From Janasthan to Nashik: the many names of an ancient city

Local tradition says the city has carried a different name in each of the four yugas, among them Padmanagar and Trikantak. These names belong to legend rather than written history, but they show how old the city feels to the people who live here.

The best-known old name is Janasthan. In the Ramayana, Janasthan is the forest region where Rama, Sita and Lakshmana lived during their exile, and Panchavati in today's Nashik is identified with their home there.

A popular story links the name Nashik to nasika, the Sanskrit word for nose. When Ravana's sister Shurpanakha threatened Sita, Lakshmana cut off her nose, and tradition places this episode here, at Tapovan.

The Pandav Leni caves above the city were carved for Buddhist monks between roughly the 2nd century BCE and the 2nd century CE. Their inscriptions record gifts from rulers, merchants and ordinary donors of the region, evidence of a thriving town here two thousand years ago.

The Greek geographer Ptolemy, writing in the 2nd century CE, also lists a town called Nasika in western India, showing that Nashik was already known on trade routes.

Under Mughal rule the city was called Gulshanabad, the city of gardens. In the 18th century, under the Peshwas, it became Nashik again and a wave of temple building followed, including Naroshankar, Sundarnarayan and Kalaram Mandir.

The railway reached Nashik Road in the 1860s, and the city has grown ever since. Today Nashik is one of Maharashtra's largest cities, yet Panchavati, the ghats and the old wadas still carry its long memory.