Twelve Jyotirlinga

Somnath Jyotirlinga

The Moon God was married to the 27 daughters of Daksha Prajapati. All the 27 sisters were happy to get married to Moon God. But Moon God was partial to one of the sisters Rohini, who was his favourite and neglected the others. All of the sisters except Rohini returned back to their home as they were hurt by the action of their husband.

Daksha Prajapati was hurt listening to how his daughters were treated by their husband and decided to meet Moon God and help him to realise his mistake.

Daksha went to Moon God and told him peacefully, "You were born pure at heart but still discriminated among your wives. Why do you avoid the rest 26 wives and treat Rohini above all? Why is this biasness. This is not a right practice, please do not repeat this in future. Daksha Prajapati explain this to his son-in-law and assumed he would pay heed to his words. Daksha Prajapati then returned  back to his home.

But still after so much explanation, he decided not to favour anyone except Rohini and did not bother to look at his other 26 wives.

Daksha Prajapati was angered by this and asked Moon God to be equal to all of them. But Moon God decided to go against Daksha Prajapati. An angered Daksha cursed him to wane into nothingness. As a result, Moon God started fading out. After that, the whole world  into darkness . This situation worried all the Gods and Saints.

Hence, all the Gods decided to visit Lord Brahma for help. God Brahma said, "You have to go through what's happened but there is one way out of it. If Moon God along with the other Gods visit Prabhas Tirtha and worship Lord Shiva by building a Shiv Linga and chanting Mahamrityunjay Mantra, and when Lord Shiva gets impresses by the prayers, he himself will free him from this curse.

Agreeing to Lord Brahma, Moon God left with the other Gods to Prabhas Tirtha. Moon God built a Shiva Linga and all started to recite the Mahamrityunjay Mantra and worshipped Lord Shiva with whole devotion. Moon God continuously kept standing and worshipped the Linga for 6 months and recited the Mantra 100 million times. After the end of penance, Shiva appeared before Moon God and offered to grant him a boon. Moon God prayed to Lord Shiva and requested, "Oh Lord, please forgive me for all my mistakes and grant me my light back".

Lord Shiva replied, " Everyday one side of you will have it's light while the other side will fade into darkness.

Moon God accepted the boon and praised Lord Shiva.

Lord Shiva reduced himself in that Linga and was called as Somnath Jyotirlinga. All the other Godd decided to install a temple and believed that Lord Shiva and Brahma resided there.

In Shivapuran's Koto Rudra Samhita, Somnath has been called as the first Jyotirlinga. It is situated in Saurashtra, Gujarat.