NASHIK: Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, is scheduled to visit the famed 268-year-old Trimbakeshwar Shiva Temple in Nashik on March 14 to offer prayers, party leaders said on Tuesday.
This will be the Gandhi scion’s fourth visit to a Jyotirlinga temple during the Bharat Jodi Nyay Yatra. “We are all aware that Rahul Gandhi is a staunch Shiv Bhakt. He shall go to the Trimbakeshwar Shiva Temple and pray there on Thursday,” said state Congress President, Nana Patole, as the yatra entered Maharashtra on Tuesday to a tumultuous welcome.
Located amid lush greenery at the base of three hills, Brahmagiri, Nilagiri and Kalagiri in Nashik, the Trimbakeshwar Shiva Temple is one of the 12 Jyotirlinga temples located around the country.
AICC General Secretary, Communications, Jairam Ramesh added that earlier the former Congress President had offered prayers at three other Jyotirlingas – the Baba Baidyanath Dham in Deoghar (Jharkhand), Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) and the Mahakaleshwar Temple in Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh).
The Trimbakeshwar Shiva Temple is located at the source of the Godavari, India’s second-longest river after the Ganga, which flows from Maharashtra and falls into the Bay of Bengal. The striking feature of the Trimbakeshwar Shiva Temple is that the Jyotirling is three-faced, signifying Lord Brahma, Lord Vishnu and Lord Shiva.
This temple was built by the Peshwa Balaji Bajirao-III on the site of an old temple and inaugurated in February 1756 on Mahashivratri. It has gates in all four directions as East denotes the ‘beginning’, West symbolises ‘maturity’, North represents ‘revelation’ and South signifies ‘fulfilment’, as per the temple website.