Jyotirlinga List: All 12 Names, Towns and States

The complete list of the 12 Jyotirlingas with their towns, districts and states, laid out in the traditional Dwadasa Jyotirlinga order. Covers the disputed claims around Vaidyanath and Nageshwar, a state-wise grouping that makes the list easy to recall, and the historical angles (Somnath, Grishneshwar at Ellora, Ahilyabai Holkar) that matter for UPSC Prelims.

The 12 Jyotirlingas, in the traditional order

The twelve Jyotirlingas are Somnath, Mallikarjuna, Mahakaleshwar, Omkareshwar, Kedarnath, Bhimashankar, Kashi Vishwanath, Trimbakeshwar, Vaidyanath, Nageshwar, Rameshwaram and Grishneshwar. That sequence is not random. It follows the Dwadasa Jyotirlinga Stotra, the Sanskrit verse recited in temples, which is why almost every authentic list you find uses the same order.

If you searched for this with a slightly mangled spelling, you are in good company. Jyotirlinga, jyothirlingam, jothiramalingam and jyorting ling are all attempts at the same Sanskrit word: jyotir (light) plus linga. The idea is that Shiva manifested at these twelve sites as a column of light rather than as an image.

#	Jyotirlinga	Town / Place	District	State
1	Somnath	Prabhas Patan, near Veraval	Gir Somnath	Gujarat
2	Mallikarjuna	Srisailam	Nandyal	Andhra Pradesh
3	Mahakaleshwar	Ujjain	Ujjain	Madhya Pradesh
4	Omkareshwar	Mandhata island, Narmada	Khandwa	Madhya Pradesh
5	Kedarnath	Kedarnath	Rudraprayag	Uttarakhand
6	Bhimashankar	Bhorgiri, Sahyadris	Pune	Maharashtra
7	Kashi Vishwanath	Varanasi	Varanasi	Uttar Pradesh
8	Trimbakeshwar	Trimbak, near Nashik	Nashik	Maharashtra
9	Vaidyanath	Deoghar	Deoghar	Jharkhand
10	Nageshwar	Near Dwarka	Devbhumi Dwarka	Gujarat
11	Rameshwaram	Rameswaram island	Ramanathapuram	Tamil Nadu
12	Grishneshwar	Verul, near Ellora	Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar	Maharashtra

Two entries on the list are genuinely contested

Numbers 9 and 10 are where lists disagree with each other, and the disagreement is old, not an internet invention.

Vaidyanath is most widely identified with Baidyanath Dham at Deoghar in Jharkhand, the site of the Shravani Mela. But Parli Vaijnath in Beed district, Maharashtra, makes the same claim, and so does a temple at Baijnath in Himachal Pradesh. Nageshwar is usually placed near Dwarka in Gujarat, though Aundha Nagnath in Hingoli district, Maharashtra, and Jageshwar in Almora district, Uttarakhand, are both put forward as the real site.

For an exam, use the mainstream pairing: Deoghar and Dwarka. For your own understanding, remember that the competing claims exist because the Puranic verses give place names, not coordinates, and several towns across India fit the description.

Jyotirlinga	Commonly accepted site	Competing claims
Vaidyanath	Deoghar, Jharkhand	Parli Vaijnath (Maharashtra), Baijnath (Himachal Pradesh)
Nageshwar	Near Dwarka, Gujarat	Aundha Nagnath (Maharashtra), Jageshwar (Uttarakhand)

Group them by state, not by number

Trying to memorise twelve temples as a numbered sequence is the slow way. Group them geographically and the list collapses into five chunks you can hold in your head.

Maharashtra has three: Bhimashankar, Trimbakeshwar and Grishneshwar. Madhya Pradesh has two, both in the Malwa-Narmada belt: Mahakaleshwar at Ujjain and Omkareshwar on the Narmada. Gujarat has two coastal ones, Somnath and Nageshwar, both in Saurashtra. The rest are singles: Kedarnath in Uttarakhand, Kashi Vishwanath in Uttar Pradesh, Vaidyanath in Jharkhand, Mallikarjuna in Andhra Pradesh and Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu.

One more hook worth keeping. Three Jyotirlingas sit at or near a river source or a major river: Trimbakeshwar is at the source of the Godavari, Bhimashankar at the source of the Bhima, and Omkareshwar on an island in the Narmada. Mahakaleshwar stands on the Shipra at Ujjain, one of the four Kumbh Mela cities.

