The Nasik golf course with its many traps for the unwary, the club
house with its friendly welcome, the dak bungalow embowered in trees
are well known to the golf-loving Bombay resident. But there is another
part of Nasik, its river, which is to him an unknown province. Yet
pilgrims go there in thousands from all parts of the peninsula. Bones
of dead men, who died a hundred leagues away are brought almost daily
to be thrown into its waters. On its banks may be seen at any time
young Brahmans practising Prayanam or breathing exercise or doing the
Achaman rite, that is to say sipping water while repeating the name of
some particular deity. There too may sometimes be seen the naked
anchorite to whom the whole world stands in lieu of a garment; and he
is not the least unhappy. As the Sanskrit verse has it “Courage is his
father, Forgiveness is his mother, Tranquility is his wife; Truth is
his son, Mercy is his sister, Self-restraint is his brother, Earth is
his bed and the eight directions are his dwelling place.” Let us
therefore leave the golf course and the club house and wander together
along the banks of the holy river.
In the first place how did the Godavari come to Nasik? Once upon a time
the river Ganges was brought down from heaven by the austerities of
King Bhagiratha of Ayodhya, so that he might perform the funeral rites
of his kinsmen, the sixty thousand sons of King Sagar. To prevent the
Ganges destroying the earth, the God Shiva caught her in his hair as
she fell and kept her there for a whole year. Well the Ganges is a lady
as well as a river and after some time Shiva’s queen, Parvati, grew
bitterly jealous of the fair woman, whom her husband carried
continually in her hair. She consulted her son the elephant-headed
Ganpati. That wise one found a solution for the difficulty. It so
happened that at this time a rishi of extraordinary powers and merits
named Gautama lived near what is now the bed of the Godavari river. To
supply his limited needs he cultivated a little rice field. Ganpati
turned himself into a cow and wandering towards Gautama’s rice field
began shamelessly to eat the holy man’s scanty crop. Gautama, justly
enraged, rose and with his staff admonished sharply the cow, that
respected so little his sanctity. This was what Ganpati had foreseen.
He fell dead on the spot. The news spread that Gautama had killed a
cow. The neighbourhood was deeply shocked. Then through Parvati’s and
Ganpati’s combined contrivance, the monsoon failed. The cause was
clear. The rishi had killed a cow and the gods to punish him for this
fearful sin had withheld the rains. The neighbours going in a body to
the guilty rishi dilated on the sin that he had committed, until they
had extracted from him a promise that he would by his austerities
obtain water for their crops. Gautama to fulfil his promise went
through the most incredible penances in honour of the God Shiva, until
the latter asked the rishi what he wanted. “I want some of the Ganges
water for the country side,” replied the sage and he told Shiva the
story of the sin which he had inadvertently committed. The God smiled
as he heard the tale, because he guessed how it had come to pass. To
humour his queen and at the same time to oblige the rishi, he released
a part of the Ganges river at Trimbak and it became the Godavari. The
neighbours of Gautama sowed their crops, the Ganges having lost the
fairest portion of her waters lost half her beauty and Parvati ceased
to be jealous.
Having brought the Godavari to Nasik let us next consider why Nasik
rather than other spots along the river bank is so holy. The reason is
that it was at Nasik that the hero King Rama of Ayodhya built his
hermitage. The tale runs that his father King Dasharatha, urged thereto
by his queen Kaikeyi, drove his eldest son Rama into exile, so that her
son Bharata might succeed to the throne. The intrigue failed because
Prince Bharata refused to oust his eldest brother. But Rama in order to
abide by his father’s words went with his brother Laxman, and his wife
Sita, to live at Panchvati or Nasik. There they built themselves a
hermitage and there Rama performed the funeral ceremonies of his
father, when the latter died of grief at the loss of his son. It was
there, too, that Laxman cut off the nose of a female demon called
Surpanakha who fell in love with Rama and tried to kill Sita in the
hope of winning Rama’s undivided affections. Ravana, King of Ceylon,
was the brother of Surpanakha and when his mutilated sister came
shrieking to his court, he promised her that she should be avenged. To
carry out this promise, he called in the aid of another demon named
Maricha. The latter disguised himself as a deer with a golden hide and
with horns glittering with precious stones. Sita attracted by the
beautiful beast begged Rama to go and kill it and fetch her the hide
and the horns. Rama agreed but before he went, he drew with his finger
two long lines which together formed a sort of enclosure. “If you stay
inside these two lines,” he said to his wife, “no harm can come to you.
