Panchavati

In the Ramayana, the earlier of the
two great Indian epics, the place where
three of the epic’s central characters—
the god-king Rama, his wife Sita, and
his brother Lakshmana—live during
much of their fourteen years of forest
exile. It is from here that Sita is kidnapped by Ravana, the demon-king of
Lanka. Although the events in the
Ramayana cannot be definitively set in
any specific place, there is a village
named Panchavati, outside the city of
Nasik in the state of Maharashtra,
which is identified with the mythic site.