Badrinath — Vishnu meditating in the Himalayas (Vada-Madurai)
The 108 Divya Desams are the sacred abodes of Vishnu sung by the 12 Alvar saint-poets. Compiled as the Nalayira Divya Prabandham by Nathamuni (9th c. CE), this corpus of 4,000 pasurams defines the sacred geography of Tamil Vaishnavism and the Sri Vaishnava sampradaya.
One of the 4 Char Dham (North). Vishnu here sat in tapas for ages; Lakshmi took form of the berry-tree (badri) to shade him. Temple closes Nov-May (snow); during winter, worship moves to Joshimath. Current icon installed by Adi Shankara, 8th c.
Daily worship at Badrinath follows the five-fold Divya Desam round recorded in this entry's worship block. Two observances anchor the festival calendar here. Vaikuntha Ekadashi falls on the eleventh lunar day (ekadashi) of the waning fortnight in the Tamil month Margazhi (December–January). It is the holiest day in the Divya Desam round: the Paramapada-vasal, the gate of the supreme state, is opened, and passing through it is held to lead the devotee toward moksha. The register also lists a ten-day annual Brahmotsavam. An earlier draft of this entry enumerated the particular vahanas carried in that procession; no source for that list could be located, so it has been dropped rather than repeated.
The shrine is governed by the Shri Badarinath Kedarnath Temple Committee, named as its governing authority in its public record. That record places the temple in Chamoli district at an elevation of 3,100 m (10,171 ft) and names the divine pair as Badrinath (Vishnu) and Badridevi (Lakshmi). The consort therefore appears under two names in this entry: Aravindavalli in the Divya Desam listing above, Badridevi in the administrative record. Both are kept side by side rather than reconciled, because the sources that use each name are different. In its classification the temple is entered at once under the Char Dham and the Chhota Char Dham headings — the pan-Indian circuit of four abodes, and the Uttarakhand circuit of Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath. That dual listing is why Badrinath is counted both as a national pilgrimage goal and as one node of a Himalayan four-temple circuit.
Each Divya Desam's sanctity rests on how many Alvars sang of it and how many pasurams — this is the mangalashasanam. Tamil Vaishnavism treats the 4,000 pasurams as Dravida Veda — equivalent to the Sanskrit Vedas.
