Route
Pan-Indian pilgrimage to the twelve Jyotirlingas — self-manifested forms of Shiva as pillars of light.
Recited in the Dwadasha Jyotirlinga stotra; pilgrims may follow stotra order or geographic clusters. Vaidyanath here follows the widely visited Deoghar identification.
12 mapped anchors on the circuit.
1SomnathIndiaFirst of the twelve Jyotirlingas — seaside Shiva temple of Saurashtra.
2Mallikarjuna (Srisailam)IndiaJyotirlinga and Shakti Peetha on the Nallamala hills of Andhra Pradesh.
3MahakaleshwarIndiaSouth-facing Jyotirlinga of Ujjain — Shiva as Lord of Time.
4OmkareshwarIndiaJyotirlinga on the Om-shaped Mandhata island in the Narmada.
5KedarnathIndiaHigh Himalayan Jyotirlinga temple of Shiva — a cornerstone of the Chota Char Dham.
6BhimashankarIndiaForest Jyotirlinga in the Western Ghats near Pune.
7Varanasi (Kashi Vishwanath)IndiaOne of Hinduism’s oldest living sacred cities — ghats of the Ganga and the Jyotirlinga of Kashi Vishwanath.
8TrimbakeshwarIndiaThree-faced Jyotirlinga at the source of the Godavari near Nashik.
9Vaidyanath (Deoghar)IndiaJyotirlinga of Deoghar, Jharkhand — Shiva as divine physician.
10NageshwarIndiaJyotirlinga near Dwarka — Shiva as Lord of Serpents.
11RameswaramIndiaIsland temple of Ramanathaswamy — southern Char Dham and Jyotirlinga on the tip of India.
12GrishneshwarIndiaTwelfth Jyotirlinga beside the Ellora caves in Maharashtra.
