Here were are in the Hotung Gallery off The British Museum
surrounded by these incredible images and sculptures from ancient India
and all the stories that are connected to them
These stories, these millennia old myths and folklore
contained almost the entire intellectual stock of the age
They taught the philosophies, the sciences
even the languages were taught through these stories
And these stories were then further visualised and translated
into images like these
Take for instance this one here of Mithra
Mithra the sun god, Mithra also known as the eternal friend
bright, blazing, glorious Mithra
bringer of daylight and energy, giver of life
welcomed, worshipped, adored by everyone who saw him every morning
Everyone that is, except his wife Sanjana
Poor Sanjana had had a very hard life with Mithra
She had spent her entire married life
squinting up at Mithra, looking up at him like this
because the light that was so bright
This had caused not only wrinkles to appear just around there
but also had given her the most awful headaches
Sanjana decides she's had enough, she's going to run away
But she is married to the sun himself
his light reaches everywhere
he would just find her and bring her back
However if she can get another woman to swap places with her
the way she figure it Mithra is so cocooned in his own light
he's so blinded by his own blaze
he would never notice that there was a different woman living with him
Chia, the goddess of shadows agrees to swap places with Sanjana
Mithra had absolutely no idea for years and years
that he was living with the wrong woman
to give him his due however
the day that he found out that his wife Sanjana was missing
Mithra decides to go out and look for her and bring her back
There was just one problem
Sajana had got used to life free of headaches
she liked living in the little quiet leafy glade
She wouldn't go back
Mithra wouldn't return to the heavens without her
The entire Earth was plunged into darkness
Would this be the end?
Happily, Sanjana's father who is also the heaven's architect
comes to the rescue
He offered to chop off one eighth of the sun's energy
This would make the light a little bit easier to bear
However what do you do with this amazing energy?
It was too powerful to contain
it was impossible to destroy
Once again there's a little bit of panic
once again Sanjana's father the architect of the heavens
comes to the rescue
He took all this energy that belonged to the sun
and from this he created weapons for all the gods
Krishna's discus
Shiva's trident
even Dulga's swords
All was well in the heavens
But here on Earth hat had been complete panic
Perhaps the story is a result of a prolonged eclipse
or a similar phenomena
The worshippers of Mithra had lost him once
they were not going to lose him again
So the worshippers and the followers of the Sun god
decide to follow in the path of the sun
travelling westwards in an effort to keep up with the great life-giver
The cult of Mithra or rather Mithras
as he came to be known in the Western world
arrived in Persia and from here travelled on to ancient Rome
In Rome Mithras in his role as the eternal friend, as the light-giver
became one of the most important gods of the Roman Pantheon
Eventually of course Mithras was to end up right here
in a temple of his own, in a little street in the city of London
brought here by the Roman soldiers to the ancient Britons
and his was a cult that was very popular and was to last for many many years
But in the meantime if you were to take a short walk from India to Rome
or rather from the Indian galleries to the Roman galleries
right here in the British Museum
you could actually see an image of the Roman Mithras
as he slays a demon bull
in his role as friend god to protect the people
Every room in the museum is filled with hundreds of stories
stories about people, their lives, their imaginations
across the world and even across time
all you have to do is step in listen to the stories