Bihar- Following footsteps of Buddha December'11

Delhi- Patna- Vaishali- Patna- Pawapuri- Nalanda- Rajgir- Bodhgaya- Gaya- Patna- Delhi  Dec'11

Day1: Finally it was 23rd December 2011, the day i was eagerly waiting for since quite a few weeks- was about to start my most awaited trip to Bihar- an enigmatic land which is culturally the richest in India, the land which made India what it is today, the land which gave India her most prized sons like Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Guru Gobind singh... A land with purest innocent hearts, a land that grew up in the arms of Goddess Ganga. A land more sacred than any other and sadly also the land which is the least traveled in India.

Yep so here i was, waiting at T3 terminal of Indira Gandhi airport in Delhi on one of those foggy winter morning of December. As expected the Air India flight was running whooping 5 hours late. Started getting worried about the connected jaunt to Vaishali which was lined up immediately after the landing as one of my Delhi friends was already waiting for me in Patna with a hired cab.

Patna's Jaiprakash Narayan Airport

Finally after the long wait, they announced the departure of the flight at afternoon 1:30 (not to forget- only after the hullaboo that the Bihari passengers created on the gate and accusing Air India of not knowing how to manage an airline - which is partially true :P). Got a comfortable window seat, had filling lunch and before i could adjust myself n get comfy in the plane, I could see plane slanting itself for landing. The first view of mighty Ganga flowing- almost like a big python winding- on the vast green land. 5 minutes later i was flying above the Biscomaun tower (tallest building in Patna), Rajbhawan, Gandhi maidan and then the zoo and finally the airport. I could immediately recognize all these places from the sky as I had already done a bit of research on how to go about the whole trip and the places of interest in Patna and around. As expected there was no bus to take passengers till arrival terminal so had to walk it down till the arrival. Instantly I ran towards the taxi stand where my friend and one of his local friend were waiting with the cab. Without wasting anymore time we started for Vaishali.

Mahatma Gandhi Setu

Vaishali is famous for two things as i had read in the books. One was the relic stupa of Buddha which was one of the 8 stupas in the world built over the body parts or ashes of Buddha and Second was the ancient city of Kolhua which has Stupas built over the bodies of disciples of Buddha and an Ashokan pillar with lifesized lion capital- one of the very few intact and survived original Ashokan pillars in India. (Most of these pillars were erected at the Buddhist monasteries or to commemorate Ashoka's visit to that place). While on the way to Vaishali , one has to cross all the way though the traffic of Patna and go till the much famed 'Mahatma Gandhi setu' on Ganga which connects Patna distirct with the Hajipur city in Vaishali district. On the way had a quick look at the city that Patna is, the traffic, the people and their way of life and was extremely impressed with whatever I was seeing. Patna definitely rose way way above my expectations. I had expected it to be extremely shabby, unclean, undeveloped and unruly but i have to admit i fell flat on my face, my mind automatically compared it with a developing city like Jaipur. (comparison doesn't necessarily mean that both the cities are alike or equally developed but they surely have something in common and with the speed Patna is developing today, it wont take much time to reach the level of Jaipur or even overtake it) with the amazingly colorful and peaceful a city that Patna is, I couldn't help fall in love with it.

somewhere in Patna near the airport on the main road

After an hour's drive, we reached Vaishali. Since winter has shorter days in the eastren India, it was getting dark already at 4-4:30 in evening. So without wasting time we headed to the relic stupa. Stupa was placed in a well maintained garden in front of the historical 'Abhishek Pushkarni' lake, Only a quarter kilometer from the stupa, one can see a new peace pagoda built by Japan and a beautiful Vietnamese temple built by Vietnam Buddhist society in 2 opposite directions. The relic Stupa is nothing but a fossil like looking small rock covered by a temporary roofing structure. Wonder why a site culturally, religiously and archaeologically as important as that was covered just with a plastic sorts roof and why was the site not so crowded with the pilgrims considering its immense importance. Instantly we got the answer from our local friend- "if you wouldn't have told me i would have never even known that something so amazing exists just 60 kilometers from Patna". Just when we turned to walk back to the main gate, we saw a horde of about 50 Thai, Bhutanese and Cambodian pilgrims entering the stupa garden and another 100 local poor kids running after them for money.

