BUDDHISM - This religion was found by a prince Siddhartha Gautam who later got famous as Buddha. He was also known as 'Sakyamuni'. Buddha offered teachings and taught Four Noble Truths which ultimately leads to the way to achieve Enlightenment or called 'Nirvana' by the Buddhists.

The Buddhists followers and believers built shrines renowned as 'STUPAS' at those places where Buddha lived, visited or preached. The famous one are at Sanchi and Sarnath. In Bihar, a place called Bodh Gaya has a Peepal tree also known as Bodhi tree. Near that a small shrine is built by the emperor Ashoka.

The 'CHAITYAS'are the places or can be properly termed as the temples where the people pray together;

In MAHARASHTRA---there are 'chaityas' with water cisterns or 'podhis' to store rainwater.

Maharashtra also has renowned Ajanta and Ellora caves in its Ajanta and Verulleni villages which have paintings depicting the life of Buddha.

In LADAKH - Buddhism is the merged belief of many other rituals. Here, the Buddhist monasteries orGompas are store houses of icons or murals;

In ASSAM - The Hayagrina-Madhab temple in Hajo is visited by the Buddhists.

Among the so many statues, shrines and temples of Lord Buddha most of them are in Asia especially in China, Korea and Japan. The LESHAN BUDDHA in Sichuan, China is the world's tallest statue.

In ARUNACHAL PRADESH--- ASIA'S second largest Buddhist monasteries is present known as Twang Gompas. This monastery has homes for monks and other useful sanctums.

This was just a brief account about natural deities and Buddhism. Next at your door is the information about Hinduism...

HINDUISM - It is another ancient religion found thousand of years ago. It is widely practiced in India and Nepal. With of pace of time Hinduism is expanded all over in different number of sectors and sub-groups and that too with varying beliefs. Though most of the Hindus believe that there are many gods like-Shiva, Ganesha, Brahma, Vishnu, Lakshmi so many more, there are few other with contradictory believes.....

The revered and the devotion given by the devotees to their idol is in different obeisance. For some, meditation is the complete form of worship in which the person not only feels relaxed but there is a feeling of a strong bond between the soul and the almighty. Other form of worship includes: chanting, reading holy-books like Ramayana and Bhagwadgita and even performing sacrifices to the god.

In Jammu & Kashmir - the festival of 'Mahashivratri' is celebrated lavishly and with a great zeal. It is festival of lord Shiva and goddess Parvathi.

In Himachal Pradesh - there are many temples of Hinduism with an old history. There is an ancient Hindu temple with a boiling hot spring well called 'Manikaran'. The water is so hot that even rice, pulses and vegetables can be cooked.

In Haryana - birth of early Hinduism took place. The Vedic hymns and manuscripts were formulated here.

In Uttranchal - where kumaon has a 900 years old 'katarmal' sun temple, garhwal is a platform for lots of Hindu mythologies.

The very renowned Badrinath&Kedarnath temples of Hindu culture are the icons of Uttranchal. Badrinath is dedicated to lord Vishnu and situated between the Nar and Narayan mountain ranges. This temple was built by AdiShankracharya in the 8th century; Kedarnath is devoted to lord Shiva situated at the sources of river Mandakini.

In Uttar Pradesh - Kashi and vishwanath temples in Varanasi are famous.

In Rajasthan - in pushkar there is said to be the only temple of Lord Brahma which is very pious and especially visited by the devotees.

The 'karni Mata' temple in Bikaner is the centre of attraction of tourists because of the rats being worshipped.