Rajgir
The Buddha's Vulture Peak and the first Buddhist council. Hot springs below, and the five hills the Jains walk.
Nalanda belt
Places around Rajgir
- Rajgir (Griddhakuta): Hills where the Buddha and Mahavira taught
- Saptaparni Cave: It is held to be where the First Buddhist Council met after the Buddha's parinirvana and where Ananda...
- Vishwa Shanti Stupa, Rajgir: Pilgrims come to circumambulate and pray for peace at one of about 80 Nipponzan Myohoji peace pagodas...
- Venuvana: It is the first monastery ever offered to the Buddha and where he spent several rains retreats, so...
- Pippala Cave: Buddhists visit it as Mahakashyapa's dwelling and a meditation retreat; Hindu visitors come for the...
- Jivakamravana: It is the mango grove the physician Jivaka gave to the sangha and where the Buddha was treated after...
- Bimbisara's Jail: Buddhists come because Bimbisara, the Buddha's royal patron who is said to have attained sotapanna...
- Brahma Kund: Bathing in the hot springs is treated as purifying and curative, and the water is believed to be...
- Makhdum Kund: Muslim pilgrims come to bathe in the spring associated with Makhdum Sahib and to pray at the tomb
- Maniyar Math: It is the surviving shrine of the Mani Naga serpent cult named in the Mahabharata and in Buddhist...
- Jarasandh ka Akhara: Visitors come for the Mahabharata association - the place where Bhima, on Krishna's advice, killed...
- Cyclopean Wall: It is the wall of Rajagriha, the Magadhan capital of Bimbisara and Ajatashatru in the Buddha's and...
- Ajatshatru Fort: Visitors come for the fort of the king who convened the First Buddhist Council and who is central to...
- Son Bhandar Caves: Jain pilgrims come for the arhat images and the Vairadeva inscription, one of the oldest datable Jain...
- Jain temples on the five hills of Rajgir: Rajgriha is where Munisuvratanatha, the 20th Tirthankara, had four of his five kalyanakas, where...
- Veerayatan: Jains come for darshan and the Tirthankara gallery, and the campus is used as a retreat and a service...
- Gurdwara Sheetal Kund: Sikh families come for darshan at the spring Guru Nanak is said to have turned cold, and to bathe in it
- Ghora Katora Buddha statue: Visitors come for the lake Buddha and the quiet of the valley; it is the meditative end of the Rajgir...
- Giriyak Stupa: It is the surviving Gupta-period stupa of the Rajgir hills, visible for miles, and carries a double...
More to see and do
Litti chokha
The dish people mean when they say Bihari food.
Wheat dough balls filled with spiced sattu, baked over coals and dipped in ghee, eaten with chokha of roasted brinjal, potato and tomato.
Sattu sharbat in summer
What Bihar drinks against the heat: roasted gram, water, lemon and salt, sold from carts on every corner.
Sattu stirred into water with cumin, coriander, green chilli and black salt, salty or sweet.
Magahi paan
The betel leaf of old Magadh, soft enough to melt in the mouth, grown under thatch in Nawada, Gaya, Aurangabad and Nalanda.
Leaves grown in bareja, hut-like shelters against heat and cold, by Chaurasia families around Deuri in Hisua block. Folded with fennel and cardamom after a meal.
The ropeway up Ratnagiri
The ride up to the Vishwa Shanti Stupa, over the hills the Buddha walked, in an open chair or a cabin.
A BSTDC ropeway to the peace pagoda on Ratnagiri hill, with single chairs and eight-seat cabins, open all year.
Rajgir Mahotsav
Bihar's festival of classical dance and music, with a food fair, held in Rajgir each year.
Three evenings of national artists in classical dance and music at the Rajgir Convention Centre, with a Vyanjan Mela of Bihar's food alongside.
Silao khaja
A many-layered fried sweet made in Silao, on the road between Rajgir and Nalanda, GI-registered in 2018.
Flour dough folded into fine layers, fried crisp and soaked in sugar or jaggery. The shops line the road through Silao.
Bawan Buti weaving of Nalanda
Fifty-two motifs woven into one cloth, many of them Buddhist, by a few families of Basawan Bigha; GI-registered in June 2026.
Handloom saris and cloth with 52 small motifs (buti). Padma Shri weaver Kapil Deo Prasad and his family keep it alive.
Yatras through Rajgir
- Buddhist Yatra: The road the Buddha walked, in the order he walked it
- Jain Yatra: Mahavira was born here, renounced here and died here
- Sikh Yatra: Guru Gobind Singh was born in Patna and spent his first years here
- Sufi Yatra: Khanqahs and dargahs that have taken visitors of every faith for six hundred years
- Silence and Stillness: Bihar is where meditation was taught first, and it is still taught here free
Experiences
- Sit in a cave: People have gone to these rooms to be alone for two thousand two hundred years
- The hot springs at Rajgir: Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Muslims have bathed in the same water here for centuries
- The Jethian to Rajgir walk: The valley road the Buddha and King Bimbisara are said to have met on
- Malmas Mela, Rajgir: Once in about three years, the gods are said to move into Rajgir for a month
Tirtham can arrange here
A guide who knows the places, a car with a driver we have met, and a stay nearby. Tell us your dates and we call to confirm.
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