Feature
Tirtha
A tirtha is a crossing place — somewhere the tradition says the distance between here and elsewhere is thin. Walk the canonical sets, see where each place is and why it is counted, and read the text behind every claim.
What you can do
- Walk the canonical sets, starting with the twelve jyotirlingas.
- See which text gives each count — and where the texts disagree.
- Read why a place is a tirtha, with the source beside every claim.
- Ask Acharya about any set, place or story in your own words.
Most pilgrimage pages online give you a list and no sources, which is a problem because the tradition does not always agree with itself: the twelve jyotirlingas are settled, but how many Shakti Peethas there are has at least five answers across the texts. Here a count never appears without the text that gives it, and the text a list follows is marked. Practical facts that stay stable — where a place is, how to reach it, when the season is kind — are carried; the ones that change weekly, like darshan timings, are linked out to the pages that keep them current rather than printed and left to rot.
How it works
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1. Pick a set
Open a canonical enumeration to see the whole list in the order its source gives.
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2. Check the source
Every count names the text that declares it, and marks the one the list follows.
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3. Read a place
Each site says why it is a tirtha, with the text behind each claim, then hands the rest to Acharya.
A count is only worth as much as the text behind it
Pilgrimage lists disagree, and the disagreement is part of the tradition rather than an error to average away. Every set here publishes its count together with the text that declares it and marks which one the ordering follows — the same contract a birth chart on this site keeps by naming its ayanamsa beside the positions.
What is written, and what is not, is stated
A set names its whole canonical membership from the day it opens, and says how many of those places have been written up. Nothing is dressed as complete before it is, and no link is offered for a page that does not exist.
Browse everything here
Pilgrimage sets
Places
Common questions
How many jyotirlingas are there?
Twelve. The Shiva Purana's Koti Rudra Samhita gives the list, and the Dvadasha Jyotirlinga Stotra recites the same twelve. Both are named on the set page, because a count is only citable beside the text that declares it. Ten of the twelve identifications are uncontested; the arguments are about which modern temple is meant at two of them, not about the number.
Why do some places show no page yet?
A set declares its full canonical membership from the start, so the list you see is the real one. Places whose write-up is not finished are shown in their position, unlinked and marked as being written, rather than hidden — that way the list stays honest about both what it contains and what we have covered.
Do you list temple opening and darshan times?
No. Those change often enough that printing them would mean publishing something wrong. Each place links out to the official page that keeps them current, with the date we last checked the link.
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