Bihar is one of India's poorest and most overlooked states, sprawling across the Ganges plain in the country's east. Most travellers treat it as a corridor between Kolkata and Varanasi or a step on the way to Kathmandu — which is a shame, because this flat, densely populated stretch of north India is where Buddhism was born.
The pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya is the reason to come. This is where Siddhartha Gautama sat under a Bodhi tree and became the Buddha, and the town remains a hub of Buddhist learning. A descendant of the original tree still shades the Mahabodhi temple — a UNESCO site — and monks and pilgrims from Tibet, Thailand, Japan and Sri Lanka fill the lanes. South of Patna, the ruins of Nalanda — the world's first residential university, from the 5th century — lie in fields of brick foundations; once home to thousands of Buddhist scholars, it was destroyed by invading armies in the 12th century.
The state capital Patna is gritty and chaotic, useful mostly as a base. Bihar remains poor and the infrastructure is rough, but the layered religious history — Buddhist, Jain, Hindu — makes it one of India's more rewarding off-the-track states for anyone willing to put up with a bit of friction.