Buddha's relic stupa at Vaishali

We just spent like half an hour roaming around the stupa and it was already dark and i had one more place to catch before it was too dark. After asking a few people about which was the shortest way to reach the 'ancient Kolhua city of Vaishali' (where Buddha preached his last sermon), we were forced to travel through narrow winding lanes of local village, and let me tell u it was such a sight! an extremely well kept village probably with no electricity but still very clean, very beautiful rural houses, well painted, roads done in cow dung, people sitting in their verandas weaving cane baskets. The road that we were driving on was the internal village road, rather calling it a pathway would be apt as it was not more than 2 meter wide and the village houses on both the sides neatly built in a row beside it.
As the problem with most of the ASI maintained sites in India, even this one had a sunrise to sunset opening hours with no specific closing timing written there. So it was clearly up to the local guard when he would get bored after the sunset and when he would shut the gates of the monuments and go home. Thankfully we reached just in time. Only after requesting for 10 minutes and after pleading that we have come from New Delhi only to see 'this', did he agree to keep it open but only for another ten minutes. The architect inside me rejoiced! i possibly didn't want more than five minutes to see the area well, the way the main brick stupa was built and the smaller stupas arranged around it. The whole area just amazed me. I took some good time to recover from my over excitement of walking in the city that's about 2600 year old (600 BC) built by the Licchavi rulers and the nearby Ashokan stone pillar INTACT which was around 2300 years old. The pond next to the pillar 'ramkund' which was supposedly dug up by the monkeys to offer water and honey to the hungry Buddha- still looked afresh and filled with water. The whole experience of visiting Kolhua was thrilling and I felt extremely lucky to have touched and walked at the same place which was once walked by none other than the Buddha himself! With the same thoughts we reached back to Patna with very sleepy faces and passed out in a local friend's house for the night..

silhoutte of the Lion capital pillar at Kolhua

Day2: Todays plan was gonna be quite hectic. Had to cover a lot of places in very little time. So had a heavy breakfast and left our friend's place around 9 in the morning. Our first destination today was 'Pawapuri'- another little known place with incredible importance- the final resting place of the founder of another ancient Indian religion- Jainism, the cremation site of Vardhaman the Mahavira!
It took us about 2-2.5 hrs to reach Pawapuri with a short tea break at a place called 'Daniyawa bazar' where the bazar was literally laid on and around the railway track next to a small railway station with the same name. When a train passes, the vendors quickly fold their stuff and get away for a while and after the train passes, they are back to their business on the tracks! Couldn't help but remember the much shared video on Facebook of a similar trackside market somewhere in Thailand or some other oriental country.
After Vaishali I had little expectations of even Pawapuri being crowded or flocked by pilgrims, and I was correct, the beautiful temple- Jalmandir (literally the temple in water) which sits in the middle of an artificial lotus pond, had only a handful of visitors. After crossing the bridge that connects the temple to the mainland, we saw a very beautiful superwhite small temple- that's the Jalmandir. Entirely made of white marble, the place has it own charm. Like every other place even Jalmandir has its story, its said that when Mahavira passed away and was cremated in Pavapuri, people thronged here from far away to collect his ashes and crowd went so mad for the ashes that they even started collecting the soil around it, within only a few days so much soil was removed from the area that a big pond was created- in which the temple sits today.

Jalmandir at Pawapuri

A few jain families were busy doing their poojas, a few with their new born kids and a few teaching their kids a thing or two about their religion. After clicking pictures, we went to Samosaran- another small cylindrical marble temple which marks the site of Mahavira's last sermon before death. The temple is just a few steps diagonally opposite to the main gate of Jalmandir.

Another view of Jalmandir

Our next destination was Nalanda- only about half an hour away from Pawapuri on Rajgir road via Bihar Sharif. Nalanda as everyone knows, was once the most prestigious learning centre in Asia famous for its Buddhist university founded in 5th century AD. It is said to have had 5000 international students and teachers during its glorious days. Nalanda is said to have flourished till AD1199 when it was destroyed, looted and finally burnt down by another crappy muslim raider- Bakhtiyar the Khilji.

The tanga we hired at Nalanda..

