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According to our Shiva Mahapurana, one day Vishnu and Brahma had an argument over their superiority. Shiva appeared in front of them in the form of a raging fire and asked them to each find the tip of the fire. Whoever reaches the tip would be superior between the two. Brahma went upwards and Vishnu downwards in search of the tip, however Shiva increased the length of the flaming fire continuously. After thousands of miles, Vishnu conceded defeat and returned. Brahma was getting exhausted and, on the way, saw the Ketaki flower. He made Ketaki agree to lie that Brahma had indeed reached the top where the flower had resided and got the flower from there. When Brahma confronted Vishnu with Ketaki, Shiva appeared in his true form in front of them. Shiva was angered by Brahma’s lie and cursed him that he would never be worshipped and also banned the Ketaki flower from being offered for worship. The Fire form which Shiva took later cooled into the Arunachala hill in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu – “Aruna” means Red (fire) and “Achala” means steady immovable; mountain. The hill is worshipped as Lord Shiva himself and devotees take the 14km parikrama/pradakshina (Girivalam) barefoot around the hill to worship the Lord.
Somnath in
Gir Somnath,
Gujarat Mallikarjuna in
Srisailam,
Andhra PradeshMahakaleswar in
Ujjain,
Madhya PradeshOmkareshwar in
Khandwa,
Madhya PradeshKedarnath in
Rudraprayag,
UttarakhandBhimashankar in
MaharashtraVishwanath in
Varanasi,
Uttar PradeshTrimbakeshwar in
Nashik,
MaharashtraBaidyanath in
Deoghar,
JharkhandNageshvara in
Dwarka,
GujaratRamanathaswamy in
Rameshwaram,
Tamil NaduGrishneshwar in
Aurangabad,
Maharashtra
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