Museums & Galleries
Heritage
Where the objects went when the sites were excavated.
12 places
Navsari
National Salt Satyagraha Memorial
Fifteen acres at Dandi marking where the Salt March ended on 5 April 1930 and Gandhi broke the British salt monopoly by boiling seawater. It cost about ₹89 crore and opened in 2019: a path lined with statues of the marchers who walked the full distance from Sabarmati, and salt pans worked by solar evaporation, so the act itself is repeated rather than described. It is a memorial rather than a museum, and it lands better if you have been to Sabarmati Ashram first — that is where the walk started.
Anandpur Sahib
Virasat-e-Khalsa Museum
Moshe Safdie's museum, opened in 2011 — a run of sandstone galleries cut into the ridge. Entry is free, it closes on Mondays, and ninety minutes is the minimum walk-through.
Kanyakumari Beach
Vivekananda Rock Memorial
An island memorial reached by ferry, with a giant Thiruvalluvar statue alongside.
Nalanda
Xuanzang Memorial Hall
A memorial to the Chinese monk-scholar who studied at Nalanda.
Hemis Monastery
Hemis Heritage Museum
A gallery below the monastery holding thangkas, ritual objects and gilded figures the gompa had in storage. Small, well lit, and easy to miss if you only look at the courtyard.
Kolkata
Victoria Memorial
A grand white-marble monument and museum set in landscaped gardens.
Patna
Bihar Museum
A modern museum showcasing Bihar's ancient Mauryan and Buddhist heritage.
Sarnath
Sarnath Museum
Home to the original Ashoka Lion Capital, India's national emblem.
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Jaipur
Albert Hall Museum
The oldest museum in Rajasthan, standing on its own in the Ram Niwas Garden just south of the walled city. The building is the reason to come as much as the collection: Indo-Saracenic, with Rajput and Mughal detail worked carefully into a European plan, and open colonnades that make sense in this heat. Inside are Rajasthani textiles, metalwork, carpets and arms, and an Egyptian mummy that generations of Jaipur schoolchildren have been brought to see. Go late in the day, when the pigeons come up off the forecourt in clouds, or after dark, when the whole facade is floodlit and reflected in the pool.
Jamnagar
Lakhota Palace and Museum
A semicircular fort on an island in Ranmal lake, built in the nineteenth century as famine relief so that people had wages. It is a museum now — Saurashtra pottery, an old armoury — reached by a stone causeway.
Sarnath
Sarnath Archaeological Museum
India's oldest site museum gallery housing the original 3rd-century BCE Ashokan Lion Capital and masterfully carved sandstone Buddha statues.
Statue of Unity
Statue Viewing Gallery
A gallery at 153 m inside the statue with valley and dam views.
