Bhimashankar is one of the 12 Jyotirlingas of Shiva. In this age of the funniest place com internet and omnipresent Wikipedia/Google, getting standard information about Jyotirlingas and the concomitant legends is an clean challenge. It’s the identical hackneyed facts churned out through others. What topics maximum is the angle of a visitor or a devotee who has visible and imbibed the (divine) spirit first hand. And that makes the difference and takes away the cherry.
Lord Shiva is the Adi Deva (oldest deity) of the Hindus. According to Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford University, R C Zehmer, ‘It’s now not a hyperbole or an exaggeration but a truth that Indian mythology is replete with innumerable legends and exploits of Shiva.’ Rigved (Not Rigveda; this is an misguided orthography given and popularised by means of the Brits) had the connection with Shiva almost 5500 years in the past. The readers might take into account that during B R Chopra’s Mahabharat, Bhishma used to mention, ‘Mahadev ki saugandh’ (I swear by means of Mahadev). And Mahabharat is thought to be 3000-3500-year-antique.
Pilgrims residing near Poona/Bombay have an clean get entry to to Bhimashankar. It takes round three-4 hours to attain there from Pune.
It’s cradled in Sahyadri Mountain Range. The scenic beauty of the location provides to divinity. According to Garud Puran, ‘Pratasthe dwadasham jyotirlingam darshanam apariharya iti ashtavinayakam paridoshat’ (If one visits a Jyotirlingam, he/she must visit all similar to one must go to all eight Ganesha abodes).
According to ‘Hindu Dharmsthal Soochi’ (the list of Hindu Pilgrim Centres) that appeared in now defunct ‘Dharmyug’ in 1978, there’re 73 cardinal pilgrim spots for Hindus. Twelve Jyotirlingas and Ashtvinayak are among them.
The author of this piece visited Bhimashankar in 2007. It was once lush inexperienced. It’s nevertheless quite verdant but somewhere with the passage of time, this place now appears to be a piece industrial like Shani Shingnapur and Shirdi.
It’s believed that each Jyotirlinga presents a selected wish of the devotee. And why on earth do we all go to temples and pilgrim centres? Don’t we move there to beg (for alms)? Anyway, Bhimashankar is related to wealth. If you need wealth, cross there and pray to the Lord. He’ll grant your wealth-want! So clean!
I noticed one very famous Bollywood actor at Bhimashankar and become instructed that he had been journeying this Jyotirliga for final 12 years regularly. Needless to say, he’s stinking wealthy. He may have been praying to the deity to acquire more wealth as this has no stop. To quote Urdu poet Asadullah Khan Ghalib, ‘There’re legions of wishes and you could die for each desire/I died many a time, but that wasn’t enough’.