Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh: Mahakal Lok corridor Vijay Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the first phase of the ‘Shri Mahakal Lok’ corridor in Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain on Tuesday evening (October 11). After Vishwanath temple in Varanasi and the Kedarnath shrine in Uttarakhand, Mahakal temple is the third ‘jyotirlinga’ site to see a major upliftment exercise. The Rs 800-crore Mahakal corridor is four times the size of the Kashi Vishwanath corridor, which the PM had inaugurated late last year. Why does the Mahakal temple in Ujjain hold a high significance in Hinduism? Here I explain. Puranas say that Lord Shiva pierced the world as an endless pillar of light, called the jyotirlinga. There are 12 jyotirlinga sites in India, considered a manifestation of Shiva. Besides Mahakal, these include Somnath and Nageshwar in Gujarat, Mallikarjuna in Andhra Pradesh, Omkareshwar in Madhya Pradesh, Kedarnath in Uttarakhand, Bhimashankar, Triyambakeshwar and Grishneshwar in Maharashtra, Viswanath at Varanasi, Baidyanath in Jharkhand, and Rameshwar in Tamil Nadu. Mahakal is the only jyotirlinga facing the south, while all the other jyotirlingas face east. This is because the A TO Z INDIA NOVEMBER 2022 PAGE 5