Monuments of India: Temples, Caves, Forts and Heritage Sites

These are guides to India’s great monuments for people who want to understand what they are looking at: who built the Kailasa Temple at Ellora and how it was cut from a single cliff, why the Konark Sun Temple is shaped like a chariot, and what makes the Chola temple at Thanjavur different from a Rajput fort in Jaipur.

Each guide covers the history, what to look for when you visit, and practical details like how to get there and the best time to go. Timings and ticket prices change, so I mark when a guide was last updated and link to the official ASI or UNESCO page where there is one.

Start here

Rock-cut caves and temples

• Kailasa Temple, Ellora: a whole temple carved from one rock
• Ajanta Caves and their Buddhist paintings
• Badami Caves, the Chalukya rock temples of Karnataka

Great temples and pilgrimage sites

• Konark Sun Temple, the stone chariot of Odisha
• Brihadeeswarar Temple, Thanjavur
• Vaishno Devi yatra guide
• Ram Setu: belief and science

Forts and palaces

• Amer Fort, Jaipur
• Hawa Mahal, Jaipur
• The Taj Mahal, Agra

Natural heritage

• The Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest