Badrinath Temple

About

The Badrīnāth Temple — also called the Badarīnārāyaṇa Mandir — stands in the small town of Badrīnāth in the Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, set in the Garhwal Himalayas at about 3,133 metres above sea level along the banks of the Alaknanda River. It is one of the most visited Hindu pilgrimage centres in India, drawing more than two million pilgrims in 2022 alone.

The presiding deity is Vishnu, worshipped here in the form of Badrīnārāyaṇa. The mūrti — a roughly one-foot black śālagrāma stone image — is enshrined beneath a Badri tree under a gilded canopy, depicting Vishnu in padmāsana (yoga posture), with two raised arms holding the Pāñcajanya conch and the Sudarśana chakra and the other two folded in his lap. The image is counted by many as one of the eight svayam vyakta kṣetras, the self-manifested forms of Vishnu.

Because of the severity of Himalayan winters, the temple is open to pilgrims for only about six months — from late April through early November; during the winter, the worship of Badrīnārāyaṇa shifts to lower-altitude shrines. The temple is composed of three principal sections — the garbhagriha (sanctum), the Darśana Maṇḍapa (worship hall), and the Sabhā Maṇḍapa (assembly hall) — beneath a roughly fifteen-metre conical roof crowned by a gilded cupola.

A cluster of hot sulphur springs known as the Tapt Kuṇḍ lies just below the temple. The waters maintain a year-round temperature of around 55°C, and pilgrims customarily bathe in them before darśana.

History

The temple and its surrounding tīrtha are described in ancient sources including the Vishnu Purāṇa and the Skanda Purāṇa, and are praised in the Nālāyira Divya Prabandham, the early-medieval Tamil canon of the Vaiṣṇava Āḻvārs (sixth to ninth centuries CE). Adi Śaṅkarācārya is traditionally credited with reviving Badrīnāth as a major pilgrimage site in the ninth century. The temple is administered today under the Shri Badarinath and Shri Kedarnath Mandir Act, by a state-nominated committee that oversees both Char Dham shrines.

Significance

Badrīnāth is at once one of the 108 Divya Desams of the Śrī Vaiṣṇava tradition and one of the four Char Dham — the great seasonal Himalayan pilgrimage circuit alongside Yamunotri, Gangotri, and Kedarnāth. Its remote setting, narrow open-season, and centrality to Vaiṣṇava devotion make it among the most beloved high-altitude tīrthas of Hindu India.