An Empire of Ideas: How Ancient India Transformed the World, with William Dalrymple

Video Description

For about a millennium and a half, between 250 BC and A.D. 1200, India was a confident exporter of its own diverse civilizations, creating an empire of ideas, to a world that was a willing and eager recipient of a startlingly comprehensive mass transfer of Indian soft power. From religion such as Buddhism to mathematics that introduced the idea of zero, infinity, algebra, trigonometry to astronomy that proposed a spherical earth rotating on its own axis and trade, that Pliny the Elder complained drained the wealth of Rome into Indian pockets, Indian ideas infected the world. In The Golden Road, William Dalrymple, draws on a lifetime of scholarship to give a name to the spread of Indian ideas that transformed the world. From the largest Hindu temple in the world at Angkor Wat to the Buddhism of China, from the trade that helped fund the Roman Empire, to the creation of the numerals we use today, Dalrymple shares the soaring history of how India transformed the culture and technology of the ancient world, and in doing so, the world today as we know it. Dalrymple photo by Debbie Mitra Singh; courtesy the publisher. September 22, 2025 Speakers William Dalrymple CBE, Historian; Author Kalidip Choudhury Ph.D., Chair, Asia-Pacific Affairs Member-led Forum, Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California—Moderator Commonwealth Club World Affairs is a public forum. Any views expressed in our programs are those of the speakers and not of Commonwealth Club World Affairs.