When we reached Nalanda, I almost felt as if i was not in India but in Cambodia or Bhutan. All sorts of monks and nuns from all possible buddhist countries had crowded the whole parking lot. This was just the start of how i was gonna be feeling like a foreigner visiting my own country from now on, as I was now in the Buddhist Pilgrim travel circuit. We parked our car in the parking lot and started walking towards the ruins of the great ancient university. While we were walking, we were approached by a Tonga (for those who dont know what it is, its the Indian version of a Victoria dat ran on the streets in British Raj), and proposed to show us whole Nalanda (which includes 5 tourist places of interest incluing university) in 150 bucks. We thought it was cool plus who gets to sit in a tonga everyday. We jumped onto the opportunity and left for the siteseeing. First he took us to 'Hieun Tsang Memorial hall' which is built by the chinese as rememberance to the so called great chinese scholar monk who travelled across all forbidden mountains and deserts to reach Nalanda in 7th century who studied and then taught in the university. He carried (or stole?) a few books and scriptures on his way back to China and translated them into Chinese and also described Nalanda and its architecture in his own writings- thanks to which the greatness of Nalanda was known to the whole world. The hall is a very beautiful pagoda style structure built in the middle of an extremely well maintained flower garden with a statue of the scholar himself in front of the hall. Inside the hall is his another statue sitting where he is treated almost like a God, people coming with offerings and money and bowing in front of the statue.

Hieun Tsang Memorial hall

Statue inside the memorial hall

After the hall the Tonga took us to a temple which is the birthplace of Jain Shwetamber guru Goutam swami at Kundalpur just a 10 min ride from the memorial hall. It was a neat small white usual Jain temple. Since the temple was small with no unusual architecture and also coz i had no clue who Goutam swami was, the temple didn't interest me much. From there, the tonga took us to a small multimedia museum which was only recently inaugurated by Mr.Nitish Kumar- Bihar's then Chief minister. The place had nothing which can be called a museum but had a small but informative bookshop from where i collected a few books for my further journey and collection and also had small audiovisual room where the history of Nalanda from start to end is unfolded in an animation film specially made to screen in this museum in Hindi as well as English. Even though the quality of animation was poor, the video quickly browses through the events and happenings that took place at Nalanda including the possibility of Buddha and Mahavira crossing each other's path. (Since both these religious leaders were contemporaries, there may have been a possible meeting between them- but very little is known about this event). Hopefully they will come up with a better quality animation soon as they start getting more visitors. But despite this, the attempt itself of promoting, preserving and making people aware of their history of Nalanda is commendable.

Nalanda multimedia museum

Next stop was the 'archaeological museum' where we paid the tonga guy as the university ruins are exactly opposite the museum. Museum has a good collection of the idols, carvings and statues of buddhist deitis found in the surrounding area. One with no interest in archaeology may find the museum little too big and boring, but one sculpture not to miss is the very unusual sculpture of Ganesha lying under the feet of a Buddhist goddess. The big Ganesha fan that im, felt a little disturbed by the sculpture, but then thats the part of history. History is to be accepted the way it is.
The last spot was the ruins. The ruins are entered from monasetry 5 of more than 15 monsateries/temples lined up one after the other. The whole area is best viewed from the top of 6th monastery. Even after so many years post destruction, the temples still convey a vivid impression of serene and ordered life and learning that once prevailed here which itself  proves that no such temple of learning could be destroyed by a thief raider just by physically burning and looting it- for a very simple reason that its immortal! One can roam around in the ruins for as long as they want and they still won't get bored, but for a quick look, one must visit, temple3 (the biggest structure existing in Nalanda 102 feet high), monastery 1A (built by king of Sumatra which is in Indonesia), the toranas of temple 12 and surrounding votive stupas, temple 13 (which also had a brick making furnace), temple 14 (where traces of paintings can be seen in a niche with a pedestal) and the dado panels of temple2.

