High in the Garhwal Himalayas above 3,580 metres, near the source of the Mandakini, Kedarnath is among the most revered of all Shiva shrines — counted at once among the twelve Jyotirlingas, the Panch Kedar, and the Chota Char Dham. Its most cherished legend tells how the Pandavas, seeking to atone after the Kurukshetra war, pursued Shiva for his darshan; the Lord, unwilling to grant it, took the form of a bull and dived into the earth, leaving his hump at Kedarnath — worshipped ever since as the conical rock in the sanctum — while his other parts rose at the remaining Panch Kedar shrines.
The kshetra is also linked to the penance of the sages Nara and Narayana, whose devotion, the Puranas say, first drew Shiva to abide here as a Jyotirlinga. Tradition further connects the site to Adi Shankaracharya, held to have attained his final samadhi in these heights.
Open only in the warmer months and reached by a long mountain trek, the ancient stone temple standing against a wall of snow peaks makes the pilgrimage to Kedarnath one of the most arduous — and most beloved — in all of Hinduism.
Kedarnath belongs to three circuits at once — a Jyotirlinga, a Chota Char Dham shrine, and the first of the Panch Kedar.
Source: Verified dataset (circuit membership)
