Amarnath Temple

About

The Amarnath Temple is a cave shrine set high in the Sind Valley of Jammu and Kashmir, at an altitude of 3,888 metres (12,756 feet) on the slopes of Amarnath Mountain. Reached on foot from Sonamarg or Pahalgam, the cave is wreathed in glaciers and snow for most of the year, opening to pilgrims only during a short Himalayan summer.

The object of devotion is a Swayambhu Liṅgam — a natural stalagmite formed inside the forty-metre cave by water freezing as it drips from the ceiling. The icy column rises and recedes through the year: it grows during the snowmelt months from May to August and then gradually wanes, a rhythm that devotees associate with the waxing and waning of the moon and with the cycle of Śiva's presence.

Two smaller stalagmites within the cave are revered as Pārvatī and Gaṇeśa, completing the sacred family. According to tradition, it was at this very cave that Śiva is said to have disclosed the secret of immortality (amaratva) to his consort Pārvatī.

The Amarnath cave is also identified as the seat of the Mahāmāyā Śakti Pīṭha, counted among the fifty-one Śakti Pīṭhas — sites that commemorate where parts of Satī's body are said to have fallen across the Indian subcontinent.

The annual Amarnath Yātrā lasts between twenty and sixty days each summer, and is one of the largest organized pilgrimages in India, with crowds ranging from the tens of thousands to several hundred thousand.

History

The Amarnath cave temple and its yātrā are recorded in early Sanskrit sources, including the sixth–seventh century Nīlamata Purāṇa and Kalhaṇa's twelfth-century Rājataraṅgiṇī, which refer to the shrine as Amareśvara and to the pilgrimage as the Amareśvara Yātrā. The Rājataraṅgiṇī also names Sheshnag Lake along the pilgrimage route. Queen Sūryamati is said to have offered triśūlas, bāṇaliṅgas and other sacred emblems to the shrine in the eleventh century CE, and later medieval chronicles such as the Rājāvalipatākā preserve detailed accounts of the yātrā.

Significance

Amarnath is held as the place where Lord Śiva imparted the secret of life and immortality (amaratva) to Pārvatī, giving the cave its name (amar — undying — and nāth — lord). It is at once a great Śaiva tīrtha, a Śakti Pīṭha, and a defining Himalayan pilgrimage of Hindu tradition.