Temple number 3 at Nalanda

Me in the background of the votive stupas near temple 12

Near temple number 5 at Nalanda

After quick snacks, we left for Rajgir- another 12-13 km from Nalanda ruins. It was already 3 by the time we left from Nalanda, and with the bad experience of the quick sunset the earlier day, i didnt wanna miss any of Rajgir. Just after 5-6 kilometers we were suddenly surrounded by hills on all sides. Hills create amazingly picturesque background for Rajgir just the way one is suddenly surrounded by hills while travelling from Jaipur to Pushakr and Ajmer. Rajgir is full of places of interest for every group. Rajgir has almost 15 sites that one can see on the both sides of the national highway. Starting from Nalanda side, right turn after bus stand comes a garden called- Venuvana- the favourite residence of Buddha which was gifted to him by the king Bimbisara in order to make it easier for his devotees to visit him. Today the garden has nothing unusual that can attract one's eyes but can only be visited considering the cultural importance that it has because of its past. Next on the right is Japanese temple, with a white statue of Buddha facing the temple. After the temple come the hot water kunds- for which Rajgir is famous- makdum, saptadhara and suraj kund, Next right turn on the highway takes one to Maniar Math- a cylindrical brick shrine dedicated to the worship of Rajgir's presiding deity- the Mani Naag (Serpant)- huge pits full of skeletal remains of animals have been exposed near the math which makes it believe that the place was associated with human sacrifice as well.

Maniar Math at Rajgir

Again its very important to remember while visiting Rajgir that it doesn't have anything which can be called a place of obvious tourist interest- like a huge temple or markets or fancy water parks- but every site in Rajgir has to be looked at from a different angle- from the angle that tells about its past and historical importance and only then will be a visit to Rajgir really meaningful. Just ahead of Maniar math inside the same lane after crossing the deer park come the SonBhandar caves- built by jain muni Vairadeve. It is believed that there is a treasure house of gold still hidden here. It is said that if one can decipher the inscriptions engraved here, the doors to the golden vaults would open. Well bad luck, i couldn't even find where the inscriptions were written. :( Next we headed to the most famous landmark of Rajgir- the Vishwa shanti stupa built by the Japanese on top of the Ratnagiri hill. I was more excited about the ropeway that takes one to the top of the hill. On the way saw the 'Bimbisara jail' which one can easily give a miss if unnoticed as its in complete ruins with only a few rows of short stone walls seen today. This was the place where King Bimbisara was imprisoned by his son Ajatshatru. Also on the left side on the Vishwa shanti stupa road are 'Jiwaka ruins' another place looking similar to Bimbisara jail which was the place for dispensary of royal physician who used to dress the wound of Buddha when his unfriendly cousin Devdatta injured him.

Venuvana- Buddha's favourite resort- at Rajgir

By the time we finished seeing the rest of Rajgir, the ropeway had shut- as expected. According to the plan, tonight's stay was supposed to be in Bodhgaya but since we couldnt see the main landmark of Rajgir, we decided to stay in Rajgir for the night. So we came back near the bus stand in search of a cheap hotel for the night and Rajgir offers plenty options for the same so we hopped into one of these cheap 400 rupees a night hotel as we just had to get some sleep and leave immidiately in the morning. Those of you interested may have this number 09334509202 Hotel maharaj (kund road, opp sainik school) or hotel samrat near busstand or hotel laxmi palace (behind police station, Bengali para). Those interested in better, medium range rooms may go for BSTDC's hotel gautam vihar, hotel ajatshatru and hotel tathagat. A walk at night in Rajgir's main market may make one experience the local life, their food etc. I was roaming in Bihar at 10 in the night on the road freely with no fear n so were the ladies and other men...something that i had never imagined sitting back in Delhi. Bihar has surely changed. Alot! and its much safer than Delhi for anyone. I can surely bet on this!

SonBhandar caves at Rajgir

Day3: First thing in the morning, we straightaway headed to get the ropeway tickets to reach the hilltop. We reached so early that there was no one on the ticket window not even the person selling tickets lol. We waited n waited n waited and finally the ticket window opened at 8 'o'clock Bihar Standrd Time (8:30) bought tickets and started in the ropeway. I need not mention we were their first customers that day. The ropeway chair ride was quite exciting as at quite a few places if you look down, you could see your feet hanging down and a valley straight way a few hundreds feet below. The excitement of ropeway ride turned into horror when the chairs suddenly stopped with a big jerk twice on the way, later we learnt that it was a normal thing to happen here.

The ropeway chair ride at Rajgir

The ropeway chair dropped us just a few steps below the big white Japanese shanti stupa. Since Japanese have erected such ditto stupas everywhere in India and also since i have been to most of them, the stupa didnt attract me at much.

