Mallikarjuna is named second wherever the twelve are listed, and it stands on Srisailam, a flat-topped hill in the Nallamala range above the Krishna in Andhra Pradesh. What sets it apart from the rest of the set is that it is not only a jyotirlinga: the same walled compound holds the shrine of Bhramaramba, counted among the Shakti Peethas. Two enumerations compiled in different settings — one Shaiva, one Shakta — arrive independently at the same ridge, and pilgrims come for the god, the goddess, or both. The story attached to the hill is a domestic one: Shiva and Parvati are held to have settled here to stay within reach of a son who left home after a quarrel and would not come back.

Claims, and where they come from

• Mallikarjuna at Srisailam is second in the enumeration of the twelve jyotirlingas. — Shiva Purana — Koti Rudra Samhita, ch. 1 — the dvadasha-jyotirlinga list, which names Srisailam after Saurashtra
• The recited list names this shrine in its first verse, immediately after Somnath: śrīśaile mallikārjunam. — Dvādaśa Jyotirliṅga Stotra (traditionally attributed to Śaṅkarācārya) — Opening verse; the attribution to Śaṅkarācārya is traditional
• Kartikeya withdrew to a hill after a contest with his brother went against him, took a vow of celibacy there, and would not be persuaded back; Shiva and Parvati followed and settled on Srisailam to remain near him. — Shiva Purana — The Mallikarjuna account. Retellings differ over what the quarrel was about and which hill the son went to — the Tamil tradition of Palani tells the same shape with a fruit and a different hill — so no single version is asserted here, and the samhita is deliberately not pinned
• The goddess of the same hill, Bhramaramba, is counted among the Shakti Peethas. — Aṣṭādaśa Śakti Pīṭha Stotra (traditionally attributed to Śaṅkarācārya) — Second verse, śrīśaile bhramarāmbikā — sixth of the eighteen. The larger enumerations count differently (42, 51, 52 and 108 are all in circulation, and a seventy-two travels with an attribution this corpus could not corroborate — see the panel on the shakti_peetha set). Srisailam's place is stable across all of them; the total is not
• The name is read as mallika (jasmine) with arjuna (the white-barked tree, and by extension white), and explained as the jasmine Parvati is said to have offered here. — Traditional etymology carried at the shrine — Usage and traditional explanation rather than a verse this corpus can cite; recorded here as tradition, not as a textual claim
• Akka Mahadevi, the twelfth-century Kannada Virashaiva poet, signed her vachanas with the name Chennamallikarjuna — "my lord, white as jasmine." — The vachana corpus of Akka Mahadevi (12th century, Kannada) — Her ankita, or signature line. It is evidence for what the name carried in Kannada devotion, not a claim about this temple's ritual

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

• One hill carries both a jyotirlinga and a Shakti Peetha. Did the two traditions arrive here together, or did they reach the same place separately and only later notice?
• The story of the son who leaves for a hill is told with different quarrels and different hills across the country. Is there a version anyone can show is the oldest?
• The name is usually explained as jasmine offered to Shiva. Is that reading older than the poets who made it famous, or did they give it to us?