Ghoradeshwar Cave Temple

Ghoradeshwar Temple is an ancient cave temple dedicated to Lord Shiva situated around 25 kms away from Pune in Maharastra.Devotees has to climb around 350 steps to reach Ghoradeshwar Temple. The caves were carved out of a single rock formation around the 3rd and 4th century CE.A large cave contains a representation of Shivlinga that is visited during Mahashivratri by people seeking the blessings of Shiva.

There is also a temple dedicated to Lord Vitthal and Goddess Rukmini in one of the other oldest caves in this complex. Another cave has an idol of Sant Tukaram, a revered 17th century Hindu saint and poet. It is believed that he would often meditate at the Ghoradeshwar Caves.

The Cave structure and the Shiva Linga are of the same stone, thus proving that the temple is as old as the cave. Later, Buddhism dominated the Deccan Plateau region during medieval age, after which Hinduism dominated again. As per Hindu legends, due to unavoidable situations and disasters including famines, the natural beauty in this region started dying. Rivers died, forests started to burn due to heat and as its effect, the biodiversity here stated to vanish. Unique birds like the Great Indian Bustard of this region started to vanish. In order to prevent this, the people of the villages started to worship Shiva by establishing a shivalinga inside these caves. Even though after severe efforts, here was relief from famines.

After all this, in order to protect its clan, a bustard bird started worshipping the Shivalinga. By seeing devotion of an innocent bird to relieve from the disastrous nature, Shiva appeared before the bird and granted him the boon. Today, the Lord here is worshipped as Ghoradeshwar, which is made of two words, Ghorad and Ishwar. The word Ghorad stands for The Indian Busters in Marathi and Ishwar stands for Lord. The word Ghoradeshwar means Lord of the Bustard.