Buddha's mural on the shanti stupa

The Shanti stupa aka world peace pagoda

My main interest in reaching the hilltop wasn't the peace pagoda but the 'GriddhaKuta' also called vultures peak which modern history claims to be was Buddha's favorite meditation place as its surrounded by deep valleys on all sides other than the one which its approached from. Griddhakuta is a tiring 15 minutes up and down walk from the pagoda.

trail to Gridhakuta

Gridhakuta as seen from about hundred steps below

Griddhakuta is nothing but a square shaped place where Buddha used to meditate. The place doesn't have anything today other than the great view of valleys it offers. A lot of Buddhists from allover the world come to light lamp, candles n incense sticks in front of Buddha's small idol kept there. Its amazing to see how monks from different countries have different colored dresses. Within a small piece of land i could actually count people of at least 10 nationalities offering their prayers to Buddha.

Crowd at Gridhakuta

By 10:30 am we were down at the base from where we had started the ropeway. We came down walking as the road from Gridhakuta comes straight down to the base which is a 10 minutes of climbing down. This road is called 'Bimbisara road' which is supposed to have built by the king when he used to come to meet Buddha on Gridhakuta.

Monks at Griddhakuta

After a small tea break we started for Bodhgaya, which was around 65 km. The roads were in very good condition as its the main point of Buddhist circuit. Rajgir as a place made a special place in my heart, and still didn't realise why!. I loved the overall feel of the town; maybe because we visited it in the winters. Extremely neat and clean, friendly people, amazing background of hills, mysterious places at every nook n corner of the city, the village like environment, the enigmatic shrines- Rajgir has it all which very few places have. Rajgir automatically became one of my most favorite places and I am sure I would definitely be going back there again -sooner or later...

As soon as we crossed Rajgir, we were out of the hilly climate that i had started adoring so much, we were suddenly in the plains of Bihar in dry climate with villages of Nawada district on both sides of the neatly done highway. As long as we were travelling through Nawada, the roads were spacious, but when we entered Gaya district, roads started becoming narrow at some places, so narrow in a village that no two vehicles in opposite directions could pass comfortably. This did create a little bit of traffic jam and hence the uninvited delay in our extremely tight schedule. The narrow bridges on the dried Falgu river added to this at a few places. After a journey of 2 hours we reached the congested city of Gaya, where we were supposed to come back later in the evening after getting done with Bodhgaya. The road from Gaya to Bodhgaya is about 13 kilometers. A straight stretch of road full of the crowded share autos carrying the Buddhist Indian and Tibetan monks. Due to Bihar's extreme proximity to Nepal, Tibet, Sikkim and Bhutan, this road is always flooded with the pilgrims.

As we entered Bodhgaya, we could only see people wearing robes n gowns with different shades of reds with their local weird hairdo's chanting Om Mani Padme Hum and i was busy flaunting my tatoo of the same mantra to everyone showing them even i was one among them. :P
Besides Dharamashala (which is almost a place donated to Tibetans by Indian govt for their free use), Bodhgaya is the only place in India where u will find most of the signage, nameplates and instructions everything written in Tibetan language. I instantly felt out of place and coincidentally we visited the town during Buddhist Kalchakra festival which was supposed to happen in Bodhgaya this year. A result of this, the Buddhists from all over the world especially the Tibetans had thronged the town in huge numbers and made the town much more crowded than Mumbai's chaotic Juhu beach. Everywhere i could see monks preaching to huge number of devotees and a lot of announcements happening on the loudspeaker the reason of which we later came to know that His Holiness the Dalai Lama was supposed to come to the town this evening and stay there for the Kalchakra festival. So we thought it was better to quickly visit all the temples before it gets anymore crowded and the security is tightened. First we headed to the Great Mahabodhi temple- the epitome of Holiness. The place where Buddha achieved the enlightenment.
Today's Mahabodhi temple is the modernized version done by Indian govt on the original temple which existed at the same place- as a part of rejuvanation and maintainance by adding carved cement and stone panels to make it look and match with the original Ashokan era temple complex.

The Great Mahabodhi temple

The only original thing that is seen in the main temple complex other than the votive stupas and the broken ashokan pillar, are the ashokan stone railings on the right side if you are facing the temple. On the right side of the temple are different stones arranged in a row on the path where they believe Buddha ones walked. These stones are usually lit up with candles and diyas.

