Spirit of Asia — Season 1

In remote corners of Indonesia's vast archipelago of 13,000 islands, the Ancient Peoples ' maintain a belief in the spirits of nature. and the ghosts of their ancestors, whom they strive to please with sacrificial rights and the erection of megaliths - finely tapered obelisks, massive stone slabs, and enormous stone tables and chai seats for spirits of the dead.

Bali is a small volcanic island of extraordinary natural beauty lying due south of Borneo and a little to the east of Java. When, in the 16th century, its neighbours converted to Islam, Bali persisted with its own faith - a happy blend of Hinduism and spirit worship - and today it enjoys a life of pageantry and festive splendour unequalled anywhere in the world. In Bali, every day is a festival day somewhere in the island and it seems that everyone possesses creative ability. Above all, the Balinese have an outstanding talent for theatre. Their dance-dramas take place at night, when magical forces are at their most potent and when the spirits may be summoned to take part in a play by entering the body of an actor in trance. The dances are understood by everyone, but they are not simply entertainment. They are an offering to the gods, and often an exorcism. In ritual battles demons are cast out and the harmony of village life is restored.

Two thousand years ago, on the high, misty slopes of active volcanoes, the people of Java built shrines for the spirits of their ancestors. With the coming of Indian religions, they re-dedicated their shrines to Shiva, the Hindu God of Destruction.It was the beginning of a golden age of temple building which was to culminate in the creation of Borobudur, a giant man-made ' cosmic mountain ', a symbol in stone of the Buddhist path to enlightenment, then, as now, the largest monument in the southern hemisphere.Today 95 per cent of Javanese are Muslims, but the sultans' palaces continue to nurture the serene classical dances which once came from India, and their celebrated shadow puppets are still revered as ancestral spirits.

Among the cultural riches bestowed by India on the lands of South-East Asia, one particular work of art stands out ahead of all others. ' Ramayana ', an ancient story of heroism and villainy, was able to take so firm a hold on the imagination of the people, that it has maintained a universal popularity for 2,000 years.In India, the epic tale has survived in its entirety, and every year during the festival of Dussehra it is played out, scene by scene, from start to finish. In the holy city of Benares it uses the world's largest theatre - the fortress home of the Maharajah-and a series of stages distributed across the landscape. Giant effigies of the Demon King and his family are made from bamboo and paper. To mark the climax of the story, they are set alight, and disappear amid the sparks of firecrackers and a great cloud of smoke.

The great Irrawaddy river is the backbone of Burma. Rising high in the Himalayas, it flows south through 1,000 miles of jungle-clad mountains and and desert plains before entering the Bay of Bengal close to the capital, Rangoon.The Irrawaddy is Kiplmgs Roaa to Mandalay, where the fljin fishes play, an' the dawn comes up like thunder, outer China, 'crost the Bay '.On its banks lie the ruins of Pagan, once the centre of a mighty empire, where powerful kings tried to outdo their predecessors by building ever more magnificent temples.Today Burma is a socialist country, slowly emerging from a long period of near-isolation from the rest of the world. Perhaps because of that isolation, it has preserved traditions and an old-wor d charm and sophistication which are uniquely its own.

In the south of France, on the banks of the picturesque river Lot, an old army camp has been transformed into a Vietnamese village. For 24 years it has provided a home for refugees, and it is unique in having preserved an extraordinary cult of spirit possession which can no longer be found even in Vietnam. In each of their homes, the cult members have a colourful shrine where images of the Buddha stand amid an array of spirit images, dolls sumptuously clad in robes of silk. Among the old ladies of the cult are a select few who have been chosen as mediums, and in ceremonies which last many hours they rapidly enter trance, dancing before the shrines in the robes of the spirits which possess them.

A thousand years ago in the dense jungles of northwest Cambodia, successive God-Kings strove to outdo their predecessors by building ever finer and more spectacular temples. So great was their achievement that there is today nowhere in the world which can compare with Angkor for the number, size and perfection of its monuments.Most magnificent of all is Angkor Wat, the largest religious building in the world, a gigantic temple-mountain built to the glory of the god Vishnu and his incarnation,God-King Suryavarman II. On its walls are carvings of apsaras , the divine nymphs of paradise, who had their earthly counterparts in the young girls who served the king as palace dancers and concubines.Today, after ten years of war and suffering in Cambodia, the temples miraculously have survived, almost undamaged, and the dancers of the Royal Palace are beginning a performance which, under Pol Pot, would have meant death.

In Thailand may be found, at one and the same time, the most up-to-date forms of cultural life in south-east Asia, and the most ancient. It is a land of startling contrasts. Beside hotels and massage parlours stand miniature temples like oriental doll's-houses, the houses of ancient earth-spirits. In monasteries, monks perform ceremonies for cars, marking them with magical symbols to protect them from harm. More than any country in the world, Thailand is the land of the Buddha image. Produced over 1,300 years, and ranging in size from tiny miniatures to colossal statues, they are so numerous that they far outnumber the human population.