The twelve pillars of light

The Shaivas tell that when the creator and the preserver argued over rank, a column of fire rose between them with no top and no bottom, and the two spent an age flying up and burrowing down without finding either end. Vishnu came back and said so. Brahma came back with a screwpine flower and said he had touched the summit and the flower had seen him do it. The pillar spoke: Vishnu would be honoured always; Brahma would have no worship; the flower would never again be offered to Shiva. Where that light entered the earth it left traces, sixty-four of them, and twelve are the great ones the pilgrim's hymn counts on its fingers: Somnath on the Gujarat shore, Mallikarjuna on Srisailam, Mahakal at Ujjain, Omkareshwar in the Narmada, Vaidyanath at Deoghar, Bhimashankar in the Sahyadri, Rameswaram at the southern tip, Nageshwar near Dwarka, Vishwanath at Kashi, Trimbakeshwar at the Godavari's source, Kedarnath in the snows and Grishneshwar beside Ellora. Each has a story of its own; the frame is the Shiva Purana's.