Janasthāna is a sacred grove and tīrtha (a holy place for pilgrimage) inside the great Daṇḍakāraṇya forest. In the Rāmāyaṇa it was the stronghold of the rākshasas in the forest, held by Khara, the brother of Rāvaṇa. In the Gaṇeśa Purāṇa it is the place where Manmatha did tapas to Gaṇeśa. It is identified with the Pañcavaṭī area near Nashik (Nāśika) in Maharashtra, on the Godāvarī river.

Nature and role of Janasthāna

Janasthāna was a rākshasa centre of rule and war within the Daṇḍakāraṇya. It was a sub-kingdom of Rāvaṇa’s Laṅkā, which carried his power into the forest. Khara commanded from here, with both military and civil authority over the rākshasas of the region. From Janasthāna the terror against the forest ṛshis was organised. The rākshasas attacked āśramas, killed the tapasvins (ascetics) and broke the yajñas that the ṛshis had suffered for generations.

Khara led an army of 14,000 rākshasas here. His generals were Dūshaṇa and Triśiras. The Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa tells this in the Āraṇya Kāṇḍa, chapters 6 and 27.

The battle of Janasthāna

Śūrpaṇakhā came back to Khara after she had been mutilated, and she stirred him up with her account of Rāma and Lakshmaṇa. Khara then called out the whole Janasthāna force: 14,000 rākshasa warriors, the generals Dūshaṇa and Triśiras, and himself. The army marched on Pañcavaṭī.

Bhagavān Rāma sent Sītā and Lakshmaṇa to a safe place and stood alone. He destroyed them all, the whole 14,000, both generals and Khara, in three ghaṭikās. Only Akampana lived, and he carried the news to Rāvaṇa. The Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa tells this in the Āraṇya Kāṇḍa, chapters 29 to 31.

With the end of the Janasthāna force, the rākshasa army in the Daṇḍakāraṇya was destroyed. This fulfilled Rāma’s vow to the assembled ṛshis and freed the forest ṛshis from the terror of many generations.

Manmatha’s tapas

Śiva’s third eye had burned Manmatha to ash, and Bhagavān Śiva told him to worship Gaṇeśa. Manmatha then went, without a body, to Janasthāna in the Daṇḍakāraṇya. His wife Ratī went with him. Her love and devotion were a second kind of tapas.

For a hundred years Manmatha chanted the Ekākshārī Gaṇeśa mantra. He had no body to hold the practice, yet his mind stayed fully fixed.

At the end of the hundred years Gaṇeśa appeared in a splendid form with ten arms, blazing with light. He gave Manmatha four varas (boons):

Rebirth as Pradyumna in the age of Kṛshṇa.
Honour from all.
The five natural weapons: flowers, moonlight, music, the scent of sandalwood and the sound of water.
Gaṇeśa’s lasting nearness.

The Gaṇeśa Purāṇa tells this in the Upāsanā Khaṇḍa, chapter 89.

Mahōtkaṭa Gaṇeśa

Manmatha set up the image of Gaṇeśa at Janasthāna under the name Mahōtkaṭa, which means supremely great and overwhelmingly strong. The name recalls the ten-armed vision that came to him after his hundred years of tapas. The shrine was built as a golden temple with a beautiful maṇḍapa (hall), and it became a lasting tīrtha. The Gaṇeśa Purāṇa tells this in the Upāsanā Khaṇḍa, chapter 89.

Bhṛśuṇḍi and the Daṇḍakāraṇya

Janasthāna lies in the same Daṇḍakāraṇya forest where the hunter Bhṛśuṇḍi, who had changed his ways, did a thousand years of tapas near a Gaṇeśa tīrtha. He reached sārūpya (likeness in form to Bhagavān Gaṇeśa) and founded the Nāmāla-kshetra. So the forest holds several lines of tapas to Gaṇeśa: Manmatha at Janasthāna, Bhṛśuṇḍi at Nāmāla-kshetra, and Śiva’s own tapas in the Daṇḍakāraṇya before the destruction of Tripurāsura. The Gaṇeśa Purāṇa tells this in the Upāsanā Khaṇḍa, chapter 57.

The Rāmāyaṇa in the same forest

The same Daṇḍakāraṇya forest, in the Janasthāna region, was where Bhagavān Rāma lived through his fourteen years of exile. Rāma, Sītā and Lakshmaṇa built their āśrama at Pañcavaṭī, the place of the five vaṭa trees. At Janasthāna Śūrpaṇakhā met Rāma and Lakshmaṇa. She was turned away, and Lakshmaṇa cut off her nose and ears. This led Rāvaṇa to decide to carry Sītā away, and so to the great conflict of the Rāmāyaṇa.

So Janasthāna is the place where Mahōtkaṭa was set up, the place where the events of Sītā’s abduction began, and a forest refuge of the Daṇḍakāraṇya where many great acts of tapas were done.

Janasthāna today

Janasthāna is identified with the Pañcavaṭī area near Nashik (Nāśika) in Maharashtra. The Godāvarī river flows there, and several ancient shrines linked with Rāma’s exile are still kept. The Mahōtkaṭa Gaṇeśa shrine lies somewhere within this wider sacred region.

Sources

Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Āraṇya Kāṇḍa, chapters 6 and 27–31
Gaṇeśa Purāṇa, Upāsanā Khaṇḍa, chapters 57 and 88–89