The photographer, who has visited India more than 60 times, once said the country had taught him to watch and wait on life.
"If you wait, people would forget your camera and the soul world drifts into view," he told an interviewer.
McCurry, whose picture of a young orphaned Afghan girl with green eyes became an iconic image of war and the most recognised picture in the history of National Geographic magazine, has now published a book of his pictures of India.
"These magnificent pictures, some justly famous, many new and revelatory - reveal the beauty of the country and highlights its extraordinary contradictions," writes author William Dalrymple in his introduction.
"This is a very different India indeed, and it is here, in the places suspended between modernity and tradition, that most of the pictures in the book were made."
Here is a selection from Steve McCurry: India published by Phaidon/Roli Books.
Celebrated American photographer Steve McCurry has been coming to India for more than three decades.