Kedarnath Temple

Infobox Mandir

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primary_deity = (Shiva)
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location = Kedarnath

Kedarnath temple is one of the holiest Hindu temples dedicated to Lord Shiva and is located atop the Garhwal Himalayan range near the river Mandakini in Kedarnath, Uttarakhand in India. Due to extreme weather conditions, the temple is open only between the end of April to start of November. The temple is not directly accessible by road and has to be reached by a 14 km uphill trek from Gaurikund. The temple is believed to have been built by Adi Sankaracharya [cite web | url = http://www.kedarnath.org/ | title = Kedarnath] and is one of the twelve Jyothirlingas, the holiest Hindu shrines of Lord Shiva. The older temple existed from the times of Mahabharat, when the Pandavas are supposed to have pleased Shiva by doing penance in Kedarnath. The temple is also one of the four major sites in India's Char Dham pilgrimage.

Temple and significance

The actual temple is an impressive stone edifice of unknown date. According to the Puranas, the Pandava brothers did a major penance in Kedarnath to please Lord Shiva. As a matter of fact, as one enters the main temple, the first hall contains statues of the five Pandava brothers, Lord Krishna, Nandi, the vehicle of Shiva and Virabhadra, one of the greatest guards of Shiva. An unusual feature of the temple is the the head of a man carved in the triangular stone fascia of the temple. Such a head is seen carved in another temple nearby, namely the temple constructed on the site of the marriage of Shiva and Parvati. No specific family of pujaris supervises rituals at Kedarnath, which focus around veneration of the stone lingam that rests in the inner sanctum of the temple. Behind the temple is the samadhi mandir of Adi Sankara. [cite web
url = http://gov.ua.nic.in/uttaranchaltourism/districts/uttarkashi/Kedarnath.html
title = Uttarakhand government website
accessdate = April 2007]

Tamil saints Nayanars of 1st century like Sundarar and Sambanthar praised the deity in their hymns famous by the name of "Tevaram".

References

ee also

*Badrinath temple

External links

* [http://www.jyotirlinga.com Virtual Lord Shiva Darshan and pilgrimage with videos and images]
*http://www.badarikedar.org/ Official Site
* http://migranov.ru/kedarnath.php
* [http://sss.vn.ua/india/uttarakhand/kedarnath/indexen.htm Photos of Kedarnath temple & other pilgrimage places nearby]
* [http://kedarnath.bharat.ru/eng/ A lot of photos of Kedarnath and the road to Kedarnath in English and Russian]