Trimbakeshwar

Trimbakeshwar's great distinction is its lingam: not a single stone but three small faces in a hollow, representing Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh (Shiva) — the Tridev, the Hindu trinity — usually hidden beneath a jewelled crown and revealed only at certain hours. No other Jyotirlinga is worshipped in quite this form.

It is one of the four sites of the Simhastha Kumbh Mela, which draws millions to Nashik and Trimbak every twelve years, and it is above all the great centre for ancestral and serpent-related rites — the Narayan Nagbali, performed here as almost nowhere else, along with the Kaal Sarpa and Tripindi ceremonies that bring a steady stream of pilgrims seeking release from inherited afflictions.

The pilgrimage is as much to the river as to the lingam: pilgrims bathe in the Kushavarta kund, climb Brahmagiri to the springs where the Godavari first appears, and honour the memory of Nivruttinath — elder brother of the saint-poet Jnaneshwar — who received the Nath teaching on this hill. In Trimbak, the god, the river and the lineage of the saints are woven into a single sacred ground.

Trimbakeshwar stands in the town of Trimbak, some thirty kilometres from Nashik in Maharashtra, ringed by three hills — Brahmagiri, Nilagiri and Kalagiri — and it is from Brahmagiri, just above the temple, that the Godavari, the great river of the Deccan, is said to rise. The Kushavarta kund in the temple precinct is honoured as the river's true source, where pilgrims bathe.

By tradition the sage Gautama did long penance on Brahmagiri and, to atone for an accidental sin, brought the Ganga down to earth here as the Godavari, also called the Gautami Ganga; Shiva, invoked, stayed on as the Jyotirlinga.

The temple that stands today is the work of the Peshwas: Balaji Baji Rao, Nanasaheb, had it built in fine black basalt over some three decades in the mid-eighteenth century, after an earlier shrine was lost. The Nassak Diamond that once adorned the deity was carried off to Britain during the Anglo-Maratha wars.

The temple is a fine example of the Nagara manner as the Marathas built it, raised in the local black basalt and richly carved — its shikhara, its mandapa pillars and its outer walls dense with sculpture — set in a stepped courtyard with the great scarp of Brahmagiri rising behind.

The Kushavarta kund, the stone-stepped tank that marks the Godavari's source, stands within the precinct, and the whole is enclosed by a high wall; a climb of many hundred steps leads from the town up Brahmagiri to the streams of the river's origin. For all its ornament, the black stone gives the temple a grave, weighty presence.