If you stray beyond them, I shall not be able to protect you.” Sita
promised to stay within the two lines and Rama and Laxman went in
pursuit of the golden deer. Instantly King Ravana who had been hovering
in the sky inside his aerial car, descended to earth and assuming the
form of a mendicant approached the hermitage of Sita and asked her for
alms. Sita invited him to come to the door. But intending evil as he
did, he could not cross the lines which Rama had drawn. So he answered
haughtily that a religious mendicant did not run after alms. Those who
wanted his blessings had to come to him. He accepted alms not as a
favour received but as a favour conferred. The unsuspecting Sita
unwilling to enrage the holy man went towards him, crossed the southern
line and handed Ravana the alms. At once he reassumed his proper guise
and seizing her by the hair threw her into his chariot and carried her
off to his island kingdom of Lanka. The two lines are visible to this
day and are known as the Aruna and Varuna streams.
The chief temple in Nasik is known as Kapileshwar. This is the story
told of it. On one occasion the goddess Parvati for fun put her hands
over her husband Shiva’s eyes. But the great god was in no humour for
fun. He opened his third eye and with it burnt up the sun, the earth
and last but not least Brahmadev’s fifth head. When Shiva had recovered
his temper, he restored the sun and the earth, but he was not able to
restore Brahmadev’s fifth head. As a punishment for burning up another
god’s head, he was condemned always to see it dancing before his eyes.
The punishment was a very severe one and to rid himself of the horrible
vision, Shiva wandered all over India visiting in vain shrine after
shrine. At last he came to the banks of the Godavari and sat down to
rest under a tree. As he sat he overheard a conversation between a
young bull and a staid old cow, its mother. “To-morrow,” said the old
cow, “our master will put a ring through your nose and yoking you to a
plough will make you work for the rest of your life.” “Indeed, he will
do nothing of the kind,” said the wicked young bull. “If he tries, I
shall gore him to death.” “O, you cannot gore him to death,” said its
mother deeply shocked. “He is a Brahman.” “Never mind,” said the
abandoned young bull, “I know how to purify myself even from the deadly
sin of Brahmahatya or Brahman murder.” The God Shiva was greatly
interested in this talk. He thought to himself that if the bull could
purify itself from Brahman murder, he (Shiva) could, by doing what it
did, purify himself from the sin of having burnt off one of Brahmadev’s
five heads. Next morning he returned to the spot, where he had heard
the conversation. In a little time the Brahman came and tried to fasten
the ring in the young bull’s nose. The graceless beast threw him on his
back and gored him to death. From being pure white, it became jet black
with sin. However, it did not mind a bit, but galloping off with its
tail in the air, plunged into the pool where Rama had performed the
obsequies to his dead father. It became at once pure white, such was
the holiness of the water. The tip of its tail, however, which it had
held high in the air to shew its defiant spirit, remained black. The
God Shiva watched the incident closely and immediately afterwards
plunged also into the water. The same moment the ghastly vision which
had haunted him disappeared. Close to the spot where these events
happened was built the temple of Kapileshwar or the god of the head. It
is a temple to the God Shiva and commemorates his punishment and his
release. It is the only temple in India where no bull kneels reverently
in front of the God. For whereas in other spots the bull is regarded as
Shiva’s servant, here the bull is regarded as the great god’s guru or
teacher; for he taught the god to get rid of the vision that haunted
him. Another fact proves the truth of the above story. Ever since, all
white Deccan bulls have had black tips to their tails.
At a little distance from the river is a pool known as Indra’s pool.
The tale told about it is the following: Once upon a time there lived
another great rishi also called Gautama. He had a charming and virtuous
wife called Ahalya. Unfortunately her beauty caught the fleeting fancy
of the God Indra. He made to her certain improper proposals which she
indignantly rejected. He then plotted with the moon to overcome her
resistance. The moon rose two hours earlier than he (for the moon is
masculine in India) should have done. Gautama anxious to worship the
sun before he rose went to the river bank to bathe. The moment he went,
Indra took his form and bade Ahalya rise and go with him. She thinking
that it was her husband did as she was told. But just then Gautama
detected the moon peeping over the horizon to see the fun. He at once
ran back to the hermitage and caught Indra in the very act of going off
with his wife. He held a summary trial, turned his wife into a stone,
painted a black patch on the moon’s face and made a thousand sores come
on Indra’s body. This state of things endured for several hundred years
until one day King Rama’s foot touched by accident the stone that had
been Ahalya. She at once resumed her former shape. Rama took her to her
husband and made him forgive her. The God Indra took courage at this
and begged Gautama to forgive him too. The rishi turned his sores into
eyes, but told him that, as he had behaved in a manner unbecoming a
god, he never would be worshipped again. Indra went sadly away and at
the rishi’s command bathed in the pool of which I have spoken, and his
sores all became eyes. But never since has he been worshipped in India.
Lastly the moon begged for mercy. But the rishi would not abate a jot
of his punishment and he wears a black smudge to this day.