Bastar

Bastar was a princely state ruled from Jagdalpur by a Kakatiya dynasty that came from Warangal, and its kings still preside over Bastar Dussehra, a 75-day festival that begins in the monsoon and peaks around October with the pulling of an eight-wheeled wooden chariot through Jagdalpur by hundreds of Maria men, and the Kachan Gadi rite in which a young girl in trance sits on a bed of thorns. Its deity is Danteshwari, whose main shrine is at Dantewada, 80 km south, a Shakti Peetha at the meeting of the Shankhini and Dankini rivers. The district is forest and plateau, sal and mahua, red soil and rivers that fall off it in cascades: Chitrakote, Tirathgarh's tiers, Tamda Ghumar.

Kanger Valley National Park has the Kutumsar and Kailash limestone caves and the Bastar hill myna. The living culture is the reason to travel here: haats rotate through villages every day of the week, and at a Tokapal or Darbha market you find dried fish, tamarind, salfi in leaf cups, iron tools and terracotta, while at Kondagaon's workshops the dhokra artisans cast bell-metal figures by lost wax as they have for centuries. In Jagdalpur the Anthropological Museum and the Bastar Palace set the context; the Bison-horn Maria dance and the Muria ghotul are shared only where communities choose.

Bastar needs a good local guide, respect for limits on photography at haats and villages, and awareness that some interior blocks remain security-sensitive.