Bihar

Bihar is where Buddhism began, and Bodh Gaya is the reason to come. The Mahabodhi Temple, built around the tree the Buddha sat under, was inscribed by UNESCO in 2002, and the monasteries put up around it by Thailand, Japan, Bhutan and Tibet make it the most international small town in India. The sensible route is short. Patna in, Bodh Gaya for two nights, then Rajgir and Nalanda together. Nalanda was a monastic university running from the fifth century CE to the twelfth and became a World Heritage Site in 2016; the brick ruins are vast, and without a guide they are just walls. The mistake is treating all four as day trips from Patna and spending the week in a car. Almost nobody goes to Vikramshila near Bhagalpur, the other great monastic university, or north to Madhubani, where the painting tradition still works on the outside walls of houses. October to March. May and June are punishing.