State	Count	Jyotirlingas
Maharashtra	3	Bhimashankar, Trimbakeshwar, Grishneshwar
Madhya Pradesh	2	Mahakaleshwar, Omkareshwar
Gujarat	2	Somnath, Nageshwar
Uttarakhand	1	Kedarnath
Uttar Pradesh	1	Kashi Vishwanath
Jharkhand	1	Vaidyanath
Andhra Pradesh	1	Mallikarjuna
Tamil Nadu	1	Rameshwaram

What UPSC has actually tested, and what it hasn't

UPSC has never asked you to name the twelve Jyotirlingas. It does not test devotional lists. What it tests is history and architecture attached to these sites, and that distinction should change how you read this page.

Somnath is the one with real exam weight. Mahmud of Ghazni raided and plundered it in 1025 to 1026. The temple was destroyed and rebuilt repeatedly over centuries. After Independence, the reconstruction was pushed by Sardar Patel following Junagadh's accession, driven forward by K.M. Munshi, and the rebuilt temple was inaugurated by President Rajendra Prasad in 1951, a decision Nehru was publicly uneasy about because of the office involved. That episode shows up in Modern India and in essays on religion and the state far more often than in any culture question.

Grishneshwar is the second high-value one, because it sits at Verul beside the Ellora caves, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the location of the Kailasa temple, which is rock-cut rather than built. Ahilyabai Holkar is the thread that ties several of these together: she rebuilt Kashi Vishwanath in 1780, restored Grishneshwar, and funded work at Somnath. Questions on eighteenth-century Maratha patronage of temples have her at the centre.

The architecture angle is worth one line each. Rameshwaram's Ramanathaswamy temple is Dravida, with the long pillared corridors added under Nayaka patronage. Kedarnath and Somnath are in the northern Nagara family. UPSC's 2019 Prelims question on Kalyana Mandapas, whose answer was Vijayanagara, is the pattern to notice: the exam asks about a feature and a dynasty, not a pilgrimage circuit. If you want to see how often that pattern repeats across Art and Culture, work through the past papers properly rather than reading facts in isolation, which is the whole premise of the PYQ Mastery Course.

The three sites with a live current-affairs tail

Some of these temples keep returning in the news, which is where static knowledge becomes useful rather than ornamental.

Kashi Vishwanath Dham, the corridor project linking the temple to the Ganga ghats, was inaugurated in December 2021. Ujjain's Mahakal Lok corridor followed in October 2022. Kedarnath is tied to the June 2013 Uttarakhand disaster, when the Chorabari lake burst and the town was devastated while the temple survived, and it remains central to the Char Dham road and rail projects and to the Supreme Court's involvement in those clearances.

So the useful version of this list is not twelve names. It is twelve names, their states, and four or five historical hooks you can actually write a sentence about.

FAQs

1. Which state has the most Jyotirlingas?

Maharashtra, with three in the standard list: Bhimashankar, Trimbakeshwar and Grishneshwar. If the contested claims of Parli Vaijnath and Aundha Nagnath are included, Maharashtra's count rises to five, which is why some sources quote that higher figure.

2. Are the 12 Jyotirlingas and the Char Dham the same thing?

No. The Char Dham are Badrinath, Dwarka, Puri and Rameswaram, a pan-India pilgrimage circuit attributed to Adi Shankaracharya, while the Jyotirlingas are twelve Shiva shrines. Only Rameswaram appears in both, and the separate Uttarakhand Chota Char Dham circuit includes Kedarnath.

3. Which Jyotirlinga is the southernmost?

Rameshwaram, on Rameswaram island in Ramanathapuram district, Tamil Nadu. Mallikarjuna at Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh is the only other Jyotirlinga in South India.

4. Who was Ahilyabai Holkar and why is she linked to these temples?

Ahilyabai Holkar was the Maratha ruler of the Holkar state at Maheshwar from 1767 to 1795, known for funding temple construction and repair across India. She rebuilt the Kashi Vishwanath temple at Varanasi in 1780 and supported restoration work at Grishneshwar and Somnath.

5. Is there a fixed order for reciting the Jyotirlinga list?

Yes, the Dwadasa Jyotirlinga Stotra fixes the order beginning with Somnath in Saurashtra and ending with Grishneshwar near Ellora. Most published lists follow this sequence rather than arranging the temples geographically.

6. Which Jyotirlinga temple is located on an island?

Omkareshwar, on Mandhata island in the Narmada river in Khandwa district, Madhya Pradesh. Rameshwaram is also on an island, Rameswaram island in the Gulf of Mannar, connected to the mainland by the Pamban bridge.