Vaidyanath Jyotirlinga

About

Vaidyanath Jyotirlinga, also rendered Baidyanath, Vaijnath or Baijnath, is venerated as one of the twelve Jyotirlingas, the supreme self-manifest abodes of Lord Shiva. The name itself, the Lord of Physicians, evokes Shiva as the divine healer to whom devotees turn for the wholeness of body and soul.

Three principal temples claim to enshrine this particular Jyotirlinga, and the Government of India has not formally adjudicated the question. Each remains a place of intense devotion, and together the three traditions extend the worship of Vaidyanath across a vast cultural span of India.

The first contender is the Shri Vaijnath Temple at Parli in Maharashtra, named in the ancient Dvadasa Jyotirlinga Stotram and revered across the Deccan. The second is the Baidyanath Temple at Deoghar in Jharkhand, the focus of the great Shravani Mela pilgrimage in which devotees carry Ganga water on foot from Sultanganj to the shrine in the month of Sawan. The third is the Baijnath Temple at Kangra in Himachal Pradesh, an exquisite eighth-century stone sanctuary set against the Dhauladhar peaks.

Whether the worshipper approaches the Deccan, the Bengal plains or the Western Himalayas, the heart of the devotion is the same: the recognition of Shiva as the Vaidya, the great healer, whose grace is sought for the restoration of strength and the deeper healing of the soul.

History

The classical Sanskrit Dvadasa Jyotirlinga Stotram, attributed to Adi Shankaracharya, names Parli in Maharashtra as the seat of Vaidyanath, but the Deoghar tradition in Jharkhand, equally ancient in its sense of holiness, draws upon the legend of Ravana attempting to carry the linga to Lanka and being thwarted on this site. The Baijnath temple of Kangra was built in the early ninth century by two merchant brothers, Ahuka and Manyuka. Each of the three claims has continued to evolve, and the priestly communities of all three temples continue to honour their long traditions.

Significance

The Vaidyanath Jyotirlinga, in whichever of its claimed seats one approaches, remains among the supreme pilgrimage centres of Shaivism. The Sawan kanwar yatra to Deoghar in particular is the largest annual religious gathering of pilgrims in eastern India, while Parli and Kangra preserve their own deep continuities of Shiva worship and Sanskrit liturgical tradition.