Historian Michael Wood travels across the Indian subcontinent to trace its history from the first human migrations out of Africa to the present day, across six episodes made for PBS and the BBC. He walks the ruins of the Indus Valley cities, follows the spread of Sanskrit and early Hindu thought, and stops at Sarnath, where the Buddha gave his first sermon. The series tracks the rise and fall of empires, the Mauryan king Ashoka's turn from conquest to Buddhist rule, the Mughal courts of Akbar and Shah Jahan, and the arrival of European traders who became colonial rulers. Wood interviews historians and archaeologists on location, reads from surviving inscriptions and court chronicles, and connects ancient sites to the languages, religions, and customs still practiced in India today. The series treats India not as a single story but as a layered civilization built from repeated waves of migration, conquest, and invention, arguing that its deep past explains why it looks the way it does now.