Bhimashankar stands on the crest of the Sahyadri in Khed taluka of Pune district, Maharashtra, at the line where the Deccan plateau ends and drops away into the Konkan. It is sixth in the order this set follows, and it is the jyotirlinga of a watershed: the Bhima river rises on this hillside and runs southeast across Maharashtra, past Pandharpur — where its crescent bend gives it the name Chandrabhaga — before joining the Krishna. The forest around the shrine is now a notified wildlife sanctuary, so the same hillside carries a pilgrimage and a protected habitat at once, and the approach from the Konkan side is still made on old foot routes up the escarpment rather than by road.

Claims, and where they come from

• Bhimashankar is one of the twelve jyotirlingas, sixth in the order this set follows. — Shiva Purana — Koti Rudra Samhita, ch. 1 — the dvadasha-jyotirlinga list
• A rakshasa named Bhima, born to Karkati after the death of his father Kumbhakarna, won a boon by austerity and used it to afflict gods and men, imprisoning a king devoted to Shiva. The king went on worshipping a linga of earth in his cell; when Bhima raised his sword to break it, Shiva came out of the linga and reduced him to ash, and at the request of the gods assembled there remained at the place rather than departing. — Shiva Purana — The Bhimashankar account in the Koti Rudra Samhita. The imprisoned king is named differently across retellings — most often as Sudakshina — and the kingdom he is given varies with the retelling, so neither is fixed here. The chapter is deliberately not pinned beyond the listing above
• A second account, widely told in Maharashtra, makes this the place where Shiva took the form called Bhima to destroy Tripurasura, and reads the shrine as commemorating that victory rather than the killing of Kumbhakarna's son. — Regional tradition in Maharashtra — Circulates alongside the Shiva Purana account and is often blended with it in retellings at the shrine. Recorded here as tradition because no verse making the identification could be checked for this file; it is not offered as a second scriptural citation
• The Bhima river rises in this part of the Sahyadri and flows southeast across the Deccan — through Pandharpur, where it is called the Chandrabhaga — before joining the Krishna. — Geographic record — An ordinary fact of the drainage, stated separately from the account of the river's origin below
• The river is said to have formed from the sweat that poured off Shiva after the fight, running down the hillside and away to the southeast, which is why it carries the demon's name. — Sthala-tradition at Bhimashankar — The shrine's own account of the river, carried by regional retelling rather than traced here to a named verse. A spot in the forest called Gupt Bhimashankar is pointed out as where the stream reappears
• The shrine's place is named in the recited verse as Dakini, and the identification of Dakini with this Sahyadri ridge rests on continuous worship and Marathi devotional tradition rather than on anything the verse itself settles. Minority claims to the same slot are made for a Bhimashankar in Assam and for Bhimeshwar at Kashipur in Uttarakhand. — Living practice in Maharashtra, against the wording of the stotra — Recorded here because the argument is real and the corpus should not pretend the verse decides it. The Sahyadri identification is the settled mainstream one and is what this file follows; the minority claims are reported, not asserted, and are put to the reader in `ask`
• The sabhamandapa and the shikhara are credited to Nana Phadnavis of the Peshwa court, and the large bell before the temple to Chimaji Appa, after the Maratha capture of the Portuguese fort at Vasai. — Regional historical tradition — Both attributions are carried by regional tradition and local history writing rather than by an inscription read for this file, and the Vasai bell story attaches to more than one Maharashtra shrine — so they are recorded as tradition rather than as established history. No dates are given because none could be verified
• The forest around the shrine is notified as the Bhimashankar Wildlife Sanctuary by the Government of Maharashtra, and is known particularly for the Indian giant squirrel, the shekru. — Government of Maharashtra (modern administrative designation) — Modern record, not scripture — noted because it governs what a visitor may do on the hillside. The notification year is not given here because it could not be verified

Counted among

• The Twelve Jyotirlingas — Twelve places where Shiva is worshipped not as an image but as a pillar of light with no beginning and no end.

Questions to explore

• The verse names this shrine's place as Dakini, and Assam and Uttarakhand both have a claimant of their own. What settled the Sahyadri as the one meant?
• The demon's name survives in the god's name and in the river's. Is the river named after the story, or did a river already called Bhima pull the story to it?
• The hillside is a pilgrimage and a notified wildlife sanctuary at once. Does a tirtha change when the state starts protecting the forest it sits in?