What are the tirthas on the Godavari at Nashik?

Nashik counts twenty-four tirthas in the bed of the Godavari, in the stretch between Govardhan, a village upstream to the west of the town, and Tapovan, the forest downstream to the south-east. They come in three runs. Eleven lie between Govardhan and Nashik. Ten lie inside the town, between the steps below Sunder Narayan’s temple and the shrine of Mukteshwar. Three lie below that, and one of the three is where the Kapila comes into the Godavari at Tapovan.

The pools are not spread out the same way. All of them are in the middle run, along the bank at Panchavati. That is the stretch of river a pilgrim sees.

The tirthas mostly take their names from a figure in the Puranas whose story Nashik attaches to the place — a god, a rishi, a king. The pools take theirs differently. All but three of them are named after the men who built them, the way Ramkund is not, being named for Ram, and the way most of the others are.

In order along the bank, these are the ten: Badrika Sangam, Brahma, Shukla, Asthi Vilaya, Aruna, Surya, Chakra, Ashvini, Dashashvamedh and Ramgaya.

The run of river-bed between Ramkund and the place where the Sarasvati stream comes in, near Balaji’s temple, has a name of its own. Nashik calls it Prayag, after the meeting of rivers at Allahabad.

This is what Nashik tells.

The Asthi Vilaya Tirtha is the tirtha where bones dissolve, and it is inside Ramkund. It is the place where the ash and bone gathered after a cremation are given to the water. Of all the twenty-four this is the one a family comes to Nashik for, and it is on Ramkund.

The Aruna tirtha is the place beside Ramkund where the Aruna stream comes down into the Godavari. The meeting of two rivers is itself a tirtha, and this one is at the pool’s side.

The Ramgaya tirtha is in the river in front of Naroshankar’s temple, a little along the bank from Ramkund. Its name says what it is. Gaya, far away in the east, is the place a son goes to do the last rites for his father. Ramgaya is Ram’s Gaya. During the exile Ram’s father Dasharath died in Ayodhya, and Ram, in the forest, could not go home. Nashik tells that he did the rites for his father here, at this spot on the Godavari, as a son does — the water poured from his hands, the offering, his father’s name said out loud — and that the tirtha has been called Ram’s Gaya ever since. For a family that has come to Nashik instead of Gaya, this is the tirtha that says why that is allowed, and Gaya and Nashik sets the two side by side.

One more of the ten has a story from the same family. The Dashashvamedh tirtha is Janak’s, Sita’s father’s, and Nashik tells that he made his sacrifices there when he came to the Godavari. The ling he set up in Nilkantheshwar’s temple across the water is on the temples of Nashik.

The ten inside the town are along one stretch of bank, and you can walk it. Start at Ramkund, which is the Asthi Vilaya and the Aruna together, with the Aruna coming in at the pool’s side. Go downstream along the bank and you come to Naroshankar’s temple, with the bell in its wall, and the water in front of it is the Ramgaya. The rest of the ten are along the same bed, upstream and down, and most of them you will find only by asking someone on the ghat who knows — a stretch of water, a set of steps, a name. Nobody has put up a sign for Chakra or Ashvini.

Downstream, past the last of the ten, the river goes on to Tapovan, where the Kapila comes in, and that meeting is one of the three tirthas below the town. Upstream, beyond the town, the river runs up towards Govardhan, and the eleven between are out along the river where few pilgrims go.

The Godavari at Nashik is the river all of this is in.