Mallikarjuna

Mallikārjuna — the second Jyotirlinga

The deity before the site

This file is filed as a deity rather than a shrine. The two Jyotirlinga entries for Srisailam in this corpus — mallikarjuna and mallikarjuna-srisailam — cover the same place from two sides, and the overlap is flagged here for a named guardian to resolve; the deity entry belongs here, and the temple entry belongs with the other.

The Jyotirlingas are the twelve shrines at which, in the tradition, Shiva appeared as a lingam of his own accord. Their membership is fixed by a later Purāṇic and tantric list rather than by the Vedas, and the numbering differs between published lists — a point worth stating plainly on every Jyotirlinga page in this corpus, because "the second Jyotirlinga" is a position in a list, not a historical claim.

Mallikārjuna is one of the names: mallikā, "of the jasmine", from the flower with which he is garlanded. His name carries a narrative. In the story, Arjuna, uncertain of his divine birth, performed penance to Shiva, who came to him disguised as a hunter and made him undergo a test — the hunter's identity revealed at the crucial moment, and the boon granted. The name Mallikārjuna has also been explained as a pun on the identity of the hunter and of Arjuna's own wife's name, "Mallikā", which Shiva is said to have given. Whatever the philology, the story is a favourite of the Āḻvārs and later devotional poets, and it is the reason the śālmalā hills are read as a Śaiva landscape.

The site at Śrīśailam, on the Nallamala hills above the Krishna river, is the second of the twelve in the standard ordering and is one of the most physically demanding pilgrimage destinations in India, the approach being a long climb through forest — now partly by road. The mahāśivaratri here draws pilgrims in numbers that make the site one of the great seasonal concentrations of Śaiva pilgrimage in the south.

Sources and what is still unverified

Nilakanta Sastri; Zaehner for the Śaiva framework; the ASI reports and the Nandyal gazetteer for the site.

For a named guardian: the epigraphy and dating of the Gopuram and the prasāda at Srisailam, where later additions are documented and the earlier core is contested; the Purāṇic text in which the twelve-name list appears; and the current administration and access arrangements, which have changed with the forest and road works.