#3 Bear witness to the “mother of all mosques”, Darul Uloom Tajul Masajid
With its matching pair of colossal pink minarets soaring high above the city skyline, the Darul Uloom Tajul Masajid lives up to the epithet of “mother of all mosques”, as denoted by the extra “a” in its name. Whether Bhopal’s most impressive monument also deserves to be dubbed the biggest in India, as locals claim, is less certain.
Work on the building commenced under Sultan Jehan Begum (1868–1901), the eighth ruler of Bhopal. After the death of her domineering husband, the widowed queen embarked on a spending spree that left the city with a postal system, new schools and a railway, but which all but impoverished the state – and the Tajul Masajid was never actually completed.
#4 See some of the finest stone sculptures in Madhya Pradesh
The Birla Mandir Museum collection includes some of the finest stone sculptures in Madhya Pradesh, informatively displayed with explanatory panels in English in the main galleries.
The museum is in a detached mansion beside Birla Mandir, the garish modern Hindu Lakshmi Narayan temple that stands high on Arera Hill overlooking the Lower Lake. Aside from the museum itself, the temple gardens, which overlook the city, are a fine place to watch the sunset.
The exhibition is divided between Vishnu, the mother goddess, and Shiva. The Vishnu section contains some interesting representations of the god’s diverse and frequently bizarre reincarnations, while in the Devi gallery next door, a cadaverous Chamunda (the goddess Durga in her most terrifying aspect) stands incongruously amid a row of voluptuous maidens and fertility figures. The Shiva room, by contrast, is altogether more subdued.
RoughGuides tip: don't miss the replicas of the 3500-year-old Harappan artefacts encased under the stairs.
#5 Check out the artworks of Bharat Bhavan Arts Centre
The Bharat Bhavan Arts Centre is provincial India’s pre-eminent arts centre. Inside Goan architect Charles Correa’s campus of concrete domes and dour brickwork are temporary exhibitions as well as a large split-level permanent collection of modern Indian paintings and sculptures.
Rather incongruously placed amid the latter, look out for an eighteenth-century gilt-framed landscape by the Daniells – the uncle-nephew duo employed as a part of the Company school of painting during the Raj.
Bharat Bhavan has a gallery devoted exclusively to adivasi art, in search of which talent scouts spent months roaming remote regions. Among their more famous discoveries was the Gond painter Jangarh Singh Shyam. Many of his works are on display here, along with a colourful assemblage of masks, terracotta, wood carvings and ritual paraphernalia.
#6 Find out about India’s indigenous minorities at Museum of Man
The story of India’s indigenous minorities – the adivasi, literally “original inhabitants” – is all too familiar. Dispossessed of their land by large-scale development projects or exploitative moneylenders, the “tribals” have seen a gradual erosion of their traditional culture. The Museum of Man, or the Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya, is an enlightened attempt to redress the balance.
Overlooking New Market on one side and the majestic sweep of Upper Lake on the other, the 200-acre hilltop site includes a reconstructed Keralan coastal village. There is also a winding trail where each tribal group from the state has contributed an interpretation of its own creation myth.
A large exhibition hall draws on all the daily and ritual elements of the adivasi lifestyle, and dotted among the forest scrub are botanical trails, a research centre and a permanent open-air display of traditional adivasi buildings.
#7 See the traditional crafts and artwork of adivasi people at Tribal Museum
Best visited in conjunction with the nearby Museum of Man, the Tribal Museum is dedicated to the millions of adivasi people who live in Madhya Pradesh.
It houses well-curated displays, traditional crafts, artworks and replica homes of the seven main tribal groups in the state. The museum also stages regular music and cultural performances.
#8 See the regal white tigers at Van Vihar Zoological Park
A trip to the Van Vihar Zoological Park ties in nicely with a visit to the Museum of Man next door – keep the same auto-rickshaw for the whole trip. The stars of the park are a couple of regal white tigers, but there are also gharial, leopards, Himalayan bears and lions. You can get a longer look at the 207 species of birds by taking a boat from the jetty, 500m northeast of the park gate.