The Simhastha Kumbh
Nashik and Trimbakeshwar, on the Godavari
Opens 31 October 2026. Bathing days in August and September 2027.
How a Simhastha is reckoned, why it is kept at these two places, and the bathing days the state has published. Every date is provisional and marked so.
- Mela
- Simhastha Kumbh, Nashik and Trimbakeshwar
- Reckoned by
- Jupiter in Simha, the lion. About twelve years between one and the next.
- River
- Godavari, invoked as Gautami
- Bathing places
- Ram Kund, Panchavati, Nashik. Kushavarta, Trimbakeshwar.
- Opens
- 31 October 2026, dhwajarohan
- Bathing days
- 2 and 31 August, 11 and 12 September 2027
- Closes
- 24 July 2028, dhwaja avarohan
- Authority
- Nashik-Trimbakeshwar Kumbh Mela Authority, Government of Maharashtra
What a Simhastha is
The Kumbh is a cycle of melas at four places on four rivers. Each falls when the sun, the moon and Jupiter stand in a stated relation. Jupiter takes close to twelve years to go once round the zodiac, and that circuit sets the gap between one mela at a place and the next.
Nashik's mela is the Simhastha, named for Simha, the lion, the sign Latin calls Leo. It is kept while Jupiter stands in that sign. A second rule is also given for this mela, that Jupiter, the sun and the moon stand together in Karka at the new moon. The two rules do not always point at the same fortnight. Where they differ, the akhada council and the mela authority settle the dates, and those are the dates on this page.
Ujjain keeps a Simhastha of its own, reckoned on the sun's position as well as Jupiter's, so the two fall near each other without being the same event. Jupiter's year is not exactly twelve of ours, so the gap between one Nashik Simhastha and the next is near twelve years rather than exactly twelve.
The mela is a period rather than a day. Ascetics camp for months, the akhadas arrive in an agreed order, ordinary bathing goes on every morning, and on a few days the akhadas bathe in procession. Those are the Amrit Snan days, which older accounts and much of the press still call Shahi Snan.
Nashik and Ram Kund
Ram Kund lies in Panchavati, the quarter of Nashik held to be where Rama spent part of his exile. Tradition holds that Rama and Sita bathed at this kund and that Rama performed his father Dasharatha's shraddha here. That is why Ram Kund is Nashik's asthi visarjan tirth, the place where ashes are given to the water. The stonework standing today is reported to date from 1696 and to have been repaired under the Peshwas. We state that as reported, since we have not seen the record.
The mela has two centres because of a quarrel. Until the late eighteenth century it was kept at Trimbak, upstream, at the Kushavarta kund beside the Trimbakeshwar temple. In 1789 a dispute over the order of bathing between Shaiva sanyasis and Vaishnava bairagis ended in killing on a scale a surviving copperplate puts at twelve thousand ascetics. The Peshwa's settlement moved the Vaishnava bathing place down to Ram Kund at Nashik and left Kushavarta to the Shaiva akhadas.
That settlement is why a Simhastha is held at two places about forty five kilometres apart, why the mela carries both names, and why the September bathing days are split. The Vaishnava akhadas bathe at Ram Kund on the eleventh and the Shaiva akhadas at Kushavarta on the twelfth.
Ram Kund is a working ghat every day of the year. Shraddha and tarpan go on there through the year and heavily through Pitru Paksha, and families come to give their dead to the water on days that have nothing to do with the mela. The ghat sits under the Nashik Municipal Corporation. During a Simhastha the mela is laid over the top of all that, and all of it continues underneath.
The Godavari at Nashik
The Godavari rises at Brahmagiri, the hill above Trimbakeshwar, a short way upstream of Nashik. Its older name is Gautami, after the sage Gautama, who by tradition brought the river down through Shiva's grace in expiation of a cow's death. Gautami is still the name used when the river is invoked. It is the longest river of the peninsula, and the Deccan reckons its tirthas by it.
Because the source is so close, the water at Ram Kund is a young river rather than a broad one. The kund is cut into stone so that it holds water even when the river runs low, which keeps the ghat in use through the dry months.
The 2027 bathing days fall in Shravana and Bhadrapada, late in the monsoon. The Godavari at Nashik runs high in August and September, and how much water stands at the kund depends on what is released from the Gangapur dam upstream. The steps can go under, and the administration closes the kund at short notice on a heavy day. For anyone going in person, this matters more than anything else on this page.
The published days
As released by the Government of Maharashtra and reported in the press. Every line is provisional, and no time of day is given for any bathing day.
