The most famous Shiva Temples in India | Location,existence & architecture

                 Introduction

SSomnath Temple 

Somnath Temple is situated in  Saurashtra , Gujarat . In Saurashtra , it’s located  in Prabhas Patan . Lakhs of Hindu Devotees visit this temple and take the blessings of Somnath for their prosperity and welfare of the society .

 Among 12 Jyotirlingas , Somnath is considered to be the first Jyotirlinga because according to Shiv Puranas it has been said that this Jyotirlinga is self – manifested .  

This Temple is called as the eternal shrine . This is seven- storied , Chalukya style of  architecture, which is 155 feet tall . This is made of red sandstone which is completely eye catching site  .The most astonishing part of this Temple is a Arrow Pillar ( Stambha) on which , there is  inscription written in Sanskrit which gives a meaning that there is no land when you move straight to the Antarctica . There is a huge cave beneath this Temple which talks about unknown factors which are still unknown to this world .

This Temple was made by Chandra (Moon God ) himself  which was structured in Gold .This was the  main reason that this temple looted or attacked by invaders several times .

The first attack was done by Mahmood Ghajni in 1025 AD . He destroyed the temple and looted the gold . These kinds of destruction and looting happened several times with the temple but every time , it was reconstructed by the spirit of Devotees . The last construction was done by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in 1947 .

 Kashi Vishwanath Temple 

It’s not an easy task to precisely date when it came into existence . There is mention of “

Kashi” in Vedas ( Rig Veda ) or Puranas ( Skanda Mahapurana ) , Mahabharata , Ramayana

and others . Vedas are written thousand and thousand years ago .

Don’t fall in trap which is made by Aryan Invasion theory about Vedas existence . A Chinese pilgrim in 635 had

described about this Kashi Vishwanath Dham and also mentioned other 24 great temples in

 the city .

The first destruction of Kashi Vishwanath Temple had been started by  Qutub-Din – Aibak in

1194 AD . Not just Kashi Vishwanath Temple was attacked but other thousand temple were

also destroyed or looted by them .

Later , it was reconstructed in 1210 -1236 . Then again , it was destructed in 1300 by Firoz Shah Tughlaq . Multiple destruction happened but spirit of devotees for their Lord Shiva made it stand strong through reconstruction . The last

attacked was by Aurangzeb which was finally reconstructed by AhiliyaBai Holkar in 1777

who was the Queen of Indore .

Finally In 2019 , Prime Minister Modi started under his leadership the construction of Kashi

Vishwanath Corridor and in 2021 , unveiled the  temple which connect the temple to the

ghats of ganga river in Uttar Pradesh .

MahaKaleshwar Temple 

This Shiva temple is one of the 12 Jyotirlingas dedicated to Lord Shiva  situated in Ujjain ,

 Madhya Pradesh .

The Lingam is said to be self – manifested .

Mahakaleshwar Temple is popular for its bhasm arti which take place every morning at 4 AM . The bhasm arti is the most eye catching rituals because the bhasm get used here is collected from Funeral pyre.

And this is what Mahakaleshwar like because he is timeless . He is beyond the cycle of birth

 and death .

There is always advance booking goes on for watching this bhasm arti . And the

 decoration done by leaves and flowers of canabeans is the most auspicious rituals which

 make this temple different from others . 

There is different attire to followed for everyone . Men have to wear Dhoti whereas women

 have to wear saaree . Mahakaaleshwar is known as dakshinamurtibecause of facing south

 direction .There is no cell phone allowed to be taken inside the temple . 

The story behind existence of this temple is as follows :

There was a king named Chandrasen was once ruling the Ujjain and was a great devotee of 

 Lord Shiva . He used to chant the Lord Shiva most of his time . One day , a boy named

 Shrikhar heard the Shiva chant from Chandrasen .He too try to sit beside him and want to

 do the chant but is taken out by his guards and left him to the outskirt of the city near the

 river called Kshipra .

This is the place where Shrikhar heard about the attack going to happen on the kingdom  by king Ripudaaman and singh aditya . After hearing , he started to chant or pray to Lord Shiva continuously . When a Priest named Vridhi heard about this ,he too used to pray Lord Shiva . The attackers  became successful in attacking the Kingdomwith the help of Dushan . But finally get destroyed by Mahakaal( Lord Shiva ) .

And this was only got possible because of devotees prayer and chanting . On the request of Shrikhar

 and Vridhi and other devotees , agreed to reside in the city and protect it from evil people . 

Kedarnath Temple 

Kedarnath Temple ( Shiva temple) is a  holy place of  Lord Shiva and  this Shiva temple is situated in Uttarakhand . When we go

 through the sanskrit meaning , it gives us as kedar means ” field” and nath means ” Lord” .

 When we sum it up , it gives  us meaning of Lord of Field .People use to visit this Dham to

 attain the Moksha . 

The temple is 3553 m above the sea level . It’s not an easy task to visit

 the Kedarnath because visitors have to go without use of any vehicle (trekking) for around

 16 km starting from Gaurikund . 

                                                                    Kedarnath temple

It’s been believed that Pandavas have constructed this Kedarnath Temple which was again

 reconstructed by India’s most knowledgeable enlightened master named Adi Shankracharya

 .in 8AD.

It’s very surprising to note that that the temple is 85 feet high and thickness of 12

 feet and the stones connected to each other through interlocking technique which is said to

 be like impossible to do at that time .

  By this , you can imagine how developed was our Bharata at the time when other countries had no knowledge of advance technology. 

In period of 1300 – 1900 AD , the whole Temple got covered by snow but still stand strong

 at the time too without any damage . The flash flood came on 17th June , 2013 which took

 many lives and destroyed the whole surrounding areas wasn’t able to damage the Temple .

The story behind the Kedarnath Temple is as follow :