12 Jyotirlingas – Aura of Divinity (Part 1)

The culture and faith of Hinduism have strong roots in the learning of Puranas, ‘Purana’  which has its appearance in Vedic text like ‘Atharva Veda’. Out of 18 Maha Puranas, six are the most significant, namely Markandeya, Shiva, Linga, Brahma Vaivarta, Agni, and Padma Purana. One of such Mahapurana i.e., Shiva Mahapurana has a legend that says Brahma (the god of creation i.e., srushti racheta) and Vishnu ( the god of preservation i.e., sanrakshak) once had an argument over supremacy of creation. To settle this argument, Lord Shiva pierced the three worlds appearing like an enormous infinite pillar of light, following this Vishnu and Brahma split their ways to downward and upward directions respectively to search the endpoint of this radiant light. Brahma lied that he found out the end, while Vishnu conceded his defeat. This lie of Brahma enraged Shiva making him curse that even though he is the creator of this universe, he wouldn’t be worshipped, and so we witness very few pilgrim centers for worshipping Lord Brahma. In that anger, Lord Shiva’s pillar of light appeared on the earth in 64 places in the form of Lingodbhava. These places were believed to be Jyotirlingas out of which twelve of them are considered to be very auspicious and holy and so these twelve places became popular as Jyotirlingas.

Originally tweeted by Shree Somnath Temple (@Somnath_Temple) on July 1, 2021.