also looks at some of the work being done at present with modern technology to both re-examine some of the older findings, and investigate new ones. Unfortunately work in India is much hampered in this, and almost weekly sites are being lost, because of inadequate funding and protection of important sites.
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