Badrinath

Badrīnātha

The northern Viṣṇu, and a shrine that closes for winter

Badrīnātha — Badri, in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand — is a Vaiṣṇava shrine of the tīrtha class, one of the four Cār Dhāms of the Himalayan circuit and, in the South's own reckoning, one of the 108 Divya Deśams sung by the Āḻvārs. The image is Badrīnātha, a three-faced and four-armed Vishṇu of the śālagrāma type, seated in padmāsana, and the title Badrī is itself the subject of an etymology that tells its story: bala (strength), drī (goddess of the earth), bhadra (auspicious), or Badrī as the "giver of blessings" — the māhātmya texts give the four readings and prefer to leave the choice open.

The shrine is unusual in a way that matters for its history: it is classed among the four Cār Dhāms by Himalayan tradition and among the Divya Deśams by Tamil tradition, but no Āḻvār hymn names it, and it is a tīrtha and śakti-pīṭha in the literature of Nā-bhakti, where the nāma-recitation of the Badrī name is credited with the shrine's manifestation. The current structure is a nineteenth-century rebuilding (the śikhara in nagara style is a 1970s reconstruction of an earlier stone temple), and the image is swayambhu — unchiselled, self-manifested — which is a claim about the māhātmya, not an archaeological fact. The jāṭā or outer prakāra is part of the Char Dham pilgrimage; the shrine opens for the pilgrimage season, roughly May to October, and is closed by the winter conditions rather than by a liturgical calendar.

The Nāra-Nārāyaṇa caves immediately above the shrine, and the Māṇḍuki kund at Badrī, belong to the same complex and are recorded in the adjacent entry.

Sources and what is still unverified

• Badrī-māhātmya and the Nāma literature of the Nā-sampradāya — work level.
• Velankar, The History of the Bhāgavata Religion — for the Badrīnātha cult material; not consulted page by page here.
• Chamoli / Garhwal District Gazetteer (Government of India gazetteer series) — volume and year to be confirmed.
• Unverified and inherited: the frontmatter's "8th c. (Adi Śankaracharya revival)" framing, its Divya Desam status (no Alvar hymn names Badrinatha), and every festival date it lists.