This year on 1st of January, [2012] we decided to go to Anjaneri Mountain and visit Hanuman Temple from my home at Nasik. Nashik has pleasant weather the whole year but January is usually chilly and left Nashik early at six in the morning.

Anjaneri Phata

Anjaneri Phata is a place on the main road connecting Nasik and Tryambakeshwar and is around twenty kilo meters from Nasik. It took me twenty minutes to reach this junction. There is a relatively new Hanuman Temple at Anjaneri phata with a tall hanuman murti in a sitting posture. There is sign board announcing that Anjaneri is the birth place of Lord Hanuman. One can take a public or private transport mode and alight here to go to Anjaneri. Anjaneri Mountain could be seen on the back drop of this Hanuman temple.

Anjaneri hills

We took a left turn from the main road and drove for another one kilo meter, passing through the Anjaneri village. We parked our car just after the village and started our walk towards the mountain, but one can drive further half a kilometre till the beginning of steps leading to the Anjaneri hills.

The climb towards the mountain is in two phases, with a huge plateau in between. The first climb is tough, with narrow steep rocky walkways and deep trench on the left side. There are small cliffs like “Navra” en route, which are favourite destinations for ‘rock climbers’ and ‘Vallet Crossers’.

Anjani Mata Temple

One could see monkeys doing all their tricks on the way, reminding the ‘Bal-Hanuman’. After initial climb, we reach a barren platue. ‘Anjani Mata Temple’ is in the middle this platue. It is a very plesent sight from here with the mountains forming the background for the small temple. This temple houses a deity of Anjani Mata with Bal Hanuman in front of His Mata with folded hands in a leaning posture. We offered our salutations to Sri Anjani Mata and Sri Bal Hanuman here.

The weather was good and we started walking across the platue soon. We then reached a small beautiful lake, which is in the shape of a foot print. The lake is very clean and surrounded by greenery. The view was very refreshing.

There was a turn for ‘Sita Caves’ and some other caves, but we didn’t visit them. Walking along the lake, we reached the start of the second phase of our climb. It was more vertical and little exhausting. As we climbed up, we could see beautiful view of the lake, the platue and the vehicles on the main highway looked like tiny toys.

Anjaneri Hanuman Temple

Climbing over the second hill, we reached on top of the Anjaneri mountain. From one end of this cliff, we could see the valley and the Sahyadri Mountain ranges on the west and backwaters from various dams built over the tributaries of river Godavari. Once we reached this point all the tiredness vanished.

Walking across the mountain top, we reached the “Hanuman Temple”. It is a small temple having the deity Lord Hanuman in a unique posture. Here we can see infant Hanuman sitting in the lap of His mother Anjani.

After praying there for some time, we started our return journey. It took almost one and a half hours for us to climb, but now that gravity was on our side, we finished the descent in thirty minutes and reached the parking.

Note:

Anjaneri Mountain is not a popular tourist destination or a commercial place. So it is better to carry some drinking water and food stuff. One can also clump Trimbakeshwar in the same trip, however, there are destinations like Gangadwar and Brahmagiri near Trimbakeshwar which need an uphill climb and may be exhaustive.

 

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Experience

Offer prayers to Lord Maruti at this Anjaneri hill top temple. One can came down light hearted with all burden taken away by Maruti the son of Anjani Mata of Anjaneri.

 

Ed [January 2013] Sri Hanumath Jayanthi Special
*The author is a practicing pediatrician