Forest Officer Restores Ancient Sacred Forest in Ujjain

Before millions of pilgrims walked through Ujjain's ancient temples each year, they would have walked through a vast forest instead.

Ancient texts describe the city as Mahakal Van, a sprawling sacred forest where nature and spirituality thrived together. Centuries of urban growth gradually replaced those trees with concrete, leaving few natural spaces in what became one of India's holiest pilgrimage centers.

Now Anurag Tiwari, a forest officer stationed in Ujjain, is bringing that ancient forest back to life. His team is creating Aastha Vans, sacred groves planted along the Panchkoshi Yatra pilgrimage route that combine native trees with plants traditionally linked to local deities.

The first challenge was finding space in a densely packed ancient city where most open land belongs to other government departments. Tiwari's solution was to look for places where nature could return in ways that resonated with people's faith, using ancient scriptures as a guide.

The effort goes beyond just planting saplings. The team is restoring species that quietly disappeared from Ujjain's landscape over the years, like tamarind trees that now survive only in scattered pockets and miswak plants once native to the Kshipra river basin.

Tiwari brings experience from his earlier posting in Khargone's Barwani division, where he developed three urban forests that earned recognition from the World Book of Records. He's now applying those lessons to Ujjain's unique spiritual context.

The Ripple Effect

The real innovation lies in who will care for these groves long term. Instead of managing everything through the Forest Department, Tiwari is handing each sacred grove over to nearby temple trusts and village councils.

The response has been strong. The department organized a six-day Van Mela earlier this year that drew over 150,000 visitors and generated more than $12,000 in sales of herbal products from local cooperatives, showing how conservation can support community livelihoods.

Meanwhile, the team is tackling wildlife crime by cracking down on banned products like Hatha Jodi and Sehi Singhi that sometimes pass through this busy pilgrimage destination. They've ramped up enforcement with four to five major drives each month.

Looking ahead to the 2028 Simhastha Kumbh Mela, the department has won approval for a 210-hectare naturalistic zoo on reserved forest land. But for Tiwari, the sacred groves remain central to reconnecting Ujjain with the green identity it held long before the temples were built.

Ancient Ujjain was a forest first, and step by step, it's becoming one again.