Rajgir

Rajgriha, the house of kings, was the first capital of Magadha in the sixth century BCE, when Bimbisara ruled and both the Buddha and Mahavira walked its roads. The valley is enclosed by five hills, and along their crests runs the Cyclopean Wall, roughly forty kilometres of unmortared stone that is among the oldest surviving fortification in India. The Buddha spent several monsoons here and delivered some of his most important discourses from Griddhakuta, Vulture's Peak, a small rock terrace reached by a stepped path lined with shrines; the atmosphere at sunset, with the valley in shadow and monks chanting on the ledge, is the reason most people come.

Below it, the Saptaparni cave is where the first Buddhist council convened after the Buddha's death to fix the canon. Bimbisara's jail, the bamboo grove of Venuvana that he gave to the sangha, and Jarasandh ka Akhara from the Mahabharata are all within a few kilometres. Modern Rajgir adds an aerial ropeway climbing to the Vishwa Shanti Stupa, a Japanese-built peace pagoda of 1969 on Ratnagiri, and a glass bridge and zoo safari in the hills that have made the town a family weekend destination.

Pilgrims still bathe at Brahmakund, where sulphurous water at around 45 degrees pours from stone spouts into separate tanks.