India Guide
Introduction to India
Stretching from the frozen barrier of the Himalayas to the tropical greenery of Kerala, and from the sacred Ganges to the sands of the Thar desert, the boundaries of India encompass incomparable variety. Walk the streets of any Indian city and you'll rub shoulders with representatives of several of the world's great faiths, a multitude of castes and outcastes, fair-skinned, turbanned Punjabis and dark-skinned Tamils. You'll also encounter temple rituals that have been performed since the time of the Egyptian Pharaohs, onion-domed mosques erected centuries before the Taj Mahal was ever dreamed of, and quirky echoes of the British Raj on virtually every corner.
The world's seventh-largest country, covering more than 3 million square kilometres, India is second only to China in terms of population, which stands at over 1.1 billion. Hindus comprise eighty percent of the population, Muslims thirteen percent, and there are millions of Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains.
The most-travelled circuit in the country, the so-called "Golden Triangle" in the north, combines Delhi itself, the colonial capital; Agra, home of the Taj Mahal; and the Pink City of Jaipur in Rajasthan. East of the River Ganges meanders through some of India's most densely populated regions to reach the extraordinary holy Hindu city of Varanasi (also known as Benares), while further east lies the teeming metropolis of Kolkata (Calcutta).
South from Kolkata along the coast, Konark in Orissa is the site of the famous Sun Temple. Tamil Nadu, further south, has its own tradition of magnificent architecture. Kerala, near the southernmost tip of the Subcontinent on the western coast, is India at its most tropical and relaxed. Further up the coast, the hundred-kilometre coastline of Goa, the former Portuguese colony, is fringed with beaches. North of here sits Mumbai, an ungainly beast that reels along on an undeniable energy that, after a few days of acclimatization, can prove addictive.
Some of India's most memorable monuments lie far inland, on long-forgotten trading routes across the heart of the Subcontinent – including the abandoned city of Vijayanagar (or Hampi) in Karnataka; the painted and sculpted Buddhist caves of Ajanta and Ellora in Maharashtra; and the erotic temples of Khajuraho in Madhya Pradesh.