01Rama’s hill and Kalidasa’s cloud
Ramtek means the hill where Rama stopped. Local tradition holds that Rama, Sita and Lakshmana rested here, and that Rama met Agastya on this hill. Kalidasa’s Meghaduta opens with an exiled yaksha on Ramagiri, ‘whose waters were made holy by the bathing of Janaka’s daughter’, and tradition identifies that Ramagiri with Ramtek; the Maharashtra government built a Kalidasa memorial on the hill. On the slope below the main temple stand small stone shrines of the Vakatakas, among the earliest stone temples in the Deccan.
02Prabhavatigupta’s Narasimha
The Vakataka capital Nandivardhana lay close by, at Nagardhan. Prabhavatigupta, daughter of Chandragupta II and queen-regent of the Vakatakas, was a devotee of Vishnu, and an inscription found in the Kevala Narasimha temple on Ramtek hill records the family’s worship here. The Rama temple at the top, inside fortified walls, was rebuilt by Raghuji Bhonsle I of Nagpur in the 18th century. A Jain temple of Shantinath stands at the foot of the hill. The Kartik Purnima fair draws pilgrims from all of Vidarbha.
The life of this place
- c. 5th centuryVakataka shrines, including Kevala Narasimha, are built on the hill.
- 18th centuryRaghuji Bhonsle I of Nagpur rebuilds the fort-temple of Rama.
About 50 km north-east of Nagpur. Steps and a road lead up the hill; Ram Navami and Kartik Purnima are the festival days.
