12 Jothiramalingam Name List with Places and States

A clean list of the 12 Jothiramalingam (Jyotirlinga) names with their towns and states, the Tamil spellings people actually search for, the shloka that fixes their order, the three sites where the identification is contested, and the parts of this that UPSC has genuinely asked about.

The 12 Jothiramalingam names, in order

Jothiramalingam is the Tamil way of saying Jyotirlinga, from jyoti (light) and linga. There are twelve, spread across seven states, and the order below is the traditional one from the Dwadasa Jyotirlinga Stotram, not a north-to-south or alphabetical arrangement. Maharashtra holds five of them, more than any other state. Tamil Nadu holds exactly one, Ramanathaswamy at Rameswaram.

#	Name	Tamil form	Place	State
1	Somnath	சோமநாதர்	Prabhas Patan, near Veraval	Gujarat
2	Mallikarjuna	மல்லிகார்ஜுனர்	Srisailam, Nallamala hills	Andhra Pradesh
3	Mahakaleshwar	மகாகாளேஸ்வரர்	Ujjain, on the Shipra	Madhya Pradesh
4	Omkareshwar	ஓங்காரேஸ்வரர்	Mandhata island, Narmada	Madhya Pradesh
5	Kedarnath	கேதார்நாதர்	Rudraprayag district, Garhwal	Uttarakhand
6	Bhimashankar	பீமாசங்கரர்	Pune district, Sahyadris	Maharashtra
7	Kashi Vishwanath	காசி விஸ்வநாதர்	Varanasi	Uttar Pradesh
8	Trimbakeshwar	திரியம்பகேஸ்வரர்	Near Nashik, Godavari source	Maharashtra
9	Vaidyanath	வைத்தியநாதர்	Deoghar (contested with Parli)	Jharkhand
10	Nageshwar	நாகேஸ்வரர்	Near Dwarka (contested)	Gujarat
11	Ramanathaswamy	ராமநாதசுவாமி	Rameswaram	Tamil Nadu
12	Grishneshwar	கிருஷ்ணேஸ்வரர்	Verul, beside Ellora	Maharashtra

Why they are called lingas of light

The story sits in the Shiva Purana, in the Kotirudra Samhita. Brahma and Vishnu argue over who is supreme, and Shiva appears between them as an endless pillar of fire with no visible top or bottom. Neither can find its end.

That pillar is the jyoti. The twelve sites are where tradition says it broke the earth and stayed. This is also why Lingodbhava, the icon of Shiva emerging from a flaming pillar, is carved on the western wall of so many Tamil Nadu temples, including Thanjavur's Brihadisvara.

A jyotirlinga is therefore considered svayambhu, self-manifested, rather than installed by a priest. That single distinction is what separates these twelve from the thousands of other Shiva temples in India.

The order is fixed by a verse, so learn it that way

People get the sequence wrong because they try to arrange the twelve by geography. It does not work. The order comes from a memorised stotram that opens with Saurashtre Somanatham cha Srisaile Mallikarjunam, and runs through Ujjain, Omkareshwar, Parli, Bhimashankar, Setubandha, Darukavana, Varanasi, the Gautami bank, the Himalaya and finally Ghushmesha.

If you are learning the list for an exam rather than for a pilgrimage, group them by state instead. Maharashtra five (Bhimashankar, Trimbakeshwar, Grishneshwar, and Parli Vaijnath and Aundha Nagnath if you count the contested claims). Madhya Pradesh two. Gujarat two. Then one each in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand. Four or five clusters stick in memory far better than a list of twelve items.

Three of the twelve are disputed, and you should know which

Most lists online present all twelve as settled. Two are not, and a third has a competing claim.

Vaidyanath is the big one. Deoghar in Jharkhand is the popular identification, but the stotram says Parlyam Vaidyanatham, and Parli in Beed district, Maharashtra, claims the same linga. Some traditions add Baijnath in Himachal's Kangra valley.

Nageshwar is claimed by three places: the temple near Dwarka in Gujarat, Aundha Nagnath in Hingoli district of Maharashtra, and Jageshwar in Almora district of Uttarakhand. The Darukavana of the verse is read differently by each.

For Grishneshwar, the name itself varies, appearing as Ghushmeshwar or Kusumeshwar in different recensions, though the location at Verul next to the Ellora caves is not contested. Where an exam question expects a single answer, go with Deoghar and Dwarka, because those are the standard textbook identifications. But knowing the dispute exists protects you from a statement-based question that quietly includes Parli or Aundha.

What UPSC has actually asked around these sites

UPSC rarely asks you to recite twelve names. It asks about the site, the architecture or the geography attached to one of them.

Grishneshwar sits next to the Ellora caves, where Cave 16, the Kailasa temple, was cut from a single rock under Rashtrakuta patronage in the eighth century. Ellora is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has appeared in Prelims more than once. Somnath carries the Mahmud of Ghazni raid of 1026 and the 1951 reconstruction led by K. M. Munshi, a question that sits at the junction of medieval history and post-independence India. Kedarnath pulls in the 2013 Uttarakhand floods and the Mandakini. Trimbakeshwar is the source of the Godavari, Bhimashankar of the Bhima, and Omkareshwar sits on the Narmada, which is pure Prelims geography.

Rameswaram is the one that doubles up. It is a jyotirlinga and one of the four Char Dham, and its corridor of over a thousand carved pillars is the longest temple corridor in India, built mainly under Ramanathapuram Sethupathi patronage in the seventeenth century.

The efficient way to handle this cluster is to work backwards from what has actually been set. Pull every Prelims question on temple architecture, UNESCO sites and river sources from the last fifteen years, see which temples recur and in what form, and then read only that much. The PYQ Mastery Course exists for exactly that kind of backward mapping, where you let the paper decide the depth instead of guessing.

Memorise the twelve names once. Spend the rest of your time on the four or five that carry real history, architecture or geography behind them, because those are the ones the examiner can build a question on.

FAQs

1. Which state has the most jyotirlingas?

Maharashtra, with Bhimashankar, Trimbakeshwar and Grishneshwar firmly, and Parli Vaijnath and Aundha Nagnath under contested claims. Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat have two each.

2. How many jyotirlingas are there in Tamil Nadu?

One. Ramanathaswamy temple at Rameswaram, in Ramanathapuram district, is the only Jothiramalingam in Tamil Nadu and the southernmost of the twelve.

3. What is the difference between a jyotirlinga and a Shakti Peetha?

Jyotirlingas are twelve Shiva shrines where the god is said to have appeared as a pillar of light. Shakti Peethas are sites where parts of Sati's body are said to have fallen, and they are counted as 51 in the most common reckoning, though lists vary.

4. Which jyotirlinga is the hardest to reach?

Kedarnath in Uttarakhand. It sits at roughly 3,580 metres, stays closed from around November to late April, and the final stretch from Gaurikund is a trek of about 16 km on foot, pony or helicopter.

5. Is Rameswaram also a Char Dham site?

Yes. Rameswaram is both a jyotirlinga and one of the four Char Dham established in the Adi Shankara tradition, along with Badrinath, Puri and Dwarka. It is the only site that appears on both lists.

6. Why do different lists show different places for Vaidyanath and Nageshwar?

Because the Sanskrit verse names regions rather than modern towns, and more than one temple claims to be that region. Deoghar and Parli both claim Vaidyanath, while Dwarka, Aundha Nagnath and Jageshwar all claim Nageshwar.