Historical Geography of Ancient India c9.105

c9.105

Govardhana.—According to the Yoginītantra (1. 14, p. 83), this hill was made by collecting the bodily ashes of the demon Keśī. It was so called because the cows were fed and reared up by the grass grown on it. According to the Harivaṃśa (Ch. LXII, 25-26) it is huge with a high summit like the Mount Mandāra. In its centre a big fig tree stands having high branches and extending over a yojana. It is a sacred spot and one becomes free from sins by visiting it. It is near modern Nasik in the Bombay State (Mathurā Buddhist Image Inscription of Huviṣka). It is also known as Govardhanapura (vide Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa, Ch. 57; Bhandarkar, Early History of the Dekkan, p. 3). It appears to have been of some importance during the reigns of Nahapāṇa and Puḷumāvi. Uṣabhadāta made a rest house in Govardhana. It appears from the inscriptions that Govardhana was the political headquarters in Nahapāṇa’s time as it was afterwards under Puḷumāvi. It may be identified with a large modern village of Govardhan-Gaṅgāpur on the right bank of the Godāvarī, six miles west of Nasik (Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. XVI, 1883, Nasik, pp. 636-637).