Our dear Lord Shiva is a very kind, loving, and lovable god.

He is always concerned about the safety of his devotees.

He will protect you from all dangers and troubles.

You only have to call out to him once, he will respond immediately.

You must have heard about the demon of Lanka, called Kumbhakarna, the brother of Ravana.

He had a son called Bhima.

Not Bhima who was one among the Pandavas, this was another Bhima.

Bhima means terrifying in Sanskrit.

Everybody was scared of this demon, so they called him Bhima.

His father was killed by Lord Rama when Bhima was very young.

Once he grew up, his mother told him about this.

When he heard about this, he became very angry towards Mahavishnu.

You know this, right?

Lord Rama is one of the ten incarnations of Mahavishnu.

Bhima wanted to take revenge for his father’s death.

He started thinking- how to defeat Mahavishnu.

Mahavishnu is very powerful.

An ordinary demon will never be able to defeat him.

He came to know that by observing tapas you can become very powerful.

Do you know what is tapas?

Those who do tapas they give up food, water, all kinds of comforts and keep on chanting mantra for years together.

Some of them stand on one leg and do this.

Some will not close their eyes.

It is very tough.

After doing this for so many years, they develop power.

All our Sages have become powerful through tapas only.

After that, they can bless people.

Whatever they wish, it will happen.

That much power they get.
The demons, they also do tapas and develop power.

But they use this power to hurt and harm others.

Bhima did tapas for 1,000 years and became very powerful.

He started torturing everyone.

He even attacked, defeated, and imprisoned the king of the place where he used to live.

The name of the king was Sudakshin.

Then Bhima became the king himself.

He closed down all temples, stopped people from doing puja, homa, reading of Veda.

The Sages went to Lord Shiva and told him what all bad things Bhima was doing.

The lord said: don’t worry, I will take care of him.

King Sudakshin who was in the prison, made a small Shiva Linga from mud and started worshiping it every day.

Do you know that Lord Sri Rama made a Shiva Linga out of sand and worshiped him at Rameswaram before going to Lanka?

Like that you can make Shiva Linga out of many things and worship Lord Shiva.

He likes that.
You can make Shiva Linga out of clean mud, butter, flowers, so many things.

When Bhima heard that Sudakshin was worshiping a Shiva Linga inside the prison, he became very angry and came rushing to the prison.

With his sword, he hit very hard at that Shiva Linga.

His sword only broke to hundred pieces.

At that time, Lord Shiva appeared out of that Shiva Linga.

Fire came out from the third eye of the lord and in that fire, Bhima was burned down to ashes.

Everyone felt happy and relieved.

The king and the Sages prayed to the lord: kindly be always present here and protect us.

The lord agreed and made that place holy through his permanent presence.

This place is called Bhimeshwar or Bhima Shankar.