Chitrakuta’s spiritual legacy stretches back to legendary ages: It was in these deep forests that Rama, Sita and his brother Lakshmana spent eleven and half years of their fourteen years of exile; the great sage Atri, Sati Anusuya, Dattatreya, Maharshi Markandeya, Sarbhanga, Sutikshna and various other sages, seers, devotees and thinkers meditated; and here the principal trinity of the Hindu pantheon, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, took their incarnations.
It is said that all the gods and goddesses came to Chitrakuta when Rama performed the Shraddha ceremony of his father to partake of the shuddhi(i.e. a feast given to all the relatives and friends on the thirteenth day of the a death in the family). The first known mention of the place is in theValmiki Ramayana, which is believed to be the first ever Mahakavya composed by the first ever poet. As Valmiki is said to be contemporaneous with (or even earlier than) Rama and is believed to have composed the Ramayana before the birth of Rama, the antiquity of its fame can well be gauged.
Valmiki speaks of Chitrakuta as an eminently holy place inhabited by the great sages, abounding in monkeys, bears and various other kinds of fauna and flora. Both the sages Bharadwaja and Valmiki speak of Chitrakuta in glowing terms and advise Rama to make it his abode during the period of his exile. Lord Rama himself admits this bewitching impact of this place. In the 'Ramopakhyana' and descriptions of teerthas at various places in theMahabharata, Chitrakuta finds a favoured place. In 'Adhyatma Ramayana' and 'Brihat Ramayana' testify to the throbbing spiritually and natural beauty of Chitrakuta. Various Sanskrit and Hindi poets also have paid similar tributes to Chitrakuta. Mahakavi Kalidas has described this place beautifully in his epic 'Raghuvansha'. He was so much impressed with its charms that he made Chitrakuta (which he calls Ramgiri because of its time-honoured associations with lord Rama) the place of exile of his
