Shiva

Deity

Shiva · शिव

Shiva is worshipped less as a figure than as a form: the linga, an aniconic shaft set in the yoni base, bathed rather than decorated. The rite that belongs to him is abhishekam — water, milk, curd, honey and ghee poured over the stone, with bilva leaves laid on afterwards. A Rudrabhishek is that same bathing done while the Rudram is recited.

He is Mahadeva, and also Nataraja, whose dance holds the cycle of making and unmaking; and Bhairava, the fierce guardian form. Parvati is his consort, Ganesha and Kartikeya his sons, and Nandi the bull sits facing him in every shrine — which is why a devotee at a Shiva temple looks between Nandi's horns toward the sanctum rather than standing in front of him.

Mahashivratri, in Phalguna, is his night. It is kept awake rather than celebrated: a fast through the day, four watches of the night each with its own abhishekam, and the fast broken the next morning. Shravan, the monsoon month, is the other season associated with him, when pilgrims carry Ganga water on foot to pour over a linga.

Panch Kedar is the Garhwal circuit of five shrines — Kedarnath, Tungnath, Rudranath, Madhyamaheshwar and Kalpeshwar — where the parts of a bull that Shiva took as disguise are said to have surfaced. The Pancharama Kshetras are the five Andhra shrines of the same kind, and the Jyotirlingas are listed separately below.

• Dwadash Jyotirlinga
• Panch Kedar
• Pancharama Kshetras

Dwadash Jyotirlinga · द्वादश ज्योतिर्लिंग — Twelve Jyotirlingas · fifteen claimant temples

The twelve Jyotirlingas

1. 1. Somnath — Prabhas Patan, Gujarat
2. 2. Mallikarjuna — Srisailam, Andhra Pradesh
3. 3. Mahakaleshwar — Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh
4. 4. Omkareshwar — Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh
5. 5. Kedarnath — Rudraprayag, Uttarakhand
6. 6. Bhimashankar — Pune, Maharashtra
7. 7. Kashi Vishwanath — Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
8. 8. Trimbakeshwar — Nashik, Maharashtra
9. 9. Vaidyanath — Baidyanath Dham — Deoghar, Jharkhand
10. 9. Vaidyanath — Parli Vaijnath — Beed, Maharashtra
11. 10. Nageshwar — Dwarka — Devbhumi Dwarka, Gujarat
12. 10. Nageshwar — Aundha Nagnath — Hingoli, Maharashtra
13. 10. Nageshwar — Jageshwar — Almora, Uttarakhand
14. 11. Rameshwaram — Ramanathapuram, Tamil Nadu
15. 12. Grishneshwar — Verul, Maharashtra
16. 12. Ghushmeshwar — Shivad, Rajasthan

Where the tradition disagrees

Vaidyanath वैद्यनाथ

Baidyanath Dham in Deoghar, Jharkhand, and Parli Vaijnath in Beed, Maharashtra, both identify as the ninth Jyotirlinga. The Shiva Purana names Vaidyanath in Chitabhumi; both sites read that name onto their own geography, and both have unbroken worship traditions.

Nageshwar नागेश्वर

Three temples carry the claim: Nageshwar near Dwarka in Gujarat, Aundha Nagnath in Hingoli, Maharashtra, and Jageshwar in Almora, Uttarakhand. The Dwarka identification is the most widely followed; the Almora one rests on reading "Daruk-vana" as the deodar forests of Kumaon.

Grishneshwar घृष्णेश्वर

Grishneshwar at Verul near the Ellora caves is the accepted twelfth for most pilgrims. Ghushmeshwar at Shivad in Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan, holds the same name in a variant form and the same claim.