jyodhir Lingam Triyambakeswarar

Triyambagagam Kundendhu Sanga-thavalam baganetra pithuj-walam"
Kalagni Rudram Jyothir-swaroopam Namami Sivam Pranat-miyam||

Once Sage Gowdhama and his wife Agalya were living in Brahma-giri (Brahma-hill). The sage was doing penance and his wife was helping him in his activities.Un-expectedly that place suffered a severe draught. People were struggling without water. All the animals in the cow-shed died Plants and trees in the groves withered. Sage Gowdhama did penance to Varuna Bagavan ( God of rain ).Varuna appeared before the sage and ordered him to dig a pond. So the Sage dug a pond according to Varuna's instruction. Varuna filled the pond with water and it never became dry. All the environment became green.The other sages too settled there from various other places.

Sage Gowdhama became very popular. Years passed. Other sages wives became jealous of Agalya. They told lot of untruth about her to their husbands. In the beginning they did not trust their wives. But by and by they beleived them and started a penance to Lord Ganapathy.After for some time Lord Ganapathy appeared before them and asked them the reason for their penance to him. All the sages requested Ganapathy to send Gowdhama out of that area. Reluctantly Lord Ganapathy agreed. He transformed one of his 'ganas' into a cow and sent it to sage Gowthama's house. That cow went to Gowthama's house and began to destroy every thing. Gowdhma could not tolerate this and angrily he plucked some grass and threw it on the cow. Sadly the cow died. Because of this incident Sage Gowdhama had committed "Gohathy" ( killng of a cow which is a sin). So citing this as reason all the sages sent him out of that area.

Gowdhama was very unhappy and went out. But after for some time Sage Gowdhama met the sages and asked them for their opinion on how to counter the sin of 'Gohathy'. Wantonly all the sages told him very difficult things to do. They said the Sage Gowdhama should do 'parikrama' of the Brahma-giri 11 times. They also said that Gowthama should bring Ganga river to that place and take a dip in it and do koti (crore) linga archanai.

Sage Gowdhama agreed went and did parikrama and all the poojas.Lord Siva was very pleased and appeared before the sage with Devi Parvathi on the 'Rishaba-vahanam' ( on his mount which is a bull). Sage Gowdhama was very happy and told the Lord about his problems and asked that river Ganges should be made to flow there and to give him salvation from 'Gohathi dhosham'. Accordingly Lord Siva diverted river Ganges as Godavari and made the Sage and his wife have a dip in the river. By this act the sage and his wife countered the sin they had committed.

Further the Almighty Shiva ordered Ganga to be in Brahma-giri. Ganga Matha told siva "I will accept your order but you should be here to protect the devotees like the sage and Agalya. you should be here in 'Jyothir swaroopam' then I will be here like in Kasi." Bagavan Sankara agreed and with Brahma and Vishnu be transformed himself into a Jyothir Lingam which is called Triyamba-keswara. He fulfills all his devotees' desires.

As river Ganga was brought there at Gowthama's request the river is called Gowdhami here. River Ganga here is springing from a tree-root which is suposed to be the moola-stanam (the origin ) That place is named the Ganga-Dwaram. In the holy place of Triyambagam the trinity of gods is there as Jhothir-Lingam and the holy river Ganges as Godavari .

Om Hreem Namasivaya.

Location
About 29 km from Nasik in Maharastra

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