纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 059婆罗浮屠佛陀头像（2）（在线收听）

This week we're tracing the great arcs of trade that linked Asia, Europe and Africa around a thousand years ago. My object today is a stone head of the Buddha, from Borobudur. Through it we can plot the huge network of connections across the China Sea and the Indian Ocean, by which goods and ideas, languages and religions, were exchanged among the peoples of south-east Asia.

I want to focus on the immensely rich and strategically important island of Java. Because it's in Java, at the monument of Borobudur, that we witness a spectacular example of how this network of international trade allowed Buddhism to spread beyond the boundaries of its birth and become a world religion.

Dominating a volcanic plane in the middle of Java, Borobudur is a stepped pyramid, made from over one and a half million blocks of stone. Built around the year 800, it's conceived as seven mounting terraces getting smaller as they rise: four square terraces below, then three circular ones above - and at the top of the whole structure is a large domed shrine.