The quaint and small town of Nashik is an important religious centre for followers of the Hindu faith and attracts thousands of pilgrims annually because of the sanctity of the Godavari River and because of the legend that Lord Rama, the he…

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Diamonds have been unearthed in the Golconda region, present-day Hyderabad, since the 4th century BC and remained the only source of the world’s diamonds until 1725, when deposits were discovered in Brazil and South Africa in the late 19th…

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Rising from a craggy escarpment to the north of the city, Amber is the ‘Jewel in the Crown’ of Rajput fortress palaces, enclosing a wonderland of sumptuously decorated halls, pavilions, ornamental entranceways and gardens, all enlivened by…

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Hark-i-Pauri ghat in Haridwar occupies a special place in the hearts of India’s Hindus. It is precisely here that the sacred waters of the Ganges are believed to emerge from the mountains and flow for the first time on to the plains. Each…

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For pure, ethereal beauty, there’s only one building in India to rival the Taj Mahal. The Sikhs’ holiest shrine, the ‘Golden Temple’, in the Punjabi city of Amritsar, casts an undeniably powerful spell. The combined effect of the lustrous,…

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Until the 1980s, large barges made of oiled jackwood and canopies of plaited palm leaves were used throughout the Kuttinad region of Kerala to transport rice and other produce through the backwaters. Now, trucks do the haulage work, but the…

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It’s said that 30 million people travel on India’s railway system every day – a statistic not hard to believe if you’ve ever scrambled though the mêlée of porters, chai wallahs and passengers trying to board a long-distance express out of N…

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The most evocative of Delhi's monuments is the Jama Masjid, the ‘Friday Mosque’ constructed by the Emperor Shah Jahan in Old Delhi. Between twenty and thirty thousand worshippers mass in the courtyard each week for Friday prayers – a scene…

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Hindu and Jain pilgrims from across India descend to Junagadh in Saurashtra to scale Mt Girnar, western India’s holiest mountain. Over the week of Shivratri in February–March their ranks are swollen by tens of thousands of naked, dreadlocke…

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The local maharaja was responsible for setting up the sanctuary a century ago, after it was realized the local population of lions had been hunted to the point of extinction in the early twentieth century. Over 400 Asiatic lions now survive…

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What is Ayurveda? Ayurveda is a natural system of medicine, originating in India more than 3,000 years ago, and is considered one of the oldest medical disciplines in the world. The term Ayurveda is derived from the Sanskrit words Ayur (l…

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Fostered by centuries of royal patronage, ritual theatre remains in Kerala far more than mere entertainment. In the best-known form, Kathakali, actors dressed in striking costumes and make-up enact scenes from the great epics. Performances…

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