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The Buddha: Waking India Up

Professor Sunil Khilnani looks at the life of the Buddha and at how he has become an inspiration to modern Indians fighting against the caste system.

Over the course of 50 episodes, Sunil Khilnani, director of the King's India Institute in London, takes listeners on a whirlwind journey from ancient India to the 21st century through the prism of the life stories of 50 remarkable individuals. He will also explore their surprising afterlives, which illuminate both the astonishments and urgent conflicts of India today. He begins with the Buddha, exploring the story of his life and how he has been reinvented in modern India by those who oppose the caste system. "Buddha's solution to suffering lay in the individual mind. But he was also sketching a new form of society," says Professor Khilnani. "He was a moral meritocrat, and to an extent a social one too."
Produced by Mark Savage
Listeners can catch up with the series and see the list of remarkable Indians featured on the Radio 4 website.

Available now

15 minutes

Last on

Tue 19 Jan 2016 02:15
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4 Extra

More episodes

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Mahavira: Soldier of Nonviolence

See all episodes from Incarnations: India in 50 Lives

  • Can you tell the difference between the insight of Yoda and the insight of the Buddha?

  • Maths expressed as poetry

    Aryabhata is the 5th century Sanskrit mathematician who wrote his theories in verse.

  • A look at the visual representations of the Buddha which emerged from the 1st century AD.

  • A guide to decoding the hand gestures in statues and images of the Buddha.

Broadcasts

  • Mon 11 May 2015 13:45
    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
  • Mon 18 Jan 2016 14:15
    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4 Extra
  • Tue 19 Jan 2016 02:15
    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4 Extra

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Remarkable individuals who shaped India, and sometimes the world.

Remarkable individuals who shaped India, and sometimes the world.

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