I would suggest a quick flight in to Goa if you have the time and a few extra dollars. Portuguese colonial, cathedrals everywhere, interesting combinations of traditional European and indigenous iconic artwork. The white sand beaches are a definite plus as well

Did you know that Agra i.e the fort, Taj Mahal etc. were built by the mughal emperors (who were MUSLIM).
I wonder why you specifically don't want to visit hindu and muslim sites?
You ARE planning to visit a country where hinduism is the most popular religion, and islam the second? Why go at all?
Is this a prejudice of some sort or a larger academic interest, do let us all know?
Anyway, if you go to Agra do make a visit to Fatehpur Sikri(which is incidentally muslim), trust me its quite awe inspiring.

ret... Your reply is more than a little offensive and condescending.

Of course I know about the Taj Mahal. If you absolutely MUST KNOW, I'm going to Agra to check out a landscape project with which University of Illinois was involved several years ago. I'm going to Baroda and Champaner for the same reason. And guess what, the work at Champaner dealt with BOTH Hindu and Muslim sites. Does that make you happy?

I'll assume from your answer that you can think of no appropriate sites to match my criteria, which makes me wonder why you bothered to answer at all.

Champaner is very beautiful...it is being documented by architect Karan Grover who is based in baroda if i am not wrong...you should meet him if you can.

If you are going to agra...a visit to fatehpur sikri is a must, it was built by the mughal emporer Akhbar and is an architectural masterpiece.

You will find some gorgeous churches in Kerala which are quite different from the churches in Goa...while in kerala you should look at architect Laurie Baker's work...his work is very simple and low cost. He works wonders with the simple mud-brick.

I donot have much knowledge about churches in north India but as salmon suggested rightly, goa is an ideal place to visit if you are looking for pre-independence churches. Also if you are going to stop over in bombay, there are a few beautiful old colonial churches you could visit within the city. If you need more information about them write to me.

snjr, i can help you with a few suggestions on the southern regions as i live here. there are quite many architectural sites with the religious context (not hindu not muslim) at pondicherry (french colonial heritage). you may also want to visit http://www.auroville.org/ which according to me is a must visit in your case. its very close to chennai.

there are a few churches, administrative buildings, public buildings (pre-independence) here in chennai built during the british rule. but you may not expect to see historic sites of extreme (religious)importance here. kerala here may be an exception though.

i second salmon`s suggestion to goa if you wanna have some fun and some educational experience.
drop me an email if you have specific questions. oh! why not punjab if you are specifically looking for religious places? punjab (close to chandigarh)- the land of sikh gurus. as a general suggestion i would say, you would learn a lot in no time with the different cultures-significant difference when you travel from north-south-east-west. it all depends on how much you travel.

p.s- i think the weblinks suck... find a good one.

o yes...how could i forget pondicherry!...have been planning to make a trip there myself...you should get in touch with some of the architects working in Auroville, they will be able to help you. If you need any help with that email me also if you need more specific information on goa or bombay (mumbai) write to me.

it's just a couple of thoughts i'm outlining here, so please excuse me for any factual inaccuracies...

looking back at the original post, a couple of things come to mind. firstly, india is the home of buddhism, right? so maybe you should go and take a look at some of the more important buddhist sites across the country. i'm not very sure about this, but i think most buddhist sites are sprinkled across the northern and central parts of the country. please somebody, fill in the blanks in my info!

buddhism is also interesting in a different way. the Dalit movement, sparked by Dr. B. Ambedkar encouraged a lot of the "untouchable" castes to switch to buddhism as a way to escape the whole casteist stigma attached to them by mainstream hindu tradition. by proclaiming themselves buddhists, and hence not hindu's, they were able to circumvent a lot of cultural baggage.

now, the dalit population in Bombay is largely ghettoised in large slum areas in certain parts of the city. these slums are often dotted by a number of small buddhist shrines. also, there is still considerable bad blood between the Dalits and mainstream traditionalist hindus. so my point is, these buddhist shrines in Dalit slums serve a dual purpose. apart from their religious purpose, they are also extreme political statements and strong territorial marker. the shrines themselves are pretty nondescript. there's no "architecture" there to look at. it's their political and social position and positioning that make them fascinating.

