12 Jyotirlingas: Full List, States and Locations

All twelve Jyotirlingas listed in the traditional order with their exact locations, plus what a Jyotirlinga is, why the sequence starts at Somnath, and which two sites have rival claimants.

All 12 Jyotirlingas, in the traditional order

There are twelve Jyotirlingas, spread across nine Indian states. Gujarat and Maharashtra have the most, with Maharashtra holding five if you count the disputed Parli claim, and Gujarat holding two. The order below is the one Adi Shankaracharya's Dwadasa Jyotirlinga Stotram uses, which is the order almost every pilgrim follows when reciting or planning.

#	Jyotirlinga	Town / Area	State	Known for
1	Somnath	Prabhas Patan, near Veraval	Gujarat	Rebuilt many times after repeated destruction; current temple completed 1951
2	Mallikarjuna	Srisailam	Andhra Pradesh	Sits in the Nallamala hills above the Krishna river; also a Shakti Peetha
3	Mahakaleshwar	Ujjain	Madhya Pradesh	The only south-facing Jyotirlinga; famous 4 am Bhasma Aarti
4	Omkareshwar	Mandhata island	Madhya Pradesh	On an island in the Narmada shaped roughly like the Om symbol
5	Kedarnath	Rudraprayag district	Uttarakhand	At 3,583 m; shut for about six months each winter
6	Bhimashankar	Khed taluka, Pune district	Maharashtra	In the Sahyadris, inside a wildlife sanctuary; source of the Bhima river
7	Kashi Vishwanath	Varanasi	Uttar Pradesh	The best known of the twelve; rebuilt by Ahilyabai Holkar in 1780
8	Trimbakeshwar	Trimbak, near Nashik	Maharashtra	Three faces in the linga; source of the Godavari
9	Vaidyanath	Deoghar	Jharkhand	Kanwar pilgrims walk 105 km from Sultanganj each Shravan
10	Nageshwar	Near Dwarka	Gujarat	Marked by a 25 m standing Shiva statue
11	Ramanathaswamy	Rameswaram	Tamil Nadu	Longest temple corridor in India, over 1,200 carved pillars
12	Grishneshwar	Verul, near Ellora caves	Maharashtra	Smallest of the twelve; 18th century Maratha construction

What makes a Jyotirlinga different from any other Shiva temple

Jyoti means light. Linga is the aniconic form Shiva is worshipped in. The Shiva Purana tells it like this: Brahma and Vishnu argued over who was supreme, and Shiva appeared between them as an endless pillar of fire with no top and no bottom. Neither could find the end. That pillar is the Jyotirlinga, and the twelve sites are places where it is said to have broken through the earth.

So the claim is not that these are the twelve oldest or twelve grandest Shiva temples. Plenty of older, larger Shiva temples exist. Brihadeeswarar in Thanjavur is a thousand years old and dwarfs most of this list. The Jyotirlinga status is about self-manifestation, swayambhu, not about human building work. That is why Grishneshwar, a modest temple you can walk through in ten minutes, sits on the same list as Kashi Vishwanath.

The two sites people argue about

Nageshwar and Vaidyanath both have rival claimants, and the argument is old.

For Nageshwar, three temples claim it. The Dwarka one in Gujarat is the mainstream answer and gets the most footfall. Jageshwar in Uttarakhand's Almora district claims it too, backed by a large cluster of stone temples dating to the 7th century onwards. Aundha Nagnath in Maharashtra's Hingoli district is the third. Each has textual support depending on which recension of the Purana you read.

Vaidyanath is the messier one. Baidyanath Dham in Deoghar, Jharkhand, is what most pilgrim circuits use. Parli Vaijnath in Beed district, Maharashtra, disputes it. Baijnath in Himachal's Kangra valley is sometimes named as well. If you are planning a yatra and want the version tour operators and most panchangs follow, that is Deoghar and Dwarka. Nobody will tell you the other claimants are wrong, though. They just point at a different verse.

If you are actually planning to visit all twelve

The geography is brutal. Rameswaram to Kedarnath is roughly 3,000 km. Somnath and Nageshwar are 230 km apart in Saurashtra, so those two pair up naturally, and Dwarka sits right there as well. Trimbakeshwar, Bhimashankar and Grishneshwar are all in Maharashtra and can be done in about five days by road. Ujjain and Omkareshwar are 140 km apart in Madhya Pradesh, an easy pair.

Kedarnath sets your calendar. It opens around Akshaya Tritiya in late April or early May and closes on Bhai Dooj, usually early November. From Gaurikund it is a 16 km trek, or a helicopter from Phata or Sersi if the weather holds. Everything else is open year round.

A realistic full circuit, done in clusters rather than one continuous trip, takes 25 to 30 days of actual travel. Most people do it over several years. That is normal and nobody counts it as incomplete.

Two practical notes. Book the Mahakaleshwar Bhasma Aarti online well ahead, because slots go fast and you need to be there before 4 am. And Shravan, roughly July to August, is when every one of these temples is at its most crowded, especially Deoghar, where the Kanwar route from Sultanganj brings enormous numbers on foot.

Reciting the list versus walking it

The Stotram itself promises that simply reciting the twelve names morning and evening clears seven lifetimes of accumulated karma. That line, saptajanmakritam papam smaranena vinashyati, is doing real work in how the tradition is practised. Most Hindus who know the twelve names have never seen more than two or three of the temples.

Which is the point worth sitting with. The list was assembled as a devotional map, a way of holding the whole subcontinent in one verse, from Saurashtra in the west to Rameswaram in the deep south to a Himalayan valley that is under snow half the year. Whether you get to all twelve matters less than the fact that somebody, centuries ago, drew a line connecting them and expected you to know it by heart.

FAQs

Which Jyotirlinga is the hardest to reach?

Kedarnath, easily. It sits at 3,583 m in Uttarakhand, needs a 16 km trek from Gaurikund or a helicopter, and stays closed roughly from November to late April. Bhimashankar is second, though only because of a winding ghat road.

Is Kashi Vishwanath the most important of the twelve?

It is the most visited and the most written about, but the tradition does not rank the Jyotirlingas. All twelve are treated as equal manifestations of the same pillar of light.

How many Jyotirlingas are in Maharashtra?

Five, if you accept Parli Vaijnath as Vaidyanath: Bhimashankar, Trimbakeshwar, Grishneshwar, Aundha Nagnath and Parli Vaijnath. Using the mainstream list, which puts Vaidyanath in Jharkhand and Nageshwar in Gujarat, Maharashtra has three.

What is the difference between a Jyotirlinga and a Shakti Peetha?

Jyotirlingas mark where Shiva appeared as a column of light, and there are twelve. Shakti Peethas mark where parts of Sati's body fell, and counts range from 51 to 108. Srisailam is both.

Can you visit all 12 Jyotirlingas in one trip?

Technically yes, and some tour packages run 20 to 25 day itineraries by train and road. Most pilgrims split it into regional clusters instead, since the sites span about 3,000 km from Rameswaram to Kedarnath.

Which Jyotirlinga is the oldest?

There is no settled answer, because the linga in each case is held to be self-manifested rather than installed. Of the current structures, most are 18th century or later, since Somnath, Kashi Vishwanath and others were rebuilt after destruction.

The 12 Jyotirlingas: Full List, Locations and What Makes Them Different