Bihar and Jharkhand Buddhist, Jain and Hindu Pilgrimage Circuit Complete Guide 2026: Bodh Gaya, Nalanda, Rajgir, Patna, Deoghar
Browse more guides: India travel | Asia destinations Bihar and Jharkhand Buddhist, Jain and Hindu Pilgrimage Circuit Complete Guide 2026 TL;DR I treat Bihar and Jharkhand as the most spiritually loaded pair of states in India. Bihar is where Siddhartha Gautama sat under a fig tree at Bodh Gaya in 528 BCE and walked away as the Buddha. It is where Mahavira, the 24th Jain Tirthankara, attained Nirvana at Pawapuri in 527 BCE. It is where Nalanda Mahavihara taught 10,000 monks from across Asia between the 5th and 12th centuries, the world's first residential university. Two UNESCO World Heritage sites sit within 80 km of each other: Mahabodhi Temple Complex (inscribed 2002) and Nalanda Mahavihara (inscribed 2016, hitting its 10-year anniversary in 2026). Add Rajgir's Vulture Peak where Buddha delivered key sermons, Vaishali where he gave his last public discourse, Patna's Mauryan-era Pataliputra ruins and the Sikh holy site Patna Sahib where Guru Gobind Singh was born in ...