Badrinath Temple

Badrinath is the place where Hindu tradition sets the tapasya of Vishnu himself. Here the Lord is worshipped as Badrinarayan, called Badri Vishal by the pilgrims of the hills. The Shri Badarinath Kedarnath Temple Committee, which administers the shrine, describes the image in the sanctum as finely sculpted in black stone, seated in the meditative pose called padmasana, holding conch and chakra in two lifted arms with the other two rested in a yogic pose. This is not Vishnu in the splendour of Vaikuntha with consort and vahana. This is Vishnu withdrawn into meditation on a bare mountain, and that is the form the devotee comes here to see.

The temple stands in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand at an altitude of 3,133 metres, on the right bank of the Alaknanda, between the mountain ranges named for Nar and Narayan. Nine kilometres to the west rises Nilkantha, 6,596 metres, long called the Queen of the Garhwal, which stands over the valley through every hour of the pilgrim's day.

The name of the place comes from the badari, a wild berry of these slopes. Tradition tells that when the Lord sat in penance here with no shelter against sun and snow, Lakshmi took the form of a badari tree and stood over him; from that shelter come both the name Badrinarayan and the older name of the region, Badrika-ashram. The Bhagavata Purana speaks of Badrikashram as the place where the Personality of Godhead, in his incarnation as the sages Nara and Narayana, had been undergoing great penance since time immemorial. These twin sages, held in tradition to be an amsha-avatara of Vishnu and the sons of Dharma and Murti, are the presence the two mountain ranges are named for, and the Mahabharata identifies Arjuna with Nara and Krishna with Narayana. To stand before the sanctum is therefore to stand between them.

Badrinath belongs to several sacred orders at once. It is one of the four dhams of Uttarakhand, travelled together with Yamunotri, Gangotri and Kedarnath, and in the usual order of the yatra it is the last of them. It is counted among the 108 Divya Desams held sacred in Vaishnava tradition, which is why a Garhwali shrine above the snow line is sung in the Tamil devotional world of the far south. That binding of north and south is not only a matter of hymns. The Rawal, the head priest of Badrinath, is by long tradition a Nambudiri Brahmin from Kerala, and he is assisted by the Garhwali Dimri Brahmins of Dimmar village in Chamoli. In this one sanctum, Kerala and Garhwal serve the same Lord daily.

For roughly half the year no pilgrim reaches the temple. The kapat close in autumn, an Akhand Jyoti of ghee is lit to burn through the winter darkness, and the worship of Badri Vishal continues below the snow line at Yogadhyan Badri in Pandukeshwar, where the temple committee places the utsav-murti through the cold months; tradition also holds the Lord to be notionally present at the Narasimha temple in Jyotirmath until the doors open again. Devotees do not receive this as a seasonal timetable. They understand it as the Lord withdrawing into his own retreat when the mountain closes, and returning to receive his people when the passes open again.

Nor does the kshetra end at the temple steps. Below the shrine, between the temple and the Alaknanda, lie the hot waters of Tapt Kund, where pilgrims bathe before darshan. Half a kilometre away are Narad Kund and Brahma Kapal, where families offer shraddha for their ancestors on the river bank. Above and beyond are Charanpaduka with its rock bearing the footprints of the Lord, the Mata Murti temple, the Panch Shila and the five streams of the Panch Dhara, and the village of Mana with the Saraswati, the Vyas and Ganesh caves and the road onward to Vasudhara. A pilgrim who has time gives Badrinath more than a morning.