The linga of ice (what the books and the travellers saw)
What has been written about the ice linga of Amarnath: Kalhana's milk-white lake on the pilgrims' road and a king who worshipped lingas of snow; a verse of the Nilamata; Abul Fazl's bubble of ice that grows for fifteen days with the moon and dwindles with it; Bernier's grotto of congelations in 1663; and the full moon of 2 August 1898, Rakhibandhan, when Swami Vivekananda bathed, entered the cave with three thousand pilgrims and said the ice had seemed to him Shiva himself, as Sister Nivedita recorded. The yatris hold the linga fullest on Shravan Purnima; in recent hot years it has melted within days of the opening.
The Nilamata gives a bath at Amaresha the merit of a hundred cows; Kalhana in 1148 writes that pilgrims to Amareshvara still see the Naga's milk-white lake and that Aryaraja worshipped lingas of snow above the forests in summer.
Queen Suryamati endows Amareshvara; Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin visits it in the fifteenth century.
Abul Fazl describes a bubble of ice that forms with the new moon, grows for fifteen days to two yards and dwindles with the waning moon; a Mughal painter about 1600 draws men in awe around it under a sun.
Bernier in 1663 writes of a grotto full of wonderful congelations; Vigne in the 1840s sees Hindus of all castes go up the Lidder for the 15th of Sawan.
In July 1898 Vivekananda and Nivedita join the pilgrims at Pahalgam, where some object to the foreign women until a naked sadhu tells him not to use his strength; he bathes in the five streams at Panjtarni.
On the full moon of 2 August 1898, Rakhibandhan, he falls behind, bathes, enters the cave, kneels at each end, prostrates and withdraws; he says the ice had seemed to him Shiva himself and that Amarnath has granted him not to die until he wills it.
The pilgrims hold the linga fullest on Shravan Purnima; in 1998 it stood twelve feet, in 2016 it melted in thirteen days, in 2025 it was half gone before the opening and in 2026 it was gone by 7 July.
The Himalaya · Pahalgam to the Amarnath cave, KashmirAll traditions🪔 Amarnath Yatra
Bernier, with Aurangzeb's court in 1663, noted a grotto full of wonderful congelations, which Vincent Smith later identified as Amarnath; Vigne in 1840 to 1841 saw Hindus of every caste go up the Lidder for the ceremony on the 15th of Sawan. In 1898 Swami Vivekananda announced at Achabal on 25 July that he would make the pilgrimage, and Sister Nivedita was allowed to come. They set out on 27 July, camped at Pahalgam on the Thursday, where some pilgrims objected to the foreign women until a naked sadhu told the Swami that he had the strength but ought not to show it, and he yielded and moved his tents to a knoll and took his daughter round the camp giving alms. They camped at Chandanwari on 30 July, passed Sheshnag five hundred feet below, and at Panchtarni the pilgrims bathed in the five streams, walking from one to the next in wet clothes; Nivedita says he fulfilled the law to the last letter. On Tuesday 2 August, by the light of the full moon, they climbed the glacier; he fell behind, told her to go on, bathed, and half an hour later entered a cave she thought large enough to hold a cathedral, with the ice-Shiva in a niche of deepest shadow. He knelt at each end of the semicircle, prostrated two or three times unnoticed in the crowd and withdrew lest emotion overcome him; he had to hold himself tight not to swoon, and a doctor later said his heart had been enlarged by it. He said the ice linga had seemed to him Shiva himself, that there were no thievish Brahmins and no trade, only worship, and ever after that Amarnath had granted him not to die until he himself willed it. In The Master as I Saw Him she adds the beads and fasts, some three thousand pilgrims, and that it was the day of Rakhibandhan, with red and yellow threads tied on the pilgrims' wrists; he later imagined the cave's first finders as shepherds who had lost their flock and come suddenly upon Mahadev.
As the old books tell it: the Nilamata, Kalhana, Jonaraja and Abul Fazl
The Himalaya · KashmirShaiva🪔 Amarnath Yatra
The Nilamata Purana of the sixth or seventh century, listing the tirthas of Kashmir, gives a bath at Amaresha the merit of the gift of a hundred cows (Ved Kumari's verse 1372). Kalhana, writing in 1148 to 1149, tells how the Naga Susravas, remorseful after burying King Nara's land, left at dawn for a far mountain and made himself a lake of dazzling whiteness like a sea of milk, which people on the pilgrimage to Amareshvara still see (1.267; Stein's note: Sesanaga, and the pilgrimage leads to the cave where Shiva is worshipped as an ice linga); that the pious King Aryaraja, once the minister Samdhimati, spent the summers worshipping lingas formed of snow in the regions above the forests (2.138); and that Queen Suryamati, wife of Ananta (1028 to 1063), founded mathas beside Vijayesha and Amaresha, granted agraharas at Amareshvara in her husband's name and had tridents and banalingas consecrated (7.183 to 185). Jonaraja's continuation records that Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin (1420 to 1470) visited the tirtha while cutting a canal on the Lidder. Abul Fazl in the Ain-i-Akbari (Jarrett vol. II, p. 360) describes a cave where, when the new moon rises, a bubble of ice forms and grows daily for fifteen days to about two yards by Akbar's measure, then decreases with the waning moon until no trace is left; the people hold it to be the image of Mahadeva and come to it in supplication. Jarrett's footnote of 1891 guessed it was a stalactite; it rises from the floor. A Mughal painting of about 1600 in the Aga Khan Museum shows men in wonder round the pillar under a sun where the text has the moon. Stein thought the pilgrimage probably less important in old times, judging by the Nilamata and the chronicle.
What is different here:
No pilgrim's eye: the books give merits, endowments, a royal visit and the measured wonder of an ice that keeps the moon's time; the travellers' telling gives the walk, the bathing and what one man said he saw.
Sources: Sister Nivedita, Notes of Some Wanderings with the Swami Vivekananda: The Shrine of Amarnath (Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda vol. 9, as reprinted on sreyas.in); Sister Nivedita, The Master as I Saw Him (Longmans, 1910), chapter VIII Amarnath (archive.org djvu text); In 1898 Swami Vivekananda visited Kashmir: three stories and his experiences (Lakshmanjoo Academy blog, reprinting Rakesh Kumar Pandit); History of the cave temple of Sri Amarnath (Organiser, 31 August 2008); Amarnath Temple, Wikipedia (the Amarnath Yatra page is the same article); History of the Amarnath Pilgrimage (ikashmir.net; partisan page, sourced 'Wikipedia'); The Nilamata Purana, translated by Dr Ved Kumari, verses 1301-1403 (wisdomlib); Kalhana's Rajatarangini, translated by M. A. Stein, vol. 1 (1900), archive.org dli.pahar.1527