Gokarnesvar is a famous shrine situated on the banks of A holy river. Gokarna is a unique place of pilgrimage, where every year, thousands of people whose father would have died go to pray to Lord Shiva for peace to the souls of their deceased fathers. See also Gokarna Aunsi. Customary part of this pilgrimage is to take a holy dip into the holy river Gokarna which flows northward and perform the respectful rituals in memory of one’s deceased father.
The Shivalinga in Gorkarna is said to have emerged from the one-horned deer form of Lord Shiva. There is a fascinating legend about this which goes like this: Once Lord Shiva changed himself into a one-horned deer and set out for a pleasure trip to the lush green woodlands. He failed to return to his celestial home on time, and so, all the deities of the heaven including Indra, Brahma and Vishnu became anxious. They had a meeting and decided to make a joint effort to find out where Lord Shiva could be. Being guided by an invisible deity of female principal power, they came across a very unique one-horned deer grazing freely in the woods. Lord Brahma, the God of creation immediately recognized Lord Shiva and jumped to him to catch hold of the deer’s horn. No sooner than Lord Brahma got hold of it than the deer disappeared leaving three fragments of the horn in his hands. Later, as Lord Shiva wished, one of those three fragments went down to the under-world, one up to the heavens and one was left with Lord Brahma. This third fragment of the horn, Lord Brahma enshrined at Gokarna and named it as Gokarneshwar Mahadev. The breaking of the legendary horn into three pieces is symbolically to represent the Hindu trinity, the three basic qualities of Nature such as its creative, preservative and destructive elements. This is also to symbolize the Vedantic approach to perceiving unity in diversity.