This is where they say 'HE' once walked

The 'Bodhi tree'

Exactly at the backside of the temple is standing the Bodhi tree where the Prince Gautam became Gautam Buddha. The tree that's standing today was the sapling brought back from the tree branch of Original tre at the same location which (has today obvious turned into a big peepal tree) was taken to Sri Lanka by Ashoka's daughter Sanghamitra as a part of religious tours for conversions, as the original Bodhi tree here had dried up.
Later we had a pradakshina around the whole temple from the circumambulatory at the highest level around the compound wall. Other side of the temple is a broken Ashokan pillar and in front of it is the 'Muchlind lake' famous for the spot where the Serpant King saved Buddha from the untimely rains n cyclone.

Muchlind Lake

After the amazing Mahabodhi temple, we started for a walk in Bodhgaya's bazar which still looked so foreign to my eyes. While taking a walk in the bazar starting from the Mahabodhi temple, first monastery that comes is the Chinese monastery, built in typical Chinese style with the hues of whites red and yellows. Opposite the Chinese temple is Bodhgaya's archaeological museum, then is the temple built by Bangladesh Buddhist society and then comes the Wat (temple) built by the Thailand, the most beautiful among the temples built here by different countries. A well maintained garden and a lot of use of mirrors and glass work makes the temple the most popular temple in Bodhgaya after the main temple.

The Thai wat in Bodhgaya

Tibetan monastery in Bodhgaya

After 'Thai wat' it was the turn of the huge 60' tall Buddha statue built by the Japanese. The statue is truly amazing sitting in the well laid symmetrical garden and the pathway flanked by flowering trees and shrubs. This Buddha statue is more of a showpiece here than a place of worship. Whatever it is, its surely the best thing i saw in Bodhgaya. The statue is also surrounded by other small (Double human sized) statues joining hands offering prayers to Buddha.

Buddha's 60' statue in Bodhgaya

Bhutanese temple in Bodhgaya

Just a few metres away from the Buddha statue in the same lane are the Japanese temple called 'Indosan Nipponji' , Tibetan and Bhutanese temple which stand next to each other in complete different architectural styles. Of these the Japanese temple definitely looks the most distinct with a huge hall covered by a big square pyramidal roof. A typical Japanese character and as expected even the interiors turned out to be very mildly done with no bright loud colors but a plain peaceful hall -another architectural feature of the Japanese.

Japanese temple aka Indosan Nipponji

By now i had grown tired of walking and visiting temples all across this small town, so considered this was the best time to leave back for Gaya.

When we reached Gaya it had started becoming dark, and I surely didnt wanna miss the Holiest temple -the Vishnupad temple- in the 3rd holiest city considered in Hinduism after Varanasi and Allahabad- together called 'Tristhali yatra'. As we entered Gaya, we straight away headed to the Vishnupad temple. Gaya even though being the second biggest city in Bihar after Patna and having an international airport (shared with Bodhgaya) looked a very very shabby city in the first look. At least the part of the city i roamed around in. Somehow I didn't find this city as comfortable for tourists as Patna or Rajgir. (I recalled that I was advised by a local Bihari friend to prefer not to have a night stay in Gaya instead have it in Bodhgaya, dunno why? Even thought there was nothing exactly to be worried about, this is just a personal experience. I could be wrong it might as well be a fantastic city which i failed to see)

Vishnupad temple in Gaya

The Vishnupad temple sort of rules the life of Gaya as its the most famous and powerful shrine in Gaya sitting on the banks of dried Falgu river which was cursed by the Goddess Sita. Even thought the original construction date isn't known to anyone, the renovation was done by the Queen of Indore Devi Ahilyabai Holkar in 1787.
The interesting story about the temple goes like 'once a Demon known as Gayasura, did a heavy penance and sought a boon that whoever sees him should attain salvation (Moksham). Since salvation is achieved through being extreme orthodox and too good (committing no known or unknown mistakes) in one's life time, people started obtaining it easily. Unable to withstand this, Lord vishnu asked Gayasura to go beneath the earth and did so by placing his Right foot on Asura's head. After pushing Gayasura below the surface of earth, Lord Vishnu's foot print remained on the rock that we see even today. The footprint consists of Nine different symbols including shankam, Chakram and Gadham, which are his weapons, believed to be on the heels of the lord. Being an Asura or Rakshasha, Gayasura pleaded for food. Lord Vishnu Gave him the boon that everyday someone or the other will feed him. Whoever who does so, will show Vaikuntam/swargam for the departed soul/souls. The day Gayasura doesn't get food, it is believed that he will come out. Everyday, one or the other from different parts of India will pray for welfare of his departed and offer food at this point, thus feeding Gayasura and wishing his pitrus to attain heaven.'
Very interestingly, this is also supposed to be the same temple where Gautam Buddha meditated for 6 years.
Another thing to note is that, no person from other religions except Hinduism is allowed to enter the temple.

