Nashik - The good old religious town

Just back from a hectic 3 day quick trip to Maharashtra, I thought I would start penciling in my thoughts on the trip. To start with, I would like to talk about Nashik, the good old religious town in the state of Maharashtra. True to its stature, the town remains soaked in history and religion, and remains relatively aloof from the urbanisation and developments seen in the nearby towns. Through this post, I just hope to cover the important places to visit in this historic town.

REACHING THERE: Nashik is well connected by road and rail. The nearest rail head, Nashik Road, is about 10 kms from the city. Trains run to Nashik road from Mumbai, the state capital of Maharashtra. By road, Nashik is about 185 kms from Mumbai. From Pune, Nashik is 220 kms away. The road passes through several ghats making it a very lively driving experience.

Nashik city is dotted with several temples. Most of them are small in size, but carry considerable historical significance.

Here is a quick round-up of temples definitely worth a visit:

GODAVARI CONFLUENCE: This is the primary landmark of the city. River Godavari is in full flow here, originating from the Brahmagiri hills, not far from here. However, unlike a typical river flow, the place looks like a series of water tanks, given the numerous bifurcations done to the river flow. The flow is also very gentle here and it gives one an appearance of a lake rather than a river.

KAPALEESHWAR MANDIR: The importance of the Godavari confluence lies in the numerous small temples that decorate the banks of the river. There is a temple here for Lord Hanuman, River Godavari and River Ganga to just name a few. One of the significant temples on the bank is the Kapaleeshwar temple located at a walkable distance from the river bed. The temple is located on a small hillock. The temple, as the name suggests, is dedicated to Lord Shiva. The interesting facet about the temple is that unlike a standard Shiva shrine, here Nandhi statue is absent in front of the linga. This gives quite a close, direct view of the lord.

VENKATESH BALAJI MANDIR: Just opposite the Kapaleeshwar temple, is a temple dedicated to Lord Vishnu. Interestingly the deity here resembles the lord in Tirupathi, the famous temple town in South India. The statue of the lord has a very pleasing appearance and a visit to this temple leaves a good feel in one's mind despite being quite a small temple.

KALARAM MANDIR: Undoubtedly the biggest temple of the town, is the temple dedicated to Lord Rama. Rama and Ramayan has a strong connection with Nashik as the town seems to have been the very land where lord spent his time in exile. The temple architecture is a great sight and could admire its beauty for quite a long time. The primary deities, lord Rama, Lakshmana, Hanuman and lordess Sita are structured out of black stone and hence the name Kalaram, standing for Black Ram. What is equally amazing about the temple architecture is the effort to beautify the inner sanctum of the temple, to match the grand exteriors.

GORA RAM MANDIR: Close to the Kalaram Mandir lies the Goraram Mandir. This is a relatively small temple, with the statue of deities Ram, Lakshman, Sita and Hanuman carved out of white Marble. The Place attracts a lot of foreign tourists, for whom lectures are conducted on certain topics out of the Ramayan.

PANCHAVATI: As one walks further along the road, one would reach Panchavati. This is again a major landmark from the point of Ramayan. It is said that Rama and Sita had their hut established here while living in exile and it is from here that Ravan took Sita away to Lanka. Panchavati, as the name indicates, is a confluence of five trees that have stood the test of times. One can actually see the five trees marked as one to five, representing the origin of the place.

SITA GUFA: Probably the most interesting place in Nashik is the cave called Sita Gufa. It is located right next to Panchavati. As you enter the premise, it looks like a tiny temple with a single pedestal. However, the real fascination starts there after. We make our first entry to the cave, where the passage narrows and turns slightly darker. Our first sight is that of Rama along with Sita, Lakshman and Hanuman. When we feel that this is it about the cave, we are shown a second passage that takes us further down the cave. At the second halt, we have a turtle statue. Although, I am not fully aware of its significance, statue of turtle seems to be very common in all temples in this region.

When we were already excited having travelled quite a bit inside the cave, we saw a third passage waiting for us. As we advanced further in, we were able to sense the fact that we were really travelling deeper inside the earth, well below the ground level. To our amazement, we found to a nice, well crafted Siva Linga here. We were allowed to touch the same and offer our prayers. It was quite a scintillating experience that I would remember for long.

SOMESHWAR TEMPLE: To complete our trip within the town of Nashik, we proceeded to Someshwar temple located slightly far from the city centre, roughly about 15 kms away on the Mumbai highway. There is a small Siva temple here along with deities of Rama, Lakshman, Sita and Hanuman. Around here, river Godavari has a very gentle flow and hence one could take a boating trip near the temple.

ADDITIONAL NEAR-BY VISITS: Invariably, a visit to Nashik would not be complete without visiting Trimbakeshwar, located around 35 kms from here. It is revered as one of the 12 jyothirlingas of Lord Shiva. The trip had its own set of memories and I would cover them in my following post.

SCHEDULING YOUR TRIP: Best way to schedule your trip to Nashik is to come down from Mumbai or Pune. On completion of religious sight seeing at this historic place, you can push off to Shirdi, the abode of Sai Baba. Shirdi is just around 90kms from Nashik.