What is the peshwai at this Kumbh?
When an akhada comes to the Kumbh it does not arrive quietly. It enters the town in procession, and on the bathing days it goes down to the river the same way, with its head, its flag and its sadhus, along a route that is fixed in advance. People call the entry the peshwai. This page is the procession — what it is called, which way it goes at Nashik and at Trimbakeshwar, and what you see.
पेशवाईpeshwai
the ceremonial entry of an akhada into the mela town before the bathing days, in procession, with its head carried in state
Table of contents
An अखाड़ा akhada is an order of sadhus with its own head, its own rule, its own property and its own place in the bathing order at a Kumbh. The word originally meant a wrestling ground. When an akhada comes to the Kumbh it makes its ceremonial entry into the mela town before the bathing days, with its head carried in state and its sadhus marching ahead, and that entry is what people call the पेशवाई peshwai. It is the word people use.
It is the people’s word and not the official one. The Kumbh authority and the district call the same thing the shahi procession, the royal procession, on the shahi route. No account of the entry itself has been published beyond the route it takes.
Section I
What the procession is
People who come to the Kumbh come eager to see the shahi procession of the akhadas. In 2015 the akhadas were given their plots in the camp along the procession path, so that the orders sat along the road they would take to the river. And the routes for 2015 were published before the Kumbh, one for Nashik and six for Trimbakeshwar, under the heading of the royal processions.
So the procession has two ends. One is the entry, the peshwai, when an akhada arrives and goes to its camp. The other is the walk to the river on a shahi snan day, when it leaves the camp with its head and its flag and goes down to bathe, and the shahi snan has that day in full.
Section II
The route at Nashik
The Vaishnav akhadas at Nashik camp at Tapovan, the forest on the river a little below Panchavati, and Tapovan is the place itself. From there the road to Ramkund is the shahi route, and in 2015 it went like this.
It started at the Lakshmi Narayan temple, on the river at the Tapovan end of town, and came out onto the national highway. It went past the Panchamukhi Hanuman temple to Katya Maruti Chowk, then to Devi Chowk, and along Ganeshwadi Road past the Ayurveda College. It came down to the river by the Gadge Maharaj bridge, went under it, and up through Sardar Chowk to the chowk in front of the Kapaleshwar temple, and from there down the steps to Ramkund.
Ramkund is where it ends, and the temples of Nashik has the Kapaleshwar temple on the bank above it.
Section III
The routes at Trimbakeshwar
At Trimbakeshwar the ten Shaiva and Udasin akhadas do not all come from one camp, so in 2015 there were six routes, one for each group of akhadas, and each ran from the group’s camp through the lanes of the town to Kushavarta and then on to the Trimbakeshwar temple, and back to the camp by a different way.
One came down from Nilparvat, past the Khanderao temple and along Teli lane to Kushavarta and on to the north gate of the temple, and went back by the post office lane and the road past the Nivruttinath temple. Others came in past Ambedkar Chowk and along Mahadevi Road, or by the Nivruttinath temple road and the Sundarbai math, or down Vetal lane through Patankar Chowk and Panchali to the kund and out by Laxminarayan Chowk, or past the tehsil office and the Sutar dharmashala to Mahajan Chowk. The longest, six kilometres, came in along the Nashik–Trimbak road past the new Jawhar junction and the municipal office before it joined the Nivruttinath temple road. The shortest was under two. All of them met at the kund, and all of them went on from the kund to the temple.
A hundred and fifty years ago the procession at Trimbak set out from a monastery on the plain between the town and Anjaneri and walked to Kushavarta three abreast, with banners flying and gold and silver trumpets blowing, and the crowds looked on.
Section IV
What you see
The nagas of the Shaiva akhadas walk in the processions with their spears and swords. The Vaishnav akhadas walk under their flags, which carry the image of Hanuman. On the shahi marg at Nashik there is chanting, feats of strength, drills with weapons and one procession after another, and the whole route is lined with people.
Section V
Going to see it
At Nashik the place to stand is anywhere on the shahi route between Tapovan and Ramkund. At Trimbakeshwar it is the lanes into Kushavarta, which are narrow, and the kund itself, which is small, with the temple a little way beyond. What to carry to the river has the practical side of a day there.
Section VI
Explore more guides
The shahi snan
The akhadas' bath on the main bathing days — who goes into the water first, the three baths, and what the authority calls it for this Kumbh.
Why the Kumbh is at two places
The Vaishnav akhadas at Ramkund, the Shaiva and Udasin akhadas at Kushavarta, and where that arrangement came from.
The naga sadhus
Who the ash-covered sadhus are, which orders they belong to, and where they bathe at this Kumbh.
Tapovan
The forest on the Godavari below Panchavati where the sadhus make their camp at the Kumbh.
The akhadas
What an akhada is, the three families, all thirteen by name, where they camp and what is built for them.
Sadhugram
The town of tents the authority lays out for the sadhus at Tapovan and at Trimbakeshwar, what it has, and who is given a plot.
Section VII