Bihar Yatras
Each yatra joins the places of one story, in the order they belong together.
Buddhist Yatra
The road the Buddha walked, in the order he walked it
Six years of one man's life, laid out across four districts of Bihar. He left a palace at Vaishali's edge, starved himself in a cave above Dungeshwari, gave that up, ate rice pudding from a village girl at Bakraur, crossed the river and…
- Best season
- Oct - Mar
- Days
- 5
Jain Yatra
Mahavira was born here, renounced here and died here
The twenty-fourth Tirthankara's whole life is inside Bihar. Born at Kundalpur near Vaishali, he gave up everything in his thirties, spent twelve years in silence and wandering, taught for thirty more, and attained nirvana at Pawapuri. The…
- Best season
- Oct - Mar
- Days
- 3
Sikh Yatra
Guru Gobind Singh was born in Patna and spent his first years here
Takht Sri Patna Sahib is one of the five seats of Sikh authority, and it stands where the tenth Guru was born in 1666. The gurdwaras around it mark where he played as a child, where his family stayed, and where Guru Nanak and Guru Tegh…
- Best season
- Oct - Mar
- Days
- 1
Sufi Yatra
Khanqahs and dargahs that have taken visitors of every faith for six hundred years
Bihar Sharif is named for its viharas and became one of eastern India's great Sufi centres. Maner holds two tombs of the Maneri family, and the Chhoti Dargah of 1616 is among the finest Mughal tombs in the east. Around them sit khanqahs…
- Best season
- Oct - Mar
- Days
- 2
Gaya Ji and the Rite for Ancestors
Where Hindus come to release the dead, and have for two thousand years
Pind daan at Gaya is not one temple and one hour. It is a sequence of sites performed in order with a priest, over one to three days: the Phalgu riverbed, Vishnupad where Vishnu's footprint is, the undying banyan at Akshayavat, and the…
- Best season
- All year. Pitrapaksh (Sep - Oct) is the traditional fortnight.
- Days
- 3
Shakti Yatra
Devi shrines on hills and in villages, including the oldest working temple in India
Mundeshwari in the Kaimur hills carries an inscription of 635 CE and is argued to be the oldest temple in India still in worship. From there the circuit runs through Tara Chandi above Sasaram, the two Patan Devi temples that anchor Patna…
- Best season
- Oct - Mar. Navratri if you want the crowd, and not if you do not.
- Days
- 4
Ramayan Yatra
Sita's Mithila, and the road Ram took through it
Sitamarhi is where Sita is said to have been found in a furrow. Punaura Dham marks the spot, Janaki Sthan the temple, and Ahalya Sthan the village where Ram is said to have freed Ahalya from stone. The circuit runs through Mithila, which…
- Best season
- Oct - Mar
- Days
- 3
Sun Temple Yatra
The shrines behind Chhath, Bihar's own festival
Deo's sun temple faces west, which almost no temple in India does, and is said to have been built in a night. Umga's is black stone on a hill in Aurangabad. Kandaha's in Saharsa carries a Surya image on a seven-horse chariot. Around Chhath…
- Best season
- Oct - Mar. Chhath (Oct - Nov) is the reason to come.
- Days
- 2
Mauryan and Ashokan Bihar
The capital of an empire that reached Afghanistan, and the pillars it left behind
Pataliputra ran an empire from where Patna now stands. What survives is a pillared hall's foundations at Kumhrar, a well at Agam Kuan, four polished pillars still standing in the north, and the Barabar caves -- granite chambers polished to…
- Best season
- Oct - Feb
- Days
- 4
Champaran and Gandhi
The first satyagraha in India happened in a Bihar indigo district in 1917
Gandhi came to Champaran in 1917 at the request of a farmer, to look into the indigo system that was ruining tenants. He was ordered to leave, refused, and the government backed down. It was the first time the method worked in India, and…
- Best season
- Oct - Mar
- Days
- 2
Silence and Stillness
Bihar is where meditation was taught first, and it is still taught here free
Not a route -- a set of things you can actually sit. A ten-day Vipassana course at one of four centres in the state, taught and fed and housed at no charge. Morning sittings at the monasteries around the Mahabodhi tree. The caves at…
- Best season
- Oct - Mar
- Days
- 10
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