According to tradition Nagpur was included in the kingdom of Ayodhya when the divine Rama ruled over it. The Ramayana recounts how he traversed the forest of Dandaka, extending from the Jumna to the Godavari on his way to the hermitage of Sutikshna at Ramtek. ‘Then the Aryan invaders were represented throughout these Central forests by a few isolated hermits, who could not even perform their simple devotions in freedom from the mockery of the mischievous savages among whom they dwelt. The picture of their sufferings, given in the Ramayana, would be almost pathetic if it were not ludicrous. These shapeless ill-looking monsters testify their abominable character by various cruel and terrific displays. These base-born wretches implicate the hermits in impure practices, and perpetrate the greatest outrages. Changing their shape and hiding in the thickets adjoining the hermitages, these frightful beings delight in terrifying the devotees. They cast away the sacrificial ladles and vessels; they pollute the cooked oblations, and utterly defile the offerings with blood. These faithless creatures inject frightful sound into the ears of the faithful and austere eremites. At the time of sacrifice they snatch away the jars, the flowers, the fuel, and the sacred grass of these sober-minded men.The story of Rama however belongs to the legendary period of Hindu history, occupying the same position as homer.