Shri Vaijnath Temple, Parli (Parli Vaijnath Jyotirlinga)
Parli Vaijnath, Beed district, Maharashtra, India
- Deities
- Vaijnath (Shiva)
- Traditions
- shaiva
- Worship status
- active
- Address
- Parli town, Beed district, Maharashtra 431515, India
- Coordinates
- 18.8428, 76.5354
- Darshan hours
- Varies by temple and season; consult the temple's own trust/management for the current daily schedule before visiting.
- Best time to visit
- October to March for cooler weather; Maha Shivaratri is the principal festival, drawing very large crowds.
- How to reach
- Parli Vaijnath has its own railway junction (on the Parbhani-Parli line) and road connections to Beed and Latur; the nearest major airports are at Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad) and Pune.
- Festivals
- Maha Shivaratri (February/March)
Location
Open in Google MapsParli Vaijnath, in Maharashtra’s Beed district, is counted as the fifth of the twelve Jyotirlingas, the sites where Shiva is held to have manifested as a self-formed column of light. The temple standing today is built of black stone in the Hemadpanthi style, roughly 75-80 feet high with a brass-plated doorway on its eastern face; Wikipedia’s article records a renovation in 1706 and further restoration work credited to the Maratha queen Ahilyabai Holkar later in the 18th century, though no original construction date for the site is established in the source checked.
Shaiva tradition more broadly associates the Vaidyanath Jyotirlingas with a legend of the demon-king Ravana attempting to carry a linga of Shiva to Lanka and being persuaded, or tricked, into setting it down on earth instead — a devotional account rather than documented history. This entry does not assert that this legend specifically and exclusively belongs to the Parli site, because the identity of “the” Vaidyanath Jyotirlinga is itself a genuine, long-running point of disagreement across traditions, most notably between this temple and the Baidyanath Dham temple at Deoghar, Jharkhand. Parli is followed here as it appears in the standard twelve-Jyotirlinga listing, without taking a position on that wider dispute.
The temple is administered today by the Vaijnath Devasthan Trust and remains an active pilgrimage site, drawing its largest crowds during Maha Shivaratri.
Sources
- historical record: Cross-checked against Wikipedia's Shri Vaijnath Temple article: confirms the Beed district location and coordinates, the temple's standing as the fifth of the twelve Jyotirlingas, Hemadpanthi black-stone architecture roughly 75-80 feet high with a brass-plated eastern doorway, a 1706 renovation, later restoration work credited to Maharani Ahilyabai Holkar, and management by the Vaijnath Devasthan Trust. The article does not give an original construction date for the temple.
- oral tradition: The broader Vaidyanath Jyotirlinga legend involving Ravana's attempt to carry a Shiva linga to Lanka, and Shiva being persuaded or tricked into remaining on earth, is widespread Shaiva devotional tradition associated with the Vaidyanath/Vaijnath Jyotirlingas generally; its specific application to this Parli site was not independently re-confirmed via a dedicated source in this research pass.
For review
- No original construction date for the temple was found in the source checked; only an 18th-century renovation (1706) and further restoration credited to Ahilyabai Holkar are documented.
- Several traditions disagree over which shrine is 'the' Vaidyanath/Vaijnath Jyotirlinga among the twelve — most notably a long-standing rivalry between this Parli temple and the Baidyanath Dham temple at Deoghar, Jharkhand. This entry follows Parli's inclusion in the standard twelve-Jyotirlinga list per the source checked, without adjudicating the wider, unresolved dispute, which was not independently re-verified in this research pass.