Lord Baijnath Temple

Vaidyanath Temple, also called Vaijnath Temple and Baidyanth Temple is located at Deogarh in the Santal Parganas region of Bihar in the south west of Keeul Station. Baidyanath shrine is revered as one of the twelve Jyotirlingams of Shiva. It may be noted that some schools of thought believe Vaidyanath near Parali in Andhra Pradesh to be the Vaidyanatha Jyotirlingam. The legends about this Shiva temple are various. One legend is that in the Treta Yuga the demon Ravana, king of Lanka, propitiated Lord Mahadeva and wanted him to come over to Lanka. Mahadeva did not agree to this prayer but told Ravana that he would give him one of the twelve emblems of His divinity, Jyotirlinga which would be quite as effective as His presence and that he would take it away on the condition that there should be no break in the journey and the lingam would not be deposited anywhere on the earth. The condition was that if the lingam was put anywhere on the earth in the course of the journey, it would be fixed to that spot for ever. The legend is that Ravana agreed to this condition and took the lingam and started his journey back to Lanka. The Gods dreaded the effect of the lingam being established at the seat of the demon king. A ruse was devised and Varuna, the God of the waters, entered the stomach of Ravana and the demon had to descend to earth to relieve himself. Later, Vishnu, in the garb of an old Brahmin, appeared before Ravana, after his descent to the earth, and began to converse with him. Ravana requested the Brahmin to kindly hold the Jyotirlinga for a few minutes so that he could relieve himself. Lord Vishnu readily agreed to it and, as soon as Ravana turned his back to relieve himself, he left the Jyotirlinga on the spot and vanished. When Ravana came back, he found that the Jyotirlinga was firmly fixed to the earth and realised that a trick had been played on him. He even tried violence to remove the lingam and thereby broke a piece off the top of the lingam. However, failing to remove the lingam, he made his obeisance to the lingam and daily worshipped it. The spot where Ravana came down to the earth has been identified as Harlajuri, about four miles north of Deoghar and the place where the lingam was deposited is known as Deoghar.