Echoes Of India: A History Podcast

By IVM Podcasts

Arts History

What's Echoes Of India: A History Podcast about?

Echoes of India is the story of India like you've never heard it before. Host Anirudh Kanisetti takes you on a journey through its wonders, from the Greek art of Afghanistan  to the thriving ports of Tamil Nadu. Along the way, monks debate, queens boast, and armies roar. From philosophy to politics to economics, the past comes back to life - noisy, breathing, as thriving as the Indian subcontinent is today.

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LAST EPISODE

Beloved of the Gods: Ashoka...

09.20.2021

In the Season 3 Finale, we explore South Asia at the time of its most famous ancient figure: Ashoka Maurya, ruler of the largest empire seen in the subcontinent to that point. Anirudh meets a rude South Indian visiting one ...

Echoes Of India: A History Podcast episodes:

09.20.2021 Beloved of the Gods: Ashoka Maurya in His Time and Ours In the Season 3 Finale, we explore South Asia at the time of its most famous ancient figure: Ashoka Maurya, ruler of the largest empire seen in the subcontinent to that point. Anirudh meets a rude South Indian visiting one ...
09.13.2021 The Emperor is Naked: How History Forgot the Ajivikas and Remembered the Mauryas The forgotten religion of the Ajivikas can tell us a great deal about the religions and empires of the early Gangetic Plains. Anirudh visits the medieval Jain site of Shravanabelagola near Bangalore, recounts the story of the mysterious Ajivika teacher ...
09.06.2021 Alexander the Brute: Building Empires in the Ancient World The invasion of Alexander III of Macedon is a landmark event in South Asian history. Join Anirudh as he explores the conqueror's camp, meets an Indian mercenary who served in Alexander's campaigns, and uncovers the mystery of the fall of ...
08.30.2021 Thrones of Blood: Ajatashatru's Wars and the First Buddhist Council How did the kingdom of Magadha lay the foundations for India's first empire? And how did the successors of Siddhartha Gautama establish the tradition now known as Buddhism? Episode 7 brings us to the early city of Rajagaha, where we ...
08.23.2021 The Great Extinguishing: Memories of the Death of Buddha and the Rise of Magadha Death inevitably comes to us all. But how do memories of the dead shape our world? Witness the last months and hours of Siddhartha Gautama as he travels across the Gangetic Plains desperately trying to protect his legacy - and ...
08.16.2021 So I Have Heard From the Blessed One: Anirudh Speaks to the Buddha What might Siddhartha Gotama, the Buddha, have actually thought of himself? Did he genuinely believe in what he preached? How do we, sitting in the 21st century, grapple with his complexities and flaws? Anirudh travels back through time to talk ...
08.09.2021 Nun of Your Business: Women, Society, and the Sangha in Early Buddhism Episode 4 of Echoes of India brings us to witness the burgeoning power of the Buddhist Sangha in the early Gangetic Plains. How did Siddhartha Gotama, the Buddha, deal with the struggle of becoming a leader of thousands? How did ...
08.02.2021 Buddha the Prophet: The Republics, Slaves and Ethics of Early India In Episode 3 of Echoes of India, we'll begin to follow the extraordinary career of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. How did one person, emerging from the forests in the 5th century BCE, become a prophet, leading thousands of people in ...
07.26.2021 Gargi's Fires: Gender, Caste, Rebirth, and the Metaphysics of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 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. How did some of the oldest systematic ideas about the universe ...
07.19.2021 Buddha Goes to Sarnath: How Cities and Civilisations are Born The Season 3 premiere for Echoes of India returns us to the vibrant world of ancient India. We'll meet the strange mix of peoples who together made the early cities of the Gangetic Plains, and set the stage for the ...
05.29.2019 Harsha's Laughter 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 in touch with Anirudh ...
05.22.2019 End of an Era 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 ...
05.15.2019 A Day in Ancient Ujjain 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, ...
05.08.2019 When The Huns Invaded India 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 ...
05.01.2019 A Game of Thrones and Temples 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 ...
04.24.2019 A Chinese Monk in Ancient India 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 ...
04.17.2019 A Forgotten Queen 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 at https://www.anirudhkanisetti.com/home/episode-16 ...
04.10.2019 Vishnu on Earth 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 ...
04.03.2019 Language of the Gods 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 ...
03.27.2019 King Of Kings 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 ...
02.06.2019 Season Finale: Rise and Fall 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 ...
01.30.2019 Maitreya the Messiah 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 ...
01.23.2019 A Buddhist Shahenshah 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 ...
01.16.2019 Kushana, Son of God 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 ...
01.09.2019 The Lost City of the Tamils 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 ...
01.02.2019 A South Indian Buddha 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 ...
12.24.2018 The War of the Words 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. ...
12.17.2018 The Shadow of Andhra's Stupas 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 ...
12.10.2018 An Indian Lady in Ancient Rome 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 ...
12.03.2018 The Glory of a Deccan Queen 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 ...
11.26.2018 Buddha Goes to Afghanistan 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 ...
11.19.2018 The Greeks Who Became Indians 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 ...
11.13.2018 Introduction 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 ...