Echoes Of India: A History Podcast

The forgotten religion of the Ajivikas can tell us a great deal about the religions and empires of the early Gangetic Plains.

The invasion of Alexander III of Macedon is a landmark event in South Asian history.

How did the kingdom of Magadha lay the foundations for India's first empire?

Death inevitably comes to us all. But how do memories of the dead shape our world

What might Siddhartha Gotama, the Buddha, have actually thought of himself?

Witness the burgeoning power of the Buddhist Sangha in the early Gangetic Plains

In Episode 3 of Echoes of India, we'll begin to follow the extraordinary career of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha.

The Episode 2 of Echoes of India brings us to the 8th century BCE, where we will see the origins of many of the ideas that shape India today.

The Season 3 premiere for Echoes of India returns us to the vibrant world of ancient India.

What happened in India after the fall of the Gupta Empire? Some of the most incredible states and people in the subcontinent's history emerged. This is their story. Notes and sources are at https://www.anirudhkanisetti.com/home/episode-22 Or get...

This is the story of the Hun who tried to be an Indian emperor, and a story of the human costs of war: a story of grief, destruction, and of creation and inspiration against all odds. Notes and sources are...

What was life in an ancient Indian city like? What were its sights and smells, and what kind of eccentric characters would it have been home to? Join us on a walk through Ujjain, one of South Asia's oldest cities, to find out. Notes and sources are...

In the 5th century, two of the ancient world's superpowers - Rome and India - were threatened by massive migrations of nomadic peoples. But while the Western Roman Empire collapsed, the Gupta Empire managed to defeat them. How? The answer lies in the...

The same century that saw the collapse of the Western Roman Empire also saw the rise of the great temple-building movements that transformed India's society and economy - but these played out in a deadly family drama that would lead to the end of the...

How did South Asian Buddhism catch on in China? How did the interaction between South and East Asia shape the intellectual and economic evolution of Eurasia? Luckily for us, in the early 400s CE, the remarkable 60-year old Chinese monk Faxian actually...

The 5th century Queen Prabhavati-Gupta, daughter and granddaughter of kings, mother and grandmother of Queens, was one of the most remarkable women in Indian history. This is the story of her dramatic, extraordinary life. Notes and sources are...

This is the story of the spectacular Gupta astro-religio-political node of Udayagiri, where, in the 5th century CE, a new idea of Indian kingship was born. Here, through a series of brilliant innovations, the God of Time was experienced and identified...

How did Sanskrit become a language of power and knowledge, patronized by everyone from kings to monks through half of Asia for a thousand years? This is the story of how the Guptas used its splendid syllables to turn language itself into masterful...

The Season 2 premiere of Echoes of India begins with the rise of the Himalaya mountains and ends with the victorious campaigns of the mighty North Indian ruler Samudra-Gupta, as Sanskrit courtly culture flourishes and war breaks out across the...

The Season 1 Finale of Echoes of India is a rollercoaster ride through 600 years of Indian history, of the rise and fall of empires and ideas until the eve of the Gupta Empire in 300 CE. From art to religion to language, the finale sets the stage for...

At the same time that Christianity and other savior cults emerged in West Asia, ancient India had its own Buddhist savior. This was Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future. This is his story, a story of life in ancient India's most cosmopolitan region....

A Central Asian king revered by Indians as the Second Ashoka? This is the story of the ruthless conqueror Kanishka, who led the Kushan Empire to its apogee, and ruled over most of North India - but also built the world's most splendid Buddhist stupa....

This is the story of the rise of the Kushan Empire: the most powerful South Asian state since the fall of the Mauryan Empire. Episode 9 of Echoes of India brings to life the remarkable religious syncretism of one of the ancient world's most globalized...

This is the story of the jewel of ancient South India: the great Tamil trading city of Puhar. Episode 8 of Echoes of India brings to life a city sung about in poetry for thousands of years, at a time when one of the most important elements of Indian...

How did Buddhism catch on in South India? Episode 7 of Echoes of India explores the life of the Andhra teacher Nagarjuna, called a "Second Buddha", his fascinating philosophy of "zeroness", and the ancient South Indian dynasty who built Roman-style...

How did languages shape the way ancient Indians thought and behaved? Episode 6 of Echoes of India recounts the dramatic evolution of Sanskrit and Prakrit as widely-spoken languages of power and culture, in a time of political and cultural innovation....

This is the story of how South India's grandest Buddhist monument was built: the story of a time when Buddhism dominated the Indian subcontinent, and South Indian Buddhism reached out to shape the art and religion of millions. Episode 5 of Echoes of...

1900 years after she was carved, an Indian ivory statuette was uncovered in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. How did she come there, and how much had the world changed since the eruption of Vesuvius buried her? This is her story: a story of the...

History is written by kings. What if a queen could tell us her story? In this episode, the rush of Central Asian nomads into India is halted by the first true empire based in the Deccan. But it would not be the last. And the most remarkable aspect of...

Sometimes, the most beautiful art is paid for by the most brutal of conquerors. This is the story of how ancient India's most remarkably globalised art was born. In this episode, the tale of Gandhara continues to unfold as the Indo-Greeks are uprooted...

Most histories of post-Vedic India start with Alexander the Great and then start with the story of North India under the Mauryas. But this story stays with Alexander's army. This episode explores the North-West of the Indian subcontinent, where South...

Echoes is a history podcast like no other. It's by Indians, about Indians, for Indians: A 700-year journey from the invasion of Alexander to the Gupta Empire, from the sublime Greek art of Gandhara to the pearl-white Buddhist stupas of Andhra to the...