Twelve Jothir Lingam

We had seen the first of the twelve Jothir Lingams – that of Sri Somanath and the Kast Nivaran Sri Hanuman in our earlier article. Lord Baidyanadh is another Jothir Lingam located in Deoghar of Jharkhand.

“vaidyanaadham citaabhuumaio naagesham daarukaavane” describes the place where the vaidyanaadham is located - in a forest where the Lord of snakes lives in a land full of ashes.

Basukinath Shiva temple

There is an ancient Basukinath Shiva temple situated around forty three kilometers from Baidyanath temple. Visit to Baidyanath temple is considered incomplete without paying homage to Basukinath Siva temple. Here separate temples for Lord Siva and Parvathi Matha are just in-front of each other. A hunter by the name of Basuki, found the Shiva Lingam at this place while going for hunting. There is another version of the story- that after the Samudra Manthan, Vasuki, the snake, wanted to take rest and chose this place.

Baidyanath Temple

Ravana, King of Lanka longed to posses the Atmalingam from Sri Siva so he need not come often to Mount Kailash, to have a darshan of the Lord. To achieve this objective Ravana meditated upon Lord Siva vigorously and ultimately Siva was pleased with Ravana and permitted him to carry His Atmalingam with him. Siva advised Ravana not to place the Lingam anywhere on the ground. Devas were not happy at the prospect of Atmalingam being taken by Ravana to Lanka, and requested Lord Mahavishnu to do something to prevent this happening.

On his way to Lanka from Mount Kailash, it was time for Ravana to perform ‘Sandhyavandanam’. Since he should not place the Lingam on the ground, he, therefore, searched for someone who could hold Shiva Lingam for him. Lord Mahavishnu appeared as a shepherd and not knowing it is Mahavishnu, Ravana requested the shepherd to hold the Atmalingam while he completes Sandhyavandanam. Mahavishnu, pretending to be vexed by the delay in the return of Ravana, put the Athmalingam on the ground at Deoghar. Ravana did his best to uproot it but failed. On the other hand, the Lingam got deep-rooted to the ground level and one could see only the surface of the Lingam. With deep remorse, he used to come to this place every day and worshiped the Lingam by offering water from the Ganges.

Tapovan

Near Baidyanath around ten kilometers away there is a group of hills called Tapovan. Like Baidyanath this place also has links with Ramayana. The name Tapovan as indicated is the place where many saints and sadhus had done penance to achieve ‘athma gyan’. Sage Valmiki is one of the saints who had done penance at this punya boomi. There are many caves in the hills where these sages had performed penance. In the recent past one such saint by name Sri Sri Balananda Brahmachari attained Siddhi at this place. There is a temple for Siva by name Taponath Mahadeva.

Sri Hanuman of Tapovan

A number of caves are found on this hill. There is a unique temple for Sri Hanuman in one of the hills. One has to literally go through deep and hollow caves to find their way to reach the Hanuman temple. There are two huge rocks placed horizontally with a narrow gap and one of the rocks has a crack in it. The crack is so narrow that one can hardly place his hands through this crack. It is amazing that there are figures of Lord Hanuman cut out on both the sides of the crack. Unless one sees this in person he will neither believe the probability of their existence nor can he even imagine the setting of the same.

 

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Experience

It is virtually impossible for a human to do this work. It is believed that these deities are self emerged ones. Hail Sri Hanumanji!

 

Ed [January 2014]