There are many templs and caves and holy hillocks spread all over Gaya (each of the temple is supposed to be one God which promised the people of Gaya, that they will sit in Gaya forever and look after the city and that the demon Gayasur never turns up) like Pretshila pahad, Brahmayoni pahad, Manglagouri temple etc etc.

Now we were on our way back to Patna via Jehanabad. We sure didnt forget to pickup the most famous tilkut (what we call gajak in Delhi and Chikki in Mumbai) from the Tilkut bhandars in the market and proving its reputation, it turned out to be really mouth watering.

After such a hectic day we didn't take even 15 minutes to pass out in the car. It was only when Patna arrived after 3 hours, we opened our eyes. We asked the driver to directly take us to Patna's Biskomaun tower (a commercial building which looks similar to Mumbai's Ambassador hotel at Marine drive) -the tallest building in Patna- for dinner in its revolving terrace restaurant- Pind Balluchi. Since Pind Balluchi is a famous food chain in Delhi, we were not worried about the taste or quality at all. This was the first time i was having dinner in a revolving restaurant on 18th floor. I need not mention whenever any of us went to the washroom, by the time he comes back, the table has gone altogether somewhere else and this was happening with everyone. It was so funny to see everyone goofing up with their dinner tables. The food and the ambiance had 100 % marks from our side. Around 10 we reached back our friends's house in the Patliputra colony for the night stay.

Day4: Later in the afternoon today i had a flight to catch for Delhi. My trip was coming to an end. Well but not so easily, before i could go to airport, we decided to do some local sightseeing in Patna which was left. We hired a local auto rickshaw for 300 bucks which was supposed to take us from Patliputra colony to these few places of interest and then finally drop me to the airport. First we went to Golghar- Patna's famous landmark. The beehive shaped building built by British was originally to be used as granary during the famines but remained unused. I reached the narrow top from the spiral staircase around the granary to catch the mind blowing view of Patna. On the one side was the Patna city with Gandhi maidan and Biscomaun tower dominating the frame and the other side was the mighty Ganges running slowly and steadily. While on the way to next place also saw the Khudabaksh library from outside and the locally famous 'Padri ki Haweli' church.

Patna's Golghar

Later we went to the famous Gurdwara- the birthplace of Sikh Guru Gobindsingh which is one of the four takhts(seats) of sikhism. This Gurdwara is also called Patna Sahib. Had a typical Gurdwara experience there and headed to another interesting place called the Agam Kuan temple. The temple is situated in front of the well built by Ashoka in which he killed and threw his relatives and brothers and sisters (probably before the conversion in Buddhsim) The well still stands there and is considered holy by the locals. Agam literally means fathomless so called because the well is very deep and still has water even though today its covered by a jali from all sides. The kuan is one of the proofs that modern day Patna stands on the same location where ancient magadha capital- Patliputra once flourished. whereas the temple in front of the kuan is a modern day structure locally famous for the Goddess which cures chickenpox and smallpox.

the main entrance of Agam Kuan temple

the ashokan well- Agam Kuan

With no more time in hand I headed to the airport. A little upset that i missed the famous zoo and the museum which was closed as it was monday.
With a warm heart i finally bid adieu to the beautiful Bihar and thanked for the lovely time I had while walking on the footsteps of Buddha, and ofcourse kept wondering why a land so culturally rich is the last choice of the Indian traveller and what could change the scenario. I see Nitish Kumar slowly changing it. Wish people start considering Bihar as their prime option for a quality vacation without listening to the stories of Bihar's gundaraj and ill- governance which are now the things of past..!

With all the genuine good luck (and with nomore prejudices in my mind about the sweet Biharis) I finally took off for Delhi!...ofcourse only after promising myself that I would come back to this sacred land again very soon :)