Find Your Inner Peace On An Offbeat Buddhist Trail

Far from the tourist radar, Bihar guards many ancient monuments and places of reverence. Come here to seek solace, and whet your wanderlust for the offbeat.

- Sugato Tripathy

I am walking solemnly amidst the ruins of a 1,500-year-old world-famous university, my ears straining for the chants of students long gone. I am thrilled to ride on a tonga (horse carriage) en route to a pristine lake. And I am petrified while gliding up in an open-air cable car, on my way to the stunning 400-metre-high white Vishwa Shanti Stupa.

I am in Bihar. The landlocked state with no beaches and no hill stations is usually off the tourist radar. In the news almost always for the wrong reasons, the state doesn’t feature high on bucket lists. Yet, contrary to what little is known of it, Bihar can surprise you with its bouquet of offerings.

FINDING NIRVANA IN BODH GAYA

The landscape on either side is rustic and mundane; the National Highways here are still under construction with many diversions. An almost four-hour-drive from Patna brings you to Bodh Gaya—the most important of all pilgrimages for Buddhists. Lord Buddha is said to have meditated under the famed Bodhi Tree here, some 2,600 years ago, and attained enlightenment. A descendant of the original tree still stands tall in the compound of the magnificent Mahabodhi Temple, and attracts scores of devotees from around the world.