Dwadash Jyotirlinga

A jyotirlinga is not an installed image. The word means a pillar of light, and each of the twelve marks a place where Shiva is said to have appeared as one — a column with neither beginning nor end, which Brahma and Vishnu could not measure. The linga at these sites is worshipped as that column rather than as a form of it.

The twelve are spread deliberately across the subcontinent, from Somnath on the Gujarat coast to Rameswaram in the far south and Kedarnath at three and a half thousand metres in Garhwal. Kedarnath closes for about six months of the year, and the image is carried down to Ukhimath for the winter.

Which temple holds a given jyotirlinga is not settled everywhere. The table below names the claimants where the tradition carries more than one, rather than choosing between them.

Temple collections

• Dwadash Jyotirlinga
• Panch Kedar
• Pancharama Kshetras