Friday, February 5, 2016

Jyotirlingas

Jyotirlinga represents the Lord Shiva in the form of Linga. It represents Lord Shiva in the form of radiant energy. According to Shiva Purana, Lord Shiva first manifested in the form of Jyotirlinga on the night of Ardra Nakshatra. It is believed that when a person reaches the highest level in the spiritual path, he can perceive (see) the lingam as column of fire piercing the earth and reaching great height. Jyotirlinga are explained in detail in Shiva Purana.

According to the purana, once Brahma and Vishnu had an argument over the supremacy of creation. They approached Shiva, who manifested in the form of huge pillar of light without ends i.e. jyotirlinga piercing the three worlds. Vishnu and Brahma split their ways to find the ends of this huge pillar. Brahma lied that he has found one end i.e. the top, whereas Vishnu accepted that he could not find the lower end. Shiva appeared as a second jyotirlinga and cursed Brahma that he would have no place in any ceremonies and blessed Vishnu that he would be worshiped till the end of eternity.

Jyotirlingas are the places where Shiva has appeared as Jyoti (a fiery column of light). It was believed that there were 64 Jyotirlingas. Of these 12 are considered as very auspicious and holy. These are mentioned in Dvadasha Jyotirlinga stotra available here.

Here is a list of 12 jyotirlingas.

Name of Jyotirlinga
Location
Somnath
Saurashtra, Gujarat
Mallikarjuna
Shri Shailam, Andhra Pradesh
Mahakaleshwar
Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh
Omkareshwar
Mandhata, Madhya Pradesh
Kedarnath
Himalayas
Bhimashankar
Maharashtra
Kashi Vishwanath
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
Trimbakeshwar
Nashik, Maharashtra
Vaidyanath (Vaijnath)
Parali, Maharashtra
Nageshwar
Gujarat
Rameshwar
Tamilnadu
Ghrishneshwar
Aurangabad, Maharashtra

In our succeeding articles we will try to give summary of each of the 12 Jyotirlingas.

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