Nashik-Trimbakeshwar Simhastha

Nashik, on the Godavari in Maharashtra, is known in the Ramayana as Panchavati, where Rama, Sita and Lakshmana passed part of their exile. Lakshmana cut off the nose of the demoness Shurpanakha, from which the city's name is popularly derived.

At Trimbak, the Godavari springs beside the Trimbakeshwar temple, a Jyotirlinga shrine of Shiva with a three-faced linga of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Aurangzeb destroyed the medieval temple and the Maratha Peshwa Balaji Baji Rao rebuilt it.

Every twelve years, when Jupiter enters Leo, the Simhastha bathing fair draws pilgrims to the Godavari. Until 1789 it was held only at Trimbak, but that year Shaivite sanyasis and Vaishnavite bairagis fought over bathing order; a Peshwa copperplate claims twelve thousand ascetics died. The Peshwa moved the Vaishnavites' bathing place to the Ram Kund in Nashik, splitting the festival between the two towns.