The interesting town with its 200 temples and picturesque bathing ghats stands on the Godavari River, one of the holiest rivers of the Deccan. Nasik is one of the four sites for the triennial Kumbh Mela, a huge Hindu gathering which take place here every 12 years. The town is about 8 kms north-west of the Nasik Road railway station, which is of 187 km from Mumbai.

The History of the city dates back to Ramayana. There are many references of the city in many epics as well as vedas. According to the Ramayana, Nasik was where Rama - Vishnu in human form - his brother Lakshmana, and wife Sita lived during their exile from Ayodhya, and the archdemon Ravana, carried off Sita from here in an aerial chariot to his kingdom, Lanka in the far south. The scene of such episodes forms the core of the busy pilgrimage circuit. However, Nasik has a surprising dearth of historical buildings - even the famous temples beside the Godavari only date from the Maratha era of the 18th century. Its only real monuments are the rock-cut caves at nearby Pandav Lena. Excavated at the peak of Buddhist achievement on the Deccan, these 2,000 year old cells hard back to the days when, as capital of the powerful Satavahana dynasty, Nasik dominated the all-important trade routes linking the Ganges plains with the ports to the west.