Vaidyanath is one of the two slots in the twelve that the tradition has never settled. Three shrines are in continuous worship under the name and each is called a jyotirlinga by the people who keep it: Baba Baidyanath at Deoghar in the Santhal Parganas of Jharkhand, the destination of the kanwar walk through Shravan; Parli Vaijnath in Beed district, Maharashtra, on its raised hill above the town; and Baijnath in the Kangra valley of Himachal Pradesh, a stone temple carrying early inscriptions. The name they share is read from vaidya, physician, and healing is what all three are asked for. What separates this from an ordinary variant reading is that the argument is live: it is carried not by scholars but by three streams of pilgrims, none of whom is waiting for a verdict. This corpus records all three claims with the ground each rides on and asserts none of them.

Claims, and where they come from

• The twelve jyotirlingas include a Vaidyanath, ninth in the order this set follows. — Shiva Purana — Koti Rudra Samhita, ch. 1 — the dvadasha-jyotirlinga list
• The recited stotra names this shrine in a single half-line together with Bhimashankar, and the place-word in that half-line is not transmitted identically everywhere: paralyam and citabhumau are both in circulation. Each claimant reads the wording it has received as naming its own place. — Dvādaśa Jyotirliṅga Stotra (traditionally attributed to Śaṅkarācārya) — The variance is reported here, not resolved. No manuscript collation was made for this file, so this entry states that competing readings are in circulation and does not rank them, assign either to a recension by name, or claim which is earlier. It is also not obvious that either word settles a modern temple even if its reading were fixed
• Ravana, undertaking austerity for Shiva, is said to have offered his own heads one after another, and Shiva to have restored him — acting as his physician — and to have granted him a linga to carry to Lanka on the condition that it not be set down on the way. It was set down, and fixed where it touched the ground, and that is the shrine. — Sthala-purana at Deoghar (regional tradition) — Carried by regional retelling; no verse making this identification was checked for this file. The carried-linga motif is not unique to it — the same shape of story, with the linga set down and immovable thereafter, is told of Gokarna on the Konkan coast in Puranic material, and a Ravana connection is also claimed at Baijnath in Kangra. Retellings differ on who tricked Ravana into setting it down and on how many heads were given
• The name is read from vaidya, physician: Shiva as the lord of healers, and the shrine as a place one comes to be cured. A separate folk derivation traces the name instead to a cowherd, Baiju, who is said to have held or first worshipped the linga. — Traditional etymology and regional folk tradition — The physician sense is the reading given at all three shrines and is recorded as tradition, not as an established philology. The cowherd derivation circulates chiefly around Deoghar and around Baijnath in Kangra and is reported here rather than endorsed; the two are not reconciled because nothing checked for this file reconciles them
• Through the month of Shravan, pilgrims lift water from the Ganga at Sultanganj in Bihar and carry it on foot in a shoulder-pole kanwar to pour on the linga at Deoghar. The Shravani Mela that results is one of the largest annual foot pilgrimages in the country, and is administered by the district administration each year. — Living practice (the annual Shravani Mela) — Modern and continuing practice, not a scriptural claim. No distance, duration or crowd figure is given here because none could be verified for this file
• Parli Vaijnath stands on a raised hill above the town in Beed district and is approached by a long flight of steps; Marathi tradition credits its repair to Ahilyabai Holkar, as it does for several Shiva shrines of the region. — Regional tradition in Maharashtra — Carried by regional tradition and local history writing rather than by an inscription read for this file. The Holkar attribution attaches to more than one Maharashtra shrine, so it is recorded as tradition and no date is given
• The Baijnath temple in the Kangra valley is an old stone shrine carrying early inscriptions in Sharada script, cited in local writing as recording its founding; local practice does not burn effigies of Ravana at Dussehra, which the town explains by its association with him. — Temple inscriptions (not read for this file) and living local practice — The inscriptions exist and are frequently cited; their content and date are reported here at second hand and no year is given, because none could be verified for this file. The Dussehra abstention is current practice as described locally, not a scriptural rule
• No text checked for this file settles which of the three shrines the enumeration names, and all three are in unbroken worship under the name. The corpus therefore records the dispute and asserts none of the claimants. — The state of the tradition, as this corpus finds it — A statement of position rather than a citation, and marked as one. It rests on the two things above that are checkable — that the enumeration is textual and that the identification of its ninth member is not — and on the fact that each claimant's ground is a different kind of ground: a reading of the verse, a continuity of practice, a body of local record

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

• Three shrines have been worshipped as Vaidyanath for as long as anyone can show, and each has the practice to prove it. Is a jyotirlinga made by the text that names it, or by the people who keep arriving?
• The half-line that names this shrine does not reach every reciter with the same place-word in it. How does a verse learned by heart end up differing on the one word that was supposed to fix the place?
• The name means physician, and healing is what all three are asked for. Is Vaidyanath a place at all, or a way of approaching Shiva that more than one place can hold?