Travel tips: Here Lord Shiva killed Kumbhakarna's son, also known as Moteshwar Mahadev.

Bhimashankar Jyotirlinga is situated on the Sahyadri Mountains on the banks of Bhima River, east of Mumbai and north of Pune. This Jyotirlinga is also known as Moteshwar Mahadev. It is believed that just by seeing this Jyotirlinga, all the wishes of a person are fulfilled. A river flows near this temple, whose name is Bhima River. This river further joins Krishna river.

Mythology
According to the legend, Ravana's brother Kumbhakaran met a demon named Karkati in the Sahyadri Mountains. Both of them married each other. After the marriage, Kumbhakaran returned to Lanka. But Karkati remained on the mountain and gave birth to a son. The name of this son of Kumbhakaran was Bhima. Ram killed Kumbhakaran. However, Karkati decided to keep her son away from the gods. Growing up, Bhima thought of avenging the death of his father Kumbhakaran.

Bhima did penance from Lord Brahma and obtained the boon of becoming powerful from him. One king was Kamrupeshwar, who was a devotee of Lord Shiva. One day Bhima saw the king worshiping Lord Shiva. He captured the king and put him in jail. But the king started worshiping Lord Shiva by making a Shivalinga even in the prison. When Bhima came to know about this, he tried to break the Shivalinga made by the king with the help of a sword, as a result of which Lord Shiva himself appeared.

There was a fierce war between Bhima and Lord Shiva. In the end Lord Shiva killed Bhima. Then the gods requested Lord Shiva to stay at the same place. At the behest of the gods, Lord Shiva was established at the same place in the form of Shivalinga. Because of the battle with Bhima, this Jyotirlinga was named Bhimashankar Jyotirlinga.

How to reach Bhimashankar Jyotirlinga?
Bhimashankar can be easily reached by road. There are a number of state transport buses as well as buses of private tour operators plying between various cities and towns of Maharashtra to Bhimashankar. The distance between Bhimashankar and Pune by road is 127 kilometers and the distance between Mumbai and Bhimashankar is approximately 200 kilometers.

(PC: Lifeberrys)