Explore the Wonders of India
AGRA
the city of the Taj Mahal, is situated on the banks of the Jumna River about 900 miles northeast of Bombay. It was the capital of the Mogul Empire under Akbar the Great, who built Agra's Red Fort and ruled India from within its walls.
Pre-eminent sights. are the Pearl Mosque, Akbar's Tomb at nearby Sikandra, and the acknowledged masterwork of the Taj itself, “a dream in stone, conceived by Titans and finished by jewellers”.
AJANTA CAVES
The rock-hewn caves of Ajanta, dating over a period from the 2nd Century B.C. to the 7th Century A.D., are located some sixty-six miles from Aurangabad. The magnificent paintings and sculptures demonstrate a remarkable unity of conception and design — a Buddhist epic spanning eight centuries.
BANARAS
holy centre of Hindu pilgrimage and worship, sprawls along the left bank of the River Ganges in an awesome array of bathing and burning “ghats”, great temples and shrines. Reputedly four thousand years old, Bananas is one of the most compelling cities in the Orient.
The Monkey Temple, Golden Temple, Well of Knowledge, bazaars and ghats are among the many important sights to be seen.
DARJEELING
an attractive hill station 7,000 feet above sea level, standing on a mountain ridge within view of the great range of the Himalayas. From nearby heights one may see Kanchenjunga and Mt. Everest, the world's loftiest peak.
Tibetans, Nepalese, and others from the mountainous regions of the north throng the bazaars of Darjeeling, which are unusually interesting.
DELHI
Capital city of the Republic of India, Delhi is a composite of old and new. New Delhi boasts of the magnificent Parliament Building, Central Secretariat, and the residence of the President, along with tree-lined avenues, attractive homes and shopping streets.
Nearby is the old Mogul capital, with its enormous Red Fort, Humayun's Tomb, the lofty Kutab tab Minas tower from the 12th century, and the Chandni Chowk, once the richest street in the world and still famous for its jewellers and silversmiths.
ELLORA CAVES
By contrast with Ajanta, the Ellora creation are not only Buddhist, but reveal later sculptural developmen in Hindu and Jain styles. Kailasa Temple at Ellora is especially impressive - 96 feet high, 164 feet long, 109 feet wide.
Thy caves are located about eighteen miles from Aurangabad.
FATEHPUR SIKRI
Akbar's, “abandoned city”, may be reaches in an hour's journey by road from Agra. Built on a rock, eminence in the virile style of Mogul architecture, Fatehpu Sikri became a ghost city within a few years when the nearby lake, its only source of water, dried up.
JAIPUR
Capital of Rajasthan, the “Rose Pink City” of Jaipur was the unique creation of one man, Jai Singh. Houses with latticed windows line the streets, their prescribed colour giving the city its special character and epithet.
Most famous of all, the “Palace of the Winds”, stands in the center of the city's main square.
JODHPUR
princely city on the northwest frontier, is famed for its life under maharajahs of the Rajput era. A city of delicate shrines and stately palaces, it is located in open desert country.
KATMANDU (NEPAL)
“The last Shangri-La”" is a fitting description for the remote Kingdom of Nepal in a high, fertile valley of the Himalayas between'India and Tibet, Barely emerged from the stone age, Nepal still retains such wonder as a King worshipped as an incarnation of Vishnu, and Living Goddess who must be the daughter of a goldsmith.
In the cities of Katmandu and nearby Patan there are 2,700 shrines for mixed Hindu, Buddhist and animistic Bon worship, most of which are lavishly decorated examples of Nepalese art.
UDAIPUR
combines exquisite beauty with a great and glorious past. The city stands in a valley amid green hills, on the shore of a large blue lake.
Marble palaces of pure white rise from the shores of the lake and on islands in the lake – the most famous of which are the palace of the Maharani, Jog Mandir Palace and Jog Niwas Palace.
[Produced for the 1967 Great World Cruise by Cook's World Travel Service]