Flanked by hills to the north and south, Assam encompasses the mostly flat, low-lying Brahmaputra Valley. As the site of two revered Hindu temples, its rapidly swelling capital, Guwahati, is a major pilgrimage destination, and also the hub…

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Fleeing persecution in the 15th century, the social reformer Sankardeva gathered his followers together on a remote island in Brahmaputra River called Majuli, where he founded numerous monasteries dedicated to Vishnu, the ‘Preserver’ of the…

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The flat, riverine countryside of central Bengal to the north of Kolkata holds the remains of numerous lost cities dating from before the time of the British. Grandest of them all is Murshidabad, capital of Murshid Quli Khan, the First Nawa…

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The British army took nearly half a century to subdue the notoriously warlike Nagas of the northeast. In the end, it was Bibles rather than bullets that undermined the tribes’ fierce guerrilla resistance to colonial rule, after Baptist miss…

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The remote Tawang Valley in Arunachal Pradesh is famous as the site of India’s largest Buddhist monastery, home to more than 500 red-robed monks and novices. Bordered by Tibet and Bhutan, the whole area feels more Tibetan than Indian, with…

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