Genius of the Ancient World: Buddha
01:30 am - 02:30 am, Monday, April 20 on BBC Four (9)
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About this Broadcast
Buddha
Season 1, Episode 1
Historian Bettany Hughes investigates the ideas of ancient philosophers, starting with the Indian nobleman Siddhartha Gautama, more popularly known as Buddha. Thought to have been lived and tought between the sixth and fourth centuries BC, the sage and holy man inspired a diverse belief system that influences the lives of millions of people to this day. She travels to India, where the Buddha experienced the challenging ideas and extreme methods of wandering 'truth seekers', after he had abandoned his family and homeland in the Himalayas to embark on his philosophical quest to find a solution to human suffering
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Did You Know..
Bettany Hughes
(Presenter)
Best Known For:
Presenting documentaries on lost civilisations
Early-life:
Bettany, born in 1968, grew up in West London with her brother the cricketer Simon Hughes. Her parents were in the theatre: she learnt early the importance and delight of sharing thoughts and ideas with a wider public. Bettany won a scholarship to read Ancient and Modern History at Oxford University and then continued her post-graduate research while traveling through the Balkans and Asia Minor.
Career:
Hughes lectures throughout the world. She has been invited to universities in the US, Australia, Germany, Turkey and Holland to speak on subjects as diverse as Helen of Troy and the origins of female 'Sophia' to concepts of Time in the Islamic world. She considers her work in the lecture hall and seminar room amongst the most important, and rewarding she does. She has written and presented a number of documentaries for TV including When The Moors Ruled Europe, Helen of Troy and The Spartans for Channel 4. Her Ancient World series was a global smash.
Quote:
'Over thirty years ago I sat and watched a programme on British television about Tutankhamen. I still remember the frisson - the realisation that the stories I'd heard; of boy-kings dripping in gold; of hidden burial chambers and court intrigue could, sometimes, be true.'
Trivia:
In 2014, Hughes was made a distinguished friend of the University of Oxford.
Rob Cowling
(Series producer)
Mike Smith
(Executive producer)
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