Thank you for downloading this episode of a history of the world in a hundred objects

from BBC Radio 4. This week I'm looking at how almost 2,000 years ago many of the great religions of the world began reimagining the divine,

creating new human forms for the gods in order to focus the devotion of their followers.

Today I'm in northwest London, ineesden walking into what must be one of the most startling buildings in the capital.

It's the B-A-P-S-Riswman-Mandir, the Neesden Hindu temple, and it's a vast white building elaborately carved in India

by over 1500 craftsmen and then shipped to England. I've taken my shoes off and come inside to a large hall sumptuously decorated with sculptures of the Hindu gods carved in white kara marble. Images like these of Shiva,

Vishnu and the other Hindu gods strike us as timeless, but there was one particular moment when this way of seeing the gods began.

The visual language of Hinduism, just like Buddhism and Christianity, crystallizes somewhere

around the year 400, and this exuberant crowd of deities in Niesden

can be traced back pretty well directly to India's great Gupta empire of around

1600 years ago.

Every culture, every civilization had to have a golden age.

So the Gupta period was latched on to as the golden age. God is a person in your life and you're manifesting that in your life.

If the Queen was to come to your home, how would you treat her?

It's the best China, it's the best tea, etc.

Same thing with God, except this is a daily occurrence.

A history of the world in a hundred objects. Gold coin of Kumara Gupta the first.

From 5th century India. I'm here in the temple at four in the afternoon. I couldn't be here before because the

gods were asleep and what you're hearing now is the music played every day to waken them up.

They are woken up now, so I'm allowed to go and to engage with them.

It's rather obvious, I suppose, but to interact with a god in this intimate way,

we need to be able to recognize them.

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