Madhyamaheshwar Temple, Chopta

Madhyamaheshwar Temple, devoted to the Hindu Lord Shiva, is situated in the village of Mansuna in Chopta. This temple is perched at an elevation of 3497 m above sea level. The Panch Kedar includes Kedarnath, Tungnath, Rudranath, Madhyamaheshwar and Kalpeshwar, in the pecking order. Thus, the temple comes at the fourth position in the Panch Kedar pilgrimage.

In this temple, devotees worship the stomach of Lord Shiva. According to a popular belief, the temple was built by the Pandavas, the mythological characters from the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. It is believed that the Pandavas, who were guilty of killing their cousins Kauravas in the war of Kurukshetra, went to seek forgiveness from Lord Shiva.

However, the angry Lord Shiva transformed himself into the bull, 'Nandi' and hid in the Garhwal region of the Himalayas. When the Pandavas saw the bull in Guptakashi, they tried to stop it forcibly but to no avail. Later, the body parts of Lord Shiva reappeared at five different places. The Madhyamaheshwar Temple is built at the place where the stomach of Lord Shiva was believed to have been discovered.