Nashik, a tourist center with links to the Mahabharata

#ramayana #mahabharata #muktidham #ayodha #Kurukshetra #nashik Nashik is a unique city that can boast of links to both the Indian epics Ramayana and the Mahabharata. As we all know, Ramayana is centered around Ayodha while the famous battle between the Kauravas and the Pandavas was held in Kurukshetra – and, both Ayodha and Kurukshetra are in north India. But, by a quirk of fate, Lord Rama and the Pandava brothers had spent some time in Nashik!!
Yes, believe it or not, the city of Nashik has links to the epic Mahabharata.
As one enters the city from the Mumbai side by road, one can see a range of mountains on the right hand. On top of these mountains is Pandavleni caves or the Pandav caves. There are quite a number of caves and the mythology goes that the five Pandava brothers had spent a part of their 14-year exile in these caves.
At the foothills of the Panduleni caves is a modern day park built in the 1990s – it is the Dadasaheb Phalke Smarak, a person who was a legend in his lifetime in the age of black and white movies.
Anyway, there is another link between Nashik and the Mahabharata. The name itself speaks volumes because ‘nasik’ means the nose. As per mythology, Bhima, one of the Pandava brothers, had chopped off the nose of Surpanakha, a she-demon, and it fell here in Nashik. If you visit the place called Tapovan, you can see the sight depicted in the form of a statue.
The fact of the matter is that Nashik has hundreds of temples and, while taking in these places of worship, one just cannot miss the Someshwar temple – a temple of Lord Shiva, situated on the banks of the Godavari. It is a picnic spot and has facilities for boating.
Near to this is the replica of the temple of Lord Balaji of Tirupati that one sees in the mountains of Thirumala in Andhra Pradesh.

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Nashik, a tourist center with links to the epic Ramayana

#muktidham #infantjesus #trimbakeshwar #ramkund #ramayana If you arrive in Nashik by train, you would have to get down at the Nashik Road railway station and the first important tourist attraction of Nashik is the Mukti Dham. This is a huge temple made of pure marble and located hardly one kilometer from the station. It was built in late 1960s and houses statues of a whole lot of Gods and Goddesses. Paragraphs from the Holy Scripture Gita are inscribed on the walls.
As you travel towards the city, you cannot miss the Shrine of Infant Jesus adjacent to the St Xavier’s School. The Christian community gathers in the shrine in the month of February. They come from Mumbai, Goa and other far off places to offer their prayers to Lord Jesus.
Once inside the city proper, you will like to make a beeline for the Ram Kund where Lord Rama is believed to have had his bath. It is on the banks of the River Godavari that has its source in the mountains of Trimbakeshwar. The river begins as a trickle and winds its way through the country to terminate in the Bay of Bengal near the city of Rajamundry in Hyderabad.
Anyway, one can spend some time on the banks of the river tasting the chats or the local fast foods including the bhel puri or go for boating or take a trip to the Kalaram Mandir or the Sita gufa – this is believed to be an underground cave where Sita mata used to stay. One has to crawl into the cave. There is also the Lakshman Rekha – this is associated with the epic Ramayana.
As per mythology, Lord Rama had left the hut to chase a golden deer that Sita mata had seen and wanted. Since he was getting delayed, she began to worry and asked her brother-in-law Lakshman to seek out Lord Rama. Therefore Lakshman, after some hesitation, used the tip of an arrow to draw a line around the hut and cautioned Sita mata not to go beyond the line.
Unfortunately, Ravana, the Demon King came dressed as a hermit with a begging bowl and lured her out of the protected area, kidnapped her and whisked her away to his palace in Lanka and the rest is history.

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#kumbhmela #shirdi #saibaba #muktidham #trimbakeshwar #ajantaellora Till the mid-1960s, Nashik was a well-known place of pilgrimage but, its face has undergone an immense change thanks to the industrialization that began. It all started with the setting up of HAL, an aircraft manufacturing unit in the outskirts of the city. Before HAL started, the important activities were of the India Security Press that printed bank notes and the Government of India press that printed government stationary.
HAL gave a new impetus to Nashik and, soon, two separate industrial area were identified and small scale industries started there alongside a few big names like VIP, Victor Gaskets, Crompton Greaves, MICO, Mahindra & Mahindra etcetera.
Obviously, such major setups brought in with them people from other parts of the country. And, the identity of the city kept changing. Demands began to rise to cater to the new lifestyle, malls opened and, side by side, eating joints to meet the needs of the new urban folks. Instead of traditional Maharashtrian snacks like wada pau, sabudana wada and missal-pau outlets there sprouted outlets that offered pizzas, finger chips, chicken fries and other such snacks. The proximity of Nashik to Pune and Mumbai boosted the stock of travel companies. There are any number of buses that ply between the cities apart from cabs – ordinary as well as air-conditioned ones.
Moreover, a number of colleges added a new dimension to living in Nashik – there are colleges of engineering, and medicine apart from colleges that go in for normal academic streams.
All of a sudden, Nashik was a new look Nashik that could throw a challenge to any other city. A city that used to be looked on as a retreat for the retired suddenly shed its shell and towered over the rest demanding attention to get noticed for its variety of offerings.
The places to visit in and around the city during the Nashik Kumbhmela 2015 are the temples of Mukti Dham, Trimbakeshwar, Someshwar, the Coin Museum, and the Pandu Caves. The holy city of Shirdi is a two-hour journey by bus and the road is motorable. Similarly, the Ajanta and Ellora caves are also nearby.

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