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'I I I erhaps the gentleman's appearance-his neat white turban, his flowing white kurtha pajama, his elegant white moustaches-made his offer seem innocuous. Still, it's not every day that someone inquires if you'd like some opium, and that too, with the same degree of generous concern that you would be offered a cup of tea. It's true, what they say about the hospitality of Indian villages. There's really nothing quite like it. On India's western Rajasthan plains, it's easy to skip blithely from palace to glorious palace, from one fabled desert outpost to the next. The former rulers here in the Thar Desert, the Rajputs, had a penchant for good living, and to support their habits intermittently plundered each other's kingdoms. Their ivory and jewels, their antique cars and racehorses are the stuff of a BBe miniseries; you, the traveler, can play the part of the genteel Englishman, wearing a funny hat, completely out of your element, yet irresistibly attracted to the seething, burning romance of India. If you stay in a regal hotel, you'll hear the polite murmurs of the staff-as soothing as the fountain burbling in the courtyard, as soft as the rustle of the peacock's feathers as it struts across the lawn. Invisible hands array fragrant meals on silver platters. Footsteps echo on marble floors as you are escorted to an air-conditioned car that whisks you through the dusty streets and deposits you at another fairy-tale fortress, sparkling with mirrors and stained glass. After a few days of this mind-numbing opulence, you may find yourself wondering what lies beneath this carefully constructed picture of majesty. The antidote to this surfeit of riches is easily accessible. Barely an hour outside the city of Jodhpur lie the lands of the Bishnoi, a sect of environmentally conscious Hindus. Formed in the 15th century, the group follows 29 principles (the name Bishnoi comes from the Hindi bis, meaning twenty, and noi, nine) laid down by its founder, Jambeshwar Bhagavan, called Jambho Ji by his followers. Disillusioned by sectarian quarrels, and troubled by a crippling drought, Jambho Ji developed teachings based on a love of nature, borrowing elements from Hinduism and Islam_ While the Bishnoi worship the Hindu god Vishnu, like Muslims they do not venerate idols and observe no caste. Following the Bishnoi tenet that forbids the felling of a living tree or killing an animal, the Bishnoi, also like Muslims, bury their dead, a practice that, unlike Hindu cremation, conserves wood. Jambho ji's concern with conserving the desert's sparse resources is seen in principles that also govern the use and conservation of water, animal husbandry and environmental preservation. The Bishnoi guru even forbade wearing the color blue, so that shrubs from which indigo dye is made would not have to be uprooted_ To this day, Bishnoi men traditionally wear white, while women dress in black and red. The Bishnoi view trees and animals as family members, as entitled to their place on earth as humans. An Indian reporter once asked a Bishnoi man if he owned the beautiful horse standing next to his compound was answered with peals of laughter-the animal was actually a rare blue antelope-and a " Black Buck 28