A working bathing ghat
Shipra
Ram Ghat, Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh
At Avantika, where time is reckoned
The oldest bathing ghat of the city that keeps Mahakal.
- River
- Shipra
- Ghat
- Ram Ghat
- Place
- Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh
- Form of the water
- A working bathing ghat
- Local time
- Asia/Kolkata
The place
Ram Ghat is the oldest of Ujjain's bathing ghats on the Shipra, and the Simhastha is centred on it. Tradition places Ujjain among the four sites where a drop of the amrit fell, which is why the Kumbh returns here when Jupiter enters Simha. Simhastha is the name the city uses. The Shipra aarti is performed at these steps in the evening.
Ujjain is Avantika, counted among the seven cities called moksha-puri. Its presiding form is Mahakal, Shiva as time itself, and the Mahakaleshwar jyotirlinga stands a short way from the ghat.
The city holds a second claim on time. The first meridian of classical Indian astronomy was reckoned through Ujjain, and the observatory built here in the eighteenth century still stands and is still used to read the sun.
The Shipra is a small river, a couple of hundred kilometres from its rise in the hills to its meeting with the Chambal, and it is fed by the monsoon rather than by snow. Through the hot months it runs thin. That is why the state cut a link from the Narmada to feed it in the years before the 2016 Simhastha, and why the Shipra at Ram Ghat in May and in August are barely the same river to look at.
Where the figures come from
One number, taken the same way at all six waters.
The cell this site reads for Ujjain sits on the Shipra near Ram Ghat. The figures are small, tens of cubic metres a second rather than thousands, which is what a monsoon-fed river of this size does. The Shipra is ranked only against itself, 1997 to 2025, in this same week of the year, because that is the comparison that means something.
Where the figures come from
Flow is modelled river discharge from the Copernicus Emergency Management Service global flood model, read at the grid cell covering this reach and published once a day. It is a model rather than a gauge reading, and this site writes modelled beside every number it prints.
Each value is ranked against every daily value that same cell has produced in this same week of the year from 1997 to 2025. That is what the percentile means: one water compared with its own past.
Sunrise, sunset, air temperature and rainfall are read at the ghat's own coordinates rather than at the grid cell. The muhurat windows are the panchang's rules worked out from that sunrise.
Every figure comes from a public source named beside it, and each can be checked against that source.
Attribution
- River discharge: Copernicus Emergency Management Service, GloFAS, served by Open-Meteo, CC BY 4.0.
- Sun and weather: Open-Meteo, CC BY 4.0.
What you find here
The same four things at every water on this site.
- The river's flowModelled discharge for this reach, in cubic metres a second, ranked against 1997 to 2025 for this same week of the year.
- The sunriseSunrise and sunset at this ghat's own coordinates, which is why they differ from every other ghat's.
- The muhurat windowsBrahma, pratah, abhijit and godhuli, worked out from that sunrise rather than copied from a national table.
- The snanThree minutes with this water at the state it is in, at an hour the panchang names, with your own sankalp in your own words.
What this water is kept for
What people do when they stand at this water. Some of it is centuries older than any of the words on this site.
The dip at Ram Ghat
Taken from the long shallow steps, which are usable through most of the year and are the centre of the city's bathing on every parva day.
Done by the person at the water
Shipra puja
Offered to the river at the water's edge, at the same steps where the evening aarti is performed.
Done by the person at the water
The Shipra aarti
Performed at Ram Ghat in the evening. It belongs to the ghat and to the city.
Kept by the place itself
Deep daan
Set on the Shipra from the ghat steps at dusk, most of all on Kartik Purnima.
Done by the person at the water
The Simhastha
Ram Ghat is its centre. The bathing order is settled between the akhadas and the administration, and access is controlled for the duration.
Kept by the place itself
Days this ghat is known for
Each is reckoned by tithi or by the sun, as noted beside it. Dates are not printed yet: the parva day depends on a panchang, and the site has still to choose the one it will follow.
Timing to be confirmed against the panchang
Mahashivratri
The city's largest night. The ghat and the roads to it are managed as one crowd.
Chaturdashi of the dark half of Phalguna
Kartik Purnima
Kept at Ram Ghat with lamps on the water and a long night of bathing.
Purnima of Kartik
Somvati Amavasya
Monday belongs to Shiva, and in the city of Mahakal that coincidence is not treated lightly.
An amavasya falling on a Monday
Simhastha
Ram Ghat is its centre. Access is restricted for the duration.
At the twelve-year turn, when Jupiter enters Simha
Who looks after this water
Ram Ghat and the Shipra ghats are under the Ujjain municipal and district administration, which takes direct charge of access at Simhastha and on Mahashivratri. The Mahakaleshwar temple is a separate authority.