| Date | Day | Occasion | Tithi | Place |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 October 2026OpeningProvisional | Saturday | DhwajarohanThe flag is raised and the mela period formally opens. Secondary guides report a muhurat of 12:02 in the afternoon, Indian Standard Time. We have not seen that time in a government document and we do not treat it as settled. | Not stated in the sources we have read | Ram Kund and Panchavati, Nashik; Trimbakeshwar |
| 2 August 2027Amrit SnanProvisional | Monday | First Amrit SnanAn amavasya falling on a Monday, which is what somvati names. The first of the days on which the akhadas bathe in procession. | Ashadha Somvati Amavasya | Ram Kund, Nashik and Kushavarta, Trimbakeshwar |
| 31 August 2027Amrit SnanProvisional | Tuesday | Second Amrit SnanReported in most published schedules as the heaviest day of the mela. Also written as Mahakumbhasnan. | Shravana Amavasya | Ram Kund, Nashik and Kushavarta, Trimbakeshwar |
| 11 September 2027Amrit SnanProvisional | Saturday | Third Amrit Snan, NashikThe published schedules put the Vaishnava akhadas at Ram Kund on this day. | Bhadrapada Shukla Ekadashi | Ram Kund, Nashik |
| 12 September 2027Amrit SnanProvisional | Sunday | Third Amrit Snan, TrimbakeshwarAnd the Shaiva akhadas at Kushavarta on the following day. The split between the two places is the settlement of 1789, described below. | Bhadrapada Shukla Dwadashi | Kushavarta, Trimbakeshwar |
| 24 July 2028ClosingProvisional | Monday | Dhwaja avarohanThe flag comes down and the mela period closes. Most published schedules give 2028; at least one summary gives 2027. We print 2028 and mark it provisional rather than choose silently. | Not stated in the sources we have read | Ram Kund, Nashik; Trimbakeshwar |
Amrit Snan is the mela administration's term for what older accounts call Shahi Snan. On those mornings the ghats are given to the akhadas in an agreed order for set hours, and everyone else bathes outside them. The mela runs for well over six hundred days, and five of them are in this table.
The Godavari on this site
The Godavari at Ram Kund is one of the six waters here. Its modelled flow is on its page every morning of the mela, read from the same public source as on any other day, and you can sit your snan with it at the hour the panchang names, wherever you are.
Begin your snanIf you are going to Nashik
The things worth knowing before you travel, for the bathing days and the days around them.
- It is two places
- Nashik and Trimbakeshwar are about forty five kilometres apart, and on the September dates they hold different bathing days. Plan a day for one or the other. Road time between them on a peak day is far longer than on an ordinary one.
- The bathing days are the hardest days
- On an Amrit Snan the ghats are given to the akhada processions for set hours and everyone else bathes around them. The days on either side are far easier, and the water is the same water. If you are going for the river rather than the procession, choose one of those.
- Plan for the crowd
- Thirty nine people died in a crush at Ram Kund during the 2003 Simhastha. Melas since have been run with far more control, and the 2027 administration has planned crowd management for years. Still, assume a dense standing crowd at the ghat on a peak morning, movement in one direction only, and no way back the way you came. Agree a meeting point away from the ghat, keep children within arm's reach, and carry nothing into the water you cannot afford to lose.
- Registration and passes
- As of August 2026 the Maharashtra government had not launched a general e-pass or pilgrim registration, and said the portal would follow closer to the flag hoisting. Check the mela authority's own channels. The contact published at the time of writing is kumbhmela.2027@mah.gov.in and 0253 2461909.
- The river in August and September
- Late monsoon. The Godavari runs high, and the water standing at Ram Kund depends on releases from the Gangapur dam upstream. The steps can be submerged, and the administration closes the kund at short notice when they are. Build a spare day into any trip planned around one morning.
- Asthi visarjan and shraddha
- Purohits at Ram Kund perform asthi visarjan and shraddha all year. Ask your own family purohit first about what applies to you, because eligibility and order vary by community and region. If you can choose the date, the Simhastha weeks are the hardest ones.
- Where people stay
- The state builds a sadhugram, a tent settlement for the akhadas and the ascetics who travel with them. Nashik's own rooms go early around the bathing days, and many visitors travel in for the morning and leave the same day.
- What else is there
- Kapaleshwar temple stands above the kund, Sita Gufa is a short walk into Panchavati, and Trimbakeshwar holds the jyotirlinga, the Kushavarta kund and the climb up Brahmagiri to the river's source. All of it is easy to see on an ordinary morning and none of it on a peak one, so arrive a few days ahead.
Sources
The history on this page is public record, or tradition described as tradition. The dates are from secondary reporting. Both are listed here so you can check them yourself.
- Nashik-Trimbakeshwar Kumbh Mela Authority, Divisional Commissioner, NashikThe body constituted by the Government of Maharashtra to run the mela. The page names its mandate and its members.
- Simhastha Kumbh Mela 2027, Divisional Commissioner, NashikThe administration's own page for the 2027 mela.
- Nashik-Trimbakeshwar Simhastha, English WikipediaThe astronomical rule, the 1789 dispute and its settlement, and the record of the 2003 crush. Cited for the history rather than for the dates.
- Press report of the schedule release, Deccan ChronicleWhere the dhwajarohan date and the three Amrit Snan dates on this page come from. It reports the release; it is not the release.
Not yet verified
- The Government of Maharashtra's own notification of the schedule. Every date on this page comes from press reports of it and from published guides.
- The tithi given for each bathing day, which is as the guides publish it.
- The dhwajarohan muhurat of 12:02 in the afternoon, which appears in secondary guides only.
- The closing date. Most sources give 24 July 2028 and at least one summary gives 2027. We print 2028, marked provisional.
- The 1696 date for the present stonework at Ram Kund and its repair under the Peshwas. Widely repeated, and not checked by us against a record.
- The projection of fifteen to twenty crore attendance. It is an estimate made before the event, and this page does not rely on it.
The dates on this page come from press reports of the schedule release and from published guides. We have not read the Government of Maharashtra's own notification, and the tithi for each day is as the guides give it. When a named source is checked, these labels change.