What is the importance of Amarnath?
Legend has it that when Shiva decided to tell Parvati the secret of his immortality (Amar Katha), he begun looking for a place where nobody could overhear him. He chose the Amarnath cave, 3,888 m above sea level, in a gorge deep inside the Himalayas in south Kashmir that is accessible through Pahalgam and Baltal in Sonamarg. The cave can be reached only on foot or on ponies through a steep winding path, 46 km from Pahalgam and 16 km from Baltal.

How was the Cave discovered?
According to lore, in 1850 a saint gave a Muslim shepherd, Buta Malik, a bag full of coal while he was with his herd high up in the mountains of South Kashmir. When he reached home, Malik opened the bag to find it full of gold. An ecstatic Malik ran to thank the saint but couldn’t find him. Instead he found the cave and the ice lingam. He told the villagers about his discovery and that was the beginning of the pilgrimage.
Every year, lakhs of Hindu pilgrims walk up the mountain to reach the shrine. “Originally the yatra used to be for 15 days or a month,” says the Purohit Sabha Mattan president. The sabha organised the yatra before the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board took over in 2000. In 2005, the board decided to extend the pilgrimage to over two months. There is no official record though of when the yatra first began. The annual yatra ends when Mahant Deependira Giri, the custodian of the Holy Mace, carries it to the cave.

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