I AM a Buddhist, not because I have read the collected writings of Richard Gere or discovered myself in a yoga commune in the Himalayas, but, rather prosaically, because my mother and father were raised as Sri Lankan Buddhists and that is the form of spirituality that I inherited.

Having been to an Anglican primary school, Catholic university college, to Muslim, Sikh and Christian weddings in the past year alone, as well as presenting a documentary for BBC Radio 1 about Scientology, I consider myself fairly well versed in a broad range of people's beliefs.

Even though our entire family is Buddhist, religion seldom entered into our domestic lives, other than an attempt by my late father to introduce the concept of meditation into our daily routine, which didn't go down well with two pre-teenage sons obsessed with war films and football.

Buddhism became more important to me after my father died. His death made me think more about belief as a part of my cultural identity rather than simply as a source of spiritual sustenance.

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BACKGROUND

• Kumbh Mela: the largest pilgrimage

• DJ Nihal's pilgrimage to India

• Dine with a maharajah in Udaipur

• In search of India and myself

• Mumbai: a city of two tales

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• Kumbh Mela: the largest pilgrimage

My 35th year has been momentous in many ways. I have experienced so much at BBC Radio 1 in the past 12 months, I became a board member of the British Council and landed my own daily show for the BBC Asian Network. For the first time I felt professionally secure, and with that stability came a need to have a spiritual pit stop. The only place that I wanted to visit was Bodhgaya, in the Indian state of Bihar, to see the place where Buddha gained enlightenment more than 2,500 years ago, apparently at the age of 35 - a coincidence I could not ignore.

I began my journey in Sri Lanka, my parents' homeland, before flying north to Delhi and on to Patna in Bihar. When I eventually landed in temperatures of 43C (109F), my driver, Bablu, was waiting for me with a humble smile.

The state of Bihar wouldn't feature in any brochures about India's economic miracle. It is the rural India that has changed little since the time of Mahatma Gandhi, with some areas unchanged since the time of Buddha. Now, however, the horses and their carts carry advertisements for mobile phone networks. Wherever I look there is a bustling energy, and subsistence enterprise flourishes underneath the sun's oppressive glare.

It is not uncommon to see women walking past as upright as Eliza Doolittle while balancing the equivalent of a thatched roof on their heads. Children labour alongside their mothers in the fields, with only the dogs, crows and cows enjoying the respite of dusk. The few vehicles that pass are piled high with produce and people. Buses strain to triumph over gravity as people cling on like barnacles, both inside and outside.

It is 10am by the time I leave my hotel and take the five-minute car journey to the Bodhgaya temple complex. As soon as the car door opens, an earnest young man offers himself as a guide for the sum of 100 rupees (about £1.25). I wanted to be alone, so I did not require his services, although a parasol and a bottle of water would have been a good idea to combat the heat.

In between hordes of local Hindu devotees, Buddhist monks on their mobile phones, and one or two people in meditation, I found a spot under the magnificent bodhi tree and closed my eyes. There I sat, unaware of time. All I could hear was birdsong and the mutterings of passing people who largely observed the serene sanctity of the area. It was not hard to imagine the Lord Buddha sitting on that very spot 2,600 years ago.

In Bodhgaya I found a place that made me feel like thinking about myself, who I wanted to be, about my departed father, and my wife and family. I didn't come to be a better Buddhist, but to clear my mind of modern life and concentrate on the spiritual alongside the material, financial and musical elements of my daily life.

I'm not sure that I succeeded - only time will tell - but I certainly came away from Bodhgaya with a calmness that I have not felt in a long time. On my final night there I came across some Americans eating street food at an open-air kitchen. I asked a dreadlocked Californian wearing wire-framed glasses why he was in Bodhgaya. “It's the world's smallest Mecca,” he replied.

Nihal Arthanayake (DJ Nihal) is a presenter on BBC Radio 1 and BBC Asian Network

Need to know

Getting there SriLankan Airlines (020-8538 2000, www.srilankan.aero) flies from Heathrow to Delhi via Colombo from £487 return.

Staying TransIndus (020-8566 2729, www.transindus.com) offers a tailormade journey, including return flights from Delhi to Patna, one night's B&B at the Radisson Hotel Delhi, two nights' B&B at the Kikko Lotus Hotel in Bodhgaya and chauffeured car, from £620pp. A new 15-day private tour, taking in Delhi, Lucknow, Varanasi, Khajuraho, Orcha, Gwalior, Dholpur and Agra, is from £1,945pp, including flights from Heathrow to Delhi.

Reading Northeast India (Lonely Planet, £13.99)

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