Kedarnath Temple

Kedarnath Temple stands at about 3,583 metres in the Garhwal Himalaya, a stone shrine set against a wall of snow peaks at the head of the Mandakini valley. It is one of the twelve jyotirlingas, the most sacred shrines of Shiva, and the highest of them all, and no road reaches it: pilgrims climb on foot for some 17 kilometres from Gaurikund.

The date of the original temple and the name of its builder are unknown. One of the earliest references to Kedara appears in the Skanda Purana, which names it as the place where Shiva released the waters of the Ganges from his matted hair, and by the 12th century the site was clearly an established pilgrimage centre. Tradition credits the 8th-century philosopher Adi Shankara with reviving the temple, and some accounts hold that he died in the mountains nearby; a memorial to him stands behind the shrine. The name is usually explained as "lord of the field".

According to folk legend, the Pandava brothers of the Mahabharata came here seeking Shiva's forgiveness after the Kurukshetra war. Shiva, avoiding them, took the form of a bull and sank into the ground when Bhima recognised him; his hump remained at Kedarnath, while other parts of the body emerged at four other places, together known as the Panch Kedar. The deity in the sanctum is accordingly an irregular, three-sided stone lingam regarded as self-manifested, and in memory of the story it is anointed with ghee. A hall in front of the sanctum holds images of the five Pandavas, Krishna, Nandi, Virabhadra and Draupadi, and the temple is one of the four shrines of the Chota Char Dham pilgrimage. The Raval, its head priest, traditionally comes from the Veerashaiva community of Karnataka.

On 16 and 17 June 2013 catastrophic flash floods poured down from the Chorabari lake above the valley and destroyed much of the town around the temple, killing hundreds of pilgrims and residents. The shrine itself survived almost unharmed: a huge boulder carried by the torrent lodged behind it and split the flow to either side. The rock, now known as Bhim Shila, is venerated in its own right.

Getting there

Kedarnath is in Rudraprayag district, Uttarakhand, and is reached by a trek of about 17 km