Gokarna, Karnataka

Gokarna is a small temple town located in the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka state in southern India. It has a population of around 20,000. Shiva is the most worshipped deity in the town. Gokarna's main temple, Mahabaleshwara, is dedicated to Shiva. The temple houses what is believed by some to be the earliest Shiva lingam (Atmalinga).

Quotes

• To describe every particular duel or pagod, both for the number, and difficulty of the shapes, would be impossible. Take therefore only one that had escaped the fire and is therefore highly venerable. It was cut out of excellent black marble, the height of a man, the body of an ancient Greek hero, it had four heads, and as many hands, had not two been cut off; it was seated on an offertory in a broken pagod, a piece of admirable work and antiquity, exceeding, say they, Benares, the other noted university of the heathens. Who founded these, their annals or Sanscrit deliver not. But certainly time and the entry of Moors ruined them. ‘This, though a principal university, can boast of no Bodlean or Vatican, their libraries being old manuscripts of their own cabulas or mysteries understood only by the Brahmans.
  • Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency - Volume 15, Part 2 [1]