Vaidyanath Jyotirlinga Temple,

Vaidyanath Jyotirlinga temple, also known as Baba dham and Baidyanath dham is one of the twelve Jyotirlingas, the most sacred abodes of Shiva. It is located in Deoghar in the Santhal Parganas division of the state of Jharkhand, India. It is a temple complex consisting of the main temple of Baba Vaidyanath, where the Jyotirlinga is installed, and 21 other temples.

According to Hindu beliefs, the demon king Ravana worshipped Shiva at the current site of the temple to get the boons that he later used to wreak havoc in the world. Ravana offered his ten heads one after the another to Shiva as a sacrifice. Pleased with this, Shiva descended to earth and cured Ravana who was injured. As he acted as a doctor, he is referred to as Vaidhya ("doctor"). From this aspect of Shiva, the temple derives its name.

Difficulty in identifying location of Vaidyanath Jyotirlinga

'Vaidyanatham chithabhoomau' [sivmahapuran kotirudra samhita 1/21-24] is the ancient verse that identifies location of vaidyanth jyotirlinga. According to which vaidyantham is in 'chidabhoomi', which is the ancient name of Deoghar. While, the same part of text has variation by which, verse is 'paralyam vaidyanatham', i.e., Vaidyanatham is in Parli, Maharashtra.

Thus the three temples of,

• Baiydanath temple at Deoghar, Jharkhand,
• Vaijnath temple at Parli, Maharashtra and
• Baijnath temple at Baijnath, Himachal Pradesh are claiming their shrines as 'real' jyotirlinga of Vaidyanath.

In Dwadasa jyothirlinga sthothram, Adi Sankaracharya has praised Vaidyanath jyothirlinga in following verses,

Poorvothare prajwalika nidhane
sada vasantham girija sametham
surasuraradhitha padapadmam
srivaidyanatham thamaham namami

This states that Vaidyanath jyotirlinga is located at Prajwalika nidhanam (meaning funeral place i.e., chithabhoomi) in the North-Eastern part of the country. Deoghar is far located in east compared to Parli which is in west central part of the country. Also Chidabhoomi indicates that, in olden days, this was a funeral place, where corpses are burnt and post-death ceremonies were performed. This place could have been a centre of tantric cults like Kapalika/Bhairava where Lord Shiva is worshipped significantly as smasan vasin (meaning, residing in graveyard), sava bhasma bhushita (meaning, smearing body with ashes of burnt bodies).

Interestingly, the same shrine of Vaidyanath is considered as on of 51 Shakti Peethas, where 'yoni peetham' of jyotirlinga itself is considered as the Shakti Peetha.

Legend

According to the stories narrated in the Shiva Purana, it was in the Treta yuga that the demon Ravana, king of Lanka, felt that his capital would not be perfect and free from enemies unless Mahadeva (Shiva) stays there forever. He paid continuous meditation to Mahadeva. Ultimately Shiva got pleased and permitted him to carry his lingam with him to Lanka. Mahadeva advised him not to place or transfer this lingam to anyone. There should not be a break in his journey to Lanka. If he deposits the lingam anywhere on the earth, in the course of his journey, it would remain fixed at that place forever. Ravana was happy as he was taking his return journey to Lanka.

The other gods objected to this plan; if Shiva went to Lanka with Ravana, then Ravana would become invincible and his evil and anti-vedic deeds would threaten the world. Therefore the gods tricked Ravana. Ravana was offered water by Parvati, who then directed all the waters of three rivers (Ganges, Yamuna and Saraswati) into Ravana's stomach.

On his way back from Mount Kailash, Ravana felt an urgent need to attend nature's call and as he could not do so with the holy linga in his hand, he started looking for someone who could hold it for him. Ganesha then appeared as a Brahmin in front of him. Ravana asked Ganesha to hold the linga and went to relieve himself. Ganesha, pretending to be vexed by Ravena's delay, set the linga down on earth. The moment linga was kept down, it got fixed to the ground.

Ravana needed to wash his hands to make himself pious. Finding no water source around he hit the ground with his fist and a big crater was made which got filled with water. When Ravana now tried to move the linga, he could not. Out of anger he press the linga down with his thumb. But after restoring himself, he started to offer his prayers for the linga.

Shravan Mela

Railway stations

More than a million pilgrims visit this shrine every year. It is famous for the mela of Shraavana (a month of the Hindu calendar), between July and August. About 7 to 8 million devotees visit the place from various parts of India and offer holy water of Ganges to the deity collected from Sultangunj, which is almost 105 km from Deoghar. An unbroken line of people in saffron-dyed clothes stretches over the full 104 km for the month. They pilgrims are called Dak Bam and they do not stop even once in their journey from Sultangunj, located near Bhagalpur to Vaidyanath. Pigrims to the temple later visit the Basukinath temple