Kedarnath Jyotirlinga

Kedāra is the highest of the twelve. The stone temple stands at about 3,580 metres in Rudraprayag district of Uttarakhand, in a wide valley at the head of the Mandākinī river, with snow peaks rising directly behind it. No road reaches it: the last stretch from Gaurikund, about sixteen kilometres, is covered on foot, by pony or palanquin, or by helicopter.

The Śiva Purāṇa's account is brief. Nara and Nārāyaṇa, the twin sages who are forms of Viṣṇu, performed austerities for a very long time at Badarikāśrama, worshipping Śiva each day in a liṅga of earth. Pleased, Śiva appeared and offered a boon. They asked nothing for themselves, only that he remain there in his own form so that all might worship him. Śiva agreed and stayed on the snowy peak of Kedāra as a jyotirliṅga. The text adds that the gods and sages of old worshipped him there and that a pilgrim who has darśana of Kedāra is freed from sorrow.

The story most pilgrims hear on the path is a different one, and it comes from later regional tradition rather than from the Śiva Purāṇa. After the Kurukṣetra war the Pāṇḍavas sought Śiva to be absolved of the killing of their kin. Śiva avoided them, took the form of a bull and sank into the ground. Bhīma caught hold of the hump, and that hump is what is worshipped at Kedarnath; the other parts are said to have appeared at four more shrines, which together make the Pañca Kedāra. The liṅga in the sanctum is indeed a rough, hump-shaped rock rather than a polished stone. Tradition also credits Ādi Śaṅkara with reviving the shrine and places his samādhi just behind it.

Because of the snow, the temple is open only for about six months. When it closes, the deity's worship moves down to the Oṅkāreśvara temple at Ukhimath for the winter. In June 2013 a catastrophic flood devastated the valley and the town; the temple itself survived, and the settlement around it has since been rebuilt.