Mahakaleshwar

Two things set Mahakaleshwar apart among the twelve. Its lingam is swayambhu, self-manifested rather than ritually installed, and it is dakshinamukhi — the only Jyotirlinga to face south, the direction of Yama, lord of death — an orientation held especially powerful in the tantric tradition.

As Mahakal, 'the great time', Shiva here is death itself and the master of it, and Ujjain reveres him as its ruler; by old custom no other king was to stay overnight within the city, for Mahakal alone reigns there. To take his darshan, above all at the dawn Bhasma Aarti, is counted among the most intense experiences in Shaiva pilgrimage.

Ujjain's bond with Mahakal runs through the city's life: the month of Sawan brings the royal Sawari processions, when the deity is carried through the streets as the city's sovereign, and the dawn Bhasma Aarti — in which the lingam is bathed in sacred ash — draws devotees who book weeks ahead for a place. Ancient Ujjain was also a great centre of astronomy, its position once taken as the prime meridian of the Hindu world, so that time itself, over which Mahakal presides, is woven into the city's very identity.

Mahakaleshwar presides over Ujjain, an ancient city on the Kshipra river in Madhya Pradesh and one of the seven sacred Mokshapuris of Hinduism. Long a seat of learning — and once the meridian by which Indian astronomers reckoned time — Ujjain has honoured Shiva as Mahakal, the Lord of Time and Death and the city's own king, since deep antiquity; the shrine is named across the Puranas and the classical Sanskrit poets.

The temple's fortunes followed the city's. It was sacked by Iltutmish's forces in the raid of 1234–35, and the present structure belongs largely to its 18th-century rebuilding under the Marathas, when Ujjain flourished again under Scindia rule. It stands within a walled precinct beside the Rudra Sagar lake.

Above all, Mahakaleshwar is bound to the rhythm of the Kumbh: every twelve years the Simhastha Kumbh Mela gathers millions to bathe in the Kshipra, and the Mahakal at its heart is the presiding lord of that vast congregation.

The temple rises over several levels in a blend of the Bhumija, Chalukya and Maratha manners, set in its walled courtyard by the Rudra Sagar. Mahakaleshwar occupies the sanctum below; above it are the shrines of Omkareshwar and, higher still, Nagchandreshwar, which is opened to the public just one day a year, on Nag Panchami.

Around the sanctum stand images of Ganesha, Parvati, Kartikeya and Nandi, and an underground chamber deepens the shrine. The precinct has been much enlarged in recent years with the Mahakal Lok corridor, a broad new approach lined with sculpture that has greatly expanded the space for the crowds.