Grishneshwar Jyotirlinga Temple

Grishneshwar stands in Verul village, about one and a half kilometres from the Ellora Caves and about 30 km north-west of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (formerly Aurangabad). The Shiva Purana tells its story in the Kotirudra Samhita, where it is counted as the twelfth Jyotirlinga, and local tradition preserves a sthala purana, the Verul Mahatmya. In older usage the place itself was known by several names, including Elapur, Verul and Ghrushneshwar.

Records of the temple's original construction do not survive. The sculpture scholar Yogesh Joshi, speaking to PTI in 2025, dates the base of the present temple to the Yadava period (around the 12th century), when the Yadavas of Devagiri, the fort now called Daulatabad a few kilometres away, ruled the region. The temple suffered destruction under the Delhi Sultanate in the 13th and 14th centuries, and in the long Mughal–Maratha conflict it went through further rounds of damage and rebuilding.

The first recorded restoration is linked to the Bhosale family, ancestors of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, who held Verul as a jagir. Maloji Bhosale, Shivaji's grandfather, is credited with restoring the temple around the late 16th or early 17th century, and a stone inscription in the temple bears the names of Maloji and Ekoji Bhosale. The ruins of the Bhosales' ancestral residence, a short walk from the temple, are protected by the Maharashtra state archaeology department.

The temple took its present form in the 18th century under Ahilyabai Holkar, queen of Indore, who restored temples across India from Kashi to Somnath. Outlook Traveller dates her rebuilding to 1769; some sources instead name an earlier Holkar queen, Gautama Bai, and the year 1729. Ahilyabai is also credited with building the stepped Shivalaya Tirth tank near the temple.

Today Grishneshwar is a busy pilgrimage centre that sees thousands of visitors every day and very large crowds during Shravan and on Mahashivratri. It is often visited together with the Ellora Caves, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and with Daulatabad fort and Khuldabad nearby.

Grishneshwar is a compact temple built of locally quarried red stone, with a tall tower in brick and stucco. According to the sculpture scholar Yogesh Joshi, citing G. B. Degloorkar's book Verul Darshan, the tower follows a style distinct from both the North Indian (Nagara) and South Indian (Dravida) types, and it is covered with sculptures of figures from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, such as Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata, Draupadi, Bhima and Arjuna, along with the avatars of Vishnu. Seen from outside, the stone rises in bands of friezes in rust, pink and pale yellow.

The temple has an assembly hall (sabha mandapa) on carved stone pillars, some showing hunting scenes and a curious figure in which one face is joined to the bodies of a fish, an elephant and an ox. Facing the sanctum sits a large image of Nandi. The Jyotirlinga is enshrined in the garbhagriha, and devotees are allowed to touch it with their own hands. Before entering, pilgrims traditionally greet a small shrine of Kokila Mata, who is said to tell Shiva that a devotee has arrived.

A short walk away lies the Shivalaya Tirth, a stepped tank credited to Ahilyabai Holkar, with eight small shrines with Shivalingas at the water's edge. The temple's setting adds to its character: it is a few minutes from the rock-cut caves of Ellora, whose Buddhist, Hindu and Jain monuments include the great Kailasa temple, also dedicated to Shiva.