Khambhat Agate Workshops
A thousand years of grinding stone — the agate workshops of Khambhat, where craftsmen still use age-old techniques to cut, polish and bead the brilliant carnelian and agate stones washed from the Narmada estuary.
Sardar Patel Birth Home
The house that held the Iron Man — Karamsad, the ancestral home of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, where the man who unified 562 princely states was born in 1875, now a small heritage memorial in the quiet Charotar.
Khambhat Jami Masjid
A forest of repurposed pillars — the Khambhat Jami Masjid, a medieval mosque whose interior of elaborately carved Hindu and Jain columns documents the layered, cosmopolitan history of this ancient port-city.
Swaminarayan Temple, Anand
The white marble of the Akshar tradition — Swaminarayan Temple in Anand, of the BAPS tradition, the defining religious institution of modern Gujarat.
Stambhan Parshwanath Temple
A Jain tirth of the Cambay region — Stambhan Parshwanath, an historic pilgrimage temple dedicated to Parshwanath, the 23rd Tirthankar, its marble shikhara a landmark of Jain devotion in the Charotar.
Khambhat Jain Temples
A medieval Jain constellation — the Khambhat Jain temple cluster, a group of historic tirths in the ancient port-city of Cambay, funded by the merchant princes of the medieval Indian Ocean.
Borsad Stepwell
A Gothic spiral in stone — the Borsad vav, a seven-storey medieval stepwell in the heart of Charotar, its shafts and carved galleries descending to the dark water far below.
Anand Agricultural University
A world-class agricultural university — Anand Agricultural University (AAU), heir to a century-old tradition of agronomic research in the fertile Charotar, whose science helped sustain India’s green and white revolutions.
Karamsad
Where the Sardar was born — Karamsad, the birthplace of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Iron Man of India and architect of Indian unity, in the heart of the Charotar.
Khambhat Port
Khambhat Port sits at the head of the gulf that shares its name, and for centuries it was one of western India’s busiest maritime gateways. Ships once carried textiles, beads and spices out from here, long before silting