What is Ramkund?

On the left bank, at Panchavati, at the first turn the Godavari makes to the south as it comes into the town. The Aruna, one of the seven small streams that join the river at Nashik, comes in right there, beside the pool. Stone steps go down into the water. On the rise behind the pool is the Kapaleshwar temple, and beside the pool is the small Ganga Godavari temple, whose door opens only at the Simhastha.

This is what Nashik tells.

Ram bathed here. Through the years of the exile, when the three of them lived in the hut at Panchavati, they walked down to the Godavari every morning before sunrise to bathe and to give water to the gods and the ancestors, and the place they came down to was this. That is why the pool is named after him — Ram’s kund, Ramkund. The Ramayana connection tells the whole of the exile, and the winter morning the three of them walked down through the mist is in it.

A तीर्थ tirtha is a place of pilgrimage, and in the oldest sense a crossing place on a river. Ramkund holds one inside it. अस्थि विलय तीर्थ Asthi Vilaya Tirtha means the tirtha where bones dissolve, and it is the place in the pool where the ash and bone of the dead are given to the water.

This is what families bring to Nashik. अस्थि विसर्जन asthi visarjan is the immersion of the ash and bone gathered after a cremation, made in the water at a tirtha, and at Nashik it is made here. The priest performs it with the family at the water’s edge. What is asthi visarjan? says what the rite is and what happens in it.

Chitrarao Khatav, a landholder of Khatav in Satara, in 1696. Later it was repaired by Gopikabai, the mother of the Peshwa Madhavrao — the same Gopikabai who built the Ganga Godavari temple beside it.

Through the year. A family comes on the tithi of the death, or in the days kept for the ancestors, or when they are able to come, and the priest performs the rites for them at the pool. The Kumbh does not change that. It brings the crowds, and the bank fills up, but the rites at Ramkund go on every day of every year. For a family that cannot travel, tarpan and pind daan at Ramkund says how the priest performs the rites for them here and what they receive.

Once in about twelve years the Kumbh comes to Nashik, and at Nashik the Kumbh is at Ramkund. अमृत amrit is the drink that makes whoever drinks it deathless. Nashik tells that drops of amrit fell here, at Ramkund, at the churning of the ocean, and why the Kumbh comes to Nashik tells that whole.

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. This Kumbh is held in two towns and not one. The Vaishnav akhadas bathe at Ramkund in Nashik, and the Shaiva and Udasin akhadas at Kushavarta in Trimbakeshwar, and why the Kumbh is at two places has that arrangement. शाही स्नान shahi snan means the royal bath, and it is the akhadas’ bath on the main bathing days. On those days the Vaishnav akhadas come down to this pool in procession and go into the water before anyone else, and the shahi snan says what those days are. The dates are on the main Kumbh page.

Come down to the river through Panchavati, past the Kalaram temple, and the bank opens out. Ramkund is the stone-sided pool at the bottom of the steps, with the river running past it. At almost any hour there is a family sitting at the water’s edge with a priest, and you will see the rites going on — the water poured from the hands, the balls of rice, a name said out loud. Give them room. This is what the place is for.

People bathe here too, and on the big days of the year the whole bank is full. Look up and the Kapaleshwar temple is above you. Look beside you and the Ganga Godavari temple’s door is shut, unless it is a Kumbh year. Look across the water and Sunder Narayan’s temple is on its own rise on the other bank.

The rest of the bathing places along this stretch of river are on the tirthas on the Godavari, and the Godavari at Nashik has the river itself. Panchavati is the part of the city all of this is in.