Sahyadri Devrai — Chamarleni, Nashik
Where Ancient Caves and a New Forest Stand Together
At Chamarleni in Nashik, where rock-cut caves have watched over the land for centuries, Sahyadri Devrai is planting a forest worthy of the place. Indigenous trees, native to the hills around Nashik, are taking root on slopes that have long stood bare under the sun. Slowly, history and ecology are growing side by side — a sacred grove rising beside a sacred site.
The Land and Its Story
Chamarleni is one of Nashik's quiet treasures — a hill marked by ancient rock-cut caves, weathered by time and revered by generations. The terrain around it once carried thick native forest, with trees like banyan, peepal, audumbar, karanj, and ain shading the very paths that pilgrims and travellers walked.
Over the years, deforestation, grazing pressure, and shrinking common lands have stripped these slopes of much of their green cover. Sahyadri Devrai chose Chamarleni because heritage without ecology is incomplete. Planting a Devrai here is a way of restoring the forest these caves were always meant to stand within — and giving Nashik back a piece of its own landscape.
- Heritage hill site
- Ancient cave surroundings
- Lost native cover
- Reviving sacred ecology
