Eastern India begins where north India ends, indeed overlaps it, indicating the impossibility of dividing India along pre-arranged lines. A few miles from Varanasi down the old Grand Trunk Road into the state of Bihar. Gautama Buddha the founder of Buddhism achieved enlightenment or 'nirvana' beneath the Bodhi tree near Gaya, just south of Patna, the capital city of Bihar.

The ruins at Nalanda, a celebrated centre of Buddhist learning from the 5th to the 12th century, allow only a glimpse of its stature, but it attracted students not only from all over India but also from Tibet, China, Korea, Japan and Indonesia. It was one of the earliest universities in the world.

For most visitors however,Calcutta provides the ideal focus or route center whether you're heading north to the mountains, south-east to the tropical islands of the Andaman archipelago, or south to Orissa. Nor, despite a perennially bad press, should Calcutta "the many-sided, the smoky the magnificent" as Kipling described it, be overlooked.

Above and beyond Calcutta with its gregarious people and exuberant culture other worlds beckon. A short flight northward brings you to Bagdogra and the winding road or railway to the hill station of Darjeeling. Though Darjeeling means 'place of the thunderbolt', its picturesque toy train remains impassive, proceeding at a snail's pace through fragrant, rhododendron - covered hills. The views of the Himalaya - clear across Kanchenjunga to Everest - can be stupendous, though frequently obscured by cloud (mid September to December is the optimum time). Built on a myriad of interconnecting levels, rather like a vertical as well as a horizontal maze, Darjeeling remains a tiny fragment of Anglo-India, surrounded by endless tea plantations.

Further    north    lies   remote    Sikkim,    whose   people are friendly intermingling of Lepchas, Bhutias and Nepalese, reflecting its common borders with Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan. It is a land of extraordinary flora and fauna with over 500 species of orchid, plus red pandas and blue sheep. Remote gompas, Buddhist monasteries such as those at Pemayangtse and Dzongri, cling precariously to mountainsides or perch upon ridges offering breathtaking Himalayan views. Awe-inspiring views outside are mirrored by the profound spirituality encountered within. These monasteries with their darkened shrines lit only by devotional butter-oil lamps, reverberate with the chanting of monks or the enveloping foghorn-like sound of their immense trumpets, calling the faithful to prayer, echoing endlessly down the valleys.

Seven states clustered around Assam make up India's far-flung north-eastern frontier. A hugely fertile land of enormous rainfall (be warned!), dense forests, high mountains, and bright green paddy fields, it is bisected by the mighty river Brahmaputra, the only male river in the Hindu cosmology. It is home to many tribal peoples, whose energetic and engaging festivals, music and dance draw inspiration from animist folk traditions as well as later Hindu, Buddhist and Christian elements. Assam is best known for its tea and two of India's finest National Parks (Kaziranga and Manas), Meghalaya for the town of Cherrapunji (reputedly the wettest place on Earth with an average rainfall of forty feet, yes feet, a year), and Manipur for its reputation as a land of warriors (where polo originated). Travelers in these regions must content themselves with modest accommodation and only a basic tourist infrastructure. This area is one of India's extremes, remote, relatively untouched by outside influences, and occasionally at variance with the general image of India; the Khasis of Meghalaya for example built no temples, believing the universal presence of their god rendered that unnecessary.

By contrast the temples of Orissa, south of Calcutta, are the state's principal attractions, but there again, these are no ordinary temples. The state capital Bhubaneswar has over five hundred Hindu temples and monuments alone, but until the Moghul invasions of the 16th century no less than seven thousand sandstone temples surrounded the sacred Bindusagar Tank. Alas, the eleventh century Lingaraj temple, the pinnacle of Orissan architecture, is off-limits to non-Hindus, but a good pair of binoculars will bring you close inside.

Although it has a long stretch of golden beach, and picturesque life-savers in conical straw hats, Puri exists only for the Hindus deity Jagannath, the 'Lord of the Universe'. At his 'rath yathra' or midsummer chariot festival, around a quarter of a million pilgrims crowd into town to witness the deities each drawn in stupendous vehicles by precisely 4,200 men - thus contributing the word 'juggernaut' to the English language - through the adoring multitudes.

From Puri a good road leads up the coast to Konark, an hour's drive. Here the third and possibly greatest of Orissa's temples is accessible to all. Close to mile upon mile of golden beach, this was conceived as the towering chariot of the sun god Surya. Constructed with twelve pairs of wheels and drawn by a team of seven mettlesome horses, the now-ruined monument stands in magnificent isolation. In form and detail - it is heavily sculptured with scenes from every aspect of life, dancing, music, feasting, making love, making war, hunting and so on - Konark is unequalled elsewhere in India.