The journey to the Amarnath cave temple is considered as the most difficult one.
The lesser known facts about Amarnath temple are ::
- The Amarnath shrine is located in the Himalayan region of South Kashmir which is about 141 km from Srinagar and is situated at an altitude of 3,888 meters (12,756 feet).
The story behind the Amarnath Jyothirlinga,
- One day on mount Kailash, Goddess Parvathi asked Shiva “ Hey Lord ! Why do you always wear the Munda_mala, Garland of skulls around your neck, Whose skulls are these Mahadev “?
Then the Mahadev says “ my dear, whenever you take avatar ( birth in the form of a human), then one kapala gets added to this Garland”.
Parvathi further says “ Swamy ( Lord), why is it that I'm being born again and again, but you are never born again “?
Shiva says “ That is the secret of the immorality, the secret of life and death dear. I can't tell you in this place, let's go to a spot where there are no living beings, and there I would reveal the secret to you. Saying this God Shiva, Parvathi and His family started their journey to the Amarnath cave.
On the way to the cave, God Shiva left all his family members in the middle and reached with only Parvathi to the cave.
- The Place where Shiva left His mount Nandi, came to be known as Pahalgam or Bailgam ( bail means bull in Hindi). This place is 100 kms away from Srinagar.
- From a distance of 16 kms from Bailgav, Shiva renounced Moon at a place called Chandravad.
- After few miles, Shiva left His ornament Vasuki, the cobra king at a place called Sheshnaag ( this place is a combination of seven Hills present there) .
- Later Shiva gave up Lord Ganesh at a place called Mahaguna and later gave up the Holy River Ganga from His hair, at a place called Panchatarini.
- Shiva kept His trishul outside, at the entrance of the cave.
- After leaving them all, Shiva and Parvathi entered into the Amarnath cave.
- After entering into the cave, Shiva made a huge sound with His damru, hearing to that sound, all the birds present in the cave flew away.
- Then Shiva told the secret of life and death and immortality to goddess Parvathi. Shiva did not observe that, in the corner of the cave, two pigeon eggs were present and they hatched and two baby pigeons were born, so this two pigeons heard the entire story.
- Shiva says “ Since these two pigeons have heard the secret, they will be immortal and whoever sees this birds gets the highest virtue, from today on wards, we two will be in this pigeon form “.
- Few people who went to the Amarnath cave, reported to have seen the pigeons.
- Shiva manifested himself into the Ice linga in the cave to bless His devotees.
- It's a popular belief that, Sage Kashyapa created many water streams ( rivers) in the mountains surrounding this cave.
- And it was sage Bhrigu, who visited this cave first and made it popular to others.
- This temple is open only in the summers, that too for a period of 45 days ( July and August month).
- When summer starts, the ice starts to melt and the iced water forms into a Linga.
- It is said that, during many foreign invasions, people stopped visiting this temple from 12 th to 15th century.
- In 15 th Century, one day a person named Bhuta malik went to graze his goats and yaks in the mountain. Then a Sadhu came and handed him a bag of coal pieces. But when Bhuta malik went home and opened the bag, he saw full gold coins in place of coal. He was very happy and he went in search of that Sadhu to thank him, in the process he finds this cave and again people started to worship the Iced Linga.
Source :: Amarnath story in Hindu dharmam channel, Shiva purana and devon ke dev mahadev hindi series.