Mallikarjuna Jyotirlinga Temple

The Complete Guide to Mallikarjuna Jyotirlinga

Everything a pilgrim needs — a millennium of history, the specifics of the sanctum's architecture, the exact darshan procedure, the annual festival calendar, and practical tips born from experience on the ground.

Perched on the flat Nallamala plateau at Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh, Mallikarjuna is the second Jyotirlinga and simultaneously the sixth Shakti Peetha where Goddess Bhramaramba resides. The temple's origins are traced to the Satavahana era, but the massive gopurams and the granite prakara wall visible today were commissioned by King Harihara Raya of the Vijayanagara empire in the fourteenth century, with later additions by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj — the northern gopuram is popularly called the 'Shivaji Gopuram'. Adi Shankaracharya visited Srisailam in the eighth century and composed the 'Shivananda Lahari' here; his footprints are enshrined in a small mandapa on the temple's western side. Colonial records show that Srisailam remained an active tantric and Nath sampradaya centre well into the seventeenth century, and the neighbouring Pathala Ganga (the Krishna river gorge beneath the temple) has been worshipped as a tirtha since Vedic times.

The temple complex is a fortified 183-metre-square granite enclosure with four gopurams aligned to the cardinal directions. The 200-foot Mukha Mandapa is supported by intricately sculpted pillars depicting the Puranic legends of the Nallamala hills. The garbhagriha houses a swayambhu (self-manifested) lingam with a naturally sculpted yoni-peetha; unusually, both the Shiva and Shakti sanctums lie within the same prakara — a feature no other Jyotirlinga shares. The exterior walls carry Vijayanagara-style bas-reliefs of the Dasavataras, Nayaka warriors, and dancing apsaras.