01Supriya in chains
The Shiva Purana tells of the demoness Daruka and her husband Daruka, who ruled a forest by the western sea. They seized a merchant named Supriya, a devotee of Shiva, with his companions and threw them into prison. Supriya kept chanting Om Namah Shivaya and taught the other prisoners to chant it. When the demons came to kill him, Shiva rose out of the earth and destroyed them, and stayed there as Nageshwar. The Dwadasha Jyotirlinga Stotra calls him Nagesham Darukavane.
02Three claimants, one devotion
Darukavana is identified in different traditions with this site near Dwarka, with Aundha Nagnath in Maharashtra and with Jageshwar in Kumaon. Each is honoured by its own pilgrims. The shrine near Dwarka was rebuilt in the 1990s with funds from the industrialist Gulshan Kumar, and a large seated Shiva stands in the open before it. The linga sits below floor level in the sanctum, and pilgrims who pay for the abhishek may enter and pour water themselves.
About 17 km from Dwarka on the Okha road; most pilgrims combine it with Bet Dwarka and the Rukmini temple in one day.
