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Only stable, rich and powerful states can commission great art and architecture, which unlike text or language, can be instantly understood by anyone-very valuable in multi-lingual empires.
只有強盛穩定的國家能出現偉大的藝術與建筑，它們比語言文字直觀得多，只要一眼便可以了解，這在多語言的大帝國中是極大的優勢只有。
But, whereas in Rome Christianity was soon imposed as the exclusive religion of the Empire, for the Gupta kings worship of the Hindu gods was always only one of the ways in which the divine could be apprehended and embraced. This is a world that seems to be at ease with complexity, happy to live with many truths, and indeed to proclaim them all as an official part of the state, and we can glimpse something of the richness of this Gupta religious landscape through two gold coins.
在羅馬，基督教迅速成為唯一的國教，但在印度，印度教對笈多王來說只是接近神祇的方式之一。看起來，這個世界能輕松地面對復雜狀況，讓不同的真理和諧共存，并宣布它們都得到國家承認。我們通過兩枚金幣可以看到笈多王宗一些豐富的教景觀。
I'm in the study room of our Coins and Medals Department, and in front of me I've got two coins of the Indian king Kumaragupta I, who ruled from AD 414 to 455.
我正身處大英博物館的錢幣與勛章館，我手里的就是這里藏有的2枚印度國王鳩摩羅笈多一世的金幣，他于公元414年至455年在位。
And they're two coins that show very different aspects of this king's religious life. They're each almost exactly the size of a one penny coin, but they're made of solid gold and, like all small gold objects, they sit quite heavily in the hand.
這兩枚硬幣表現了國王的宗教信仰中極為不同的幾個方面。它們由黃金制成，大小與英國的一便士相當，拿在手里頗有分量。
On the first coin, where you'd normally expect to see the king, there's a horse-a magnificent standing stallion. He's decorated with ribbons, and a great pennant flutters over his head, and around the coin, in Sanskrit, is the inscription that translates: "King Kumaragupta, the supreme lord, who has conquered his enemies".
在第一枚硬幣上，別國通常用來雕刻國王頭像的位置，刻著一匹神駿的牡馬，身上裝飾著彩帶，頭頂上飄著一面三角旗幡。金幣邊緣有一句梵語，意為“鳩摩羅笈多一世，至尊王者，克敵制勝”。