i hope i've been somewhat clear in this explanation...

oh yes, since you're going to baroda and champaner, i suppose you could go take a look at the jain settlements in patan.

there's also an old parsi town near vapi called Udwada, the Agiary (Fire Temple) supposedly hosts the original flame the parsi's carried over from iran. Udwada's practially a ghost town now, somehow...

the food there is really good, incidentally...

achha ... the buddhist sites are more often visited in the northern regions of the country .. in the sense that dalai lama being stationed at Dharamshala .. closer to tibet indian border .... you can go and visit a place called Tabo ... ( both these places are located in the indian state of Himachal Pradesh. there are many other towns with similar religious following . Besides its a very pleasant and beautiful region and LOTS OF DOPE!! .
anyways getting back to the point, you can visit Sanchi, close to the capital city of Bhopal (of Madhya Pradesh state). you'll fing the 'stupa' and the other structure .. first ever 'built' temple in india. previous to this all religious places have been located in caves, which can also be an interesting part of your trip. The western ghats (meaning the area near/along the western coastline of india) is dotted with such sites.

jain temples in abundance in Rajasthan and Gujrat. chk out daman and deu in gujrat. Visit the temple of somnath too

buddhist sites in india-- i think the best way should be to check out Sir banister Fletcher`s History of Architecture.

perhaps snjr will start a thread about good food too.

hi... maybe you would like to check out the churches in bangalore and mysore as well, they are kind of influenced by gothic architecture. i will definitely say goa and auroville are the places to go and see, religious or otherwise. goan churches are scattered all over the state; the older ones and more famous ones are in this place called old goa. however there are a few contemporary ones coming up as well. the temples there are however a bit of a mixture of portuguese and indian styles, but are quite colourful and interesting.

Good food....aloo muttur.

Thanks for all the suggestions. These are all places I'll try to hit in the next couple of years. Goa as an area won't really work in research terms (Portugeuse instead of British influx), ditto w/Pondicherry (French). We're really looking for sites that came in after 1831 (when Great Britain started to allow missionaries to India) and might still be functioning as religious sites--originally Christian, but maybe no longer? Maybe they've been developed into something else?

I've been thinking about refocusing on Chennai, but it's generally expected by those higher up (ie, those with the money) I will spend most of my time in a Hindi-language dominant area.

Jo--Karan Grover was here last night (UIUC) for a lecture. UIUC works with him quite a bit (on the Champaner "heritage trails" projects). Man, that guy can use his multimedia!

snjr.. my bad.
It seemed from your post that this was another hindu/muslim bashing post, which seemed to have cropped up suddenly in a number of discussion forums/blogs.
Now, as for your specific criteria-
This one is not very well known-
The All Souls Cathedral in the city of Kanpur. Was built after 1857 as a monument to the deaths of british nationals during the "first war of indian independence in 1857"
I have been there myself. Quite an interesting place. The church is built in the vicinity of an underground tunnel (many miles long), which ends at the river bank. Locals claim taht the end of the tunnel is where thousands of people were massacred during the mutiny. There is also a well which was where a lot of people jumped to their deaths, right next to where the church is now.
I don't know if that would be helpful to your research.

Also, You might want to verify if it was 1831 when Great Britain allowed missionaries into india. I am quite sure that many groups such as the Presybetarians and Methodists (from great britain) arrived sometime in the early 1800's, while Christianity has been in India since 72 AD(Apostle Thomas), and kept growing ever since.

As far as Buddhist sites are concerned,
Tabo mentioned above is a beautiful place. i had the opportunity to interact with the monks there for nearly a week. It is a long and difficult drive to Tabo(landslides et all), but it is truly worth a visit if you find the time.

Chamapaner has a number of hidden/secret/lesser known places, but i guess you know enough about it already from Karan Grover. If not and if you're interested i will mention some later.

Once again, apologies for misreading your post.

Apology accepted, Ret. And you're right, I should have typed 1813 (I almost typed 1831 again!). At least in the British areas, it was the Charter Act of 1813 that opened it up for Anglican missionizing.

Thanks everyone, this has been really helpful.

Don't take it too seriously - have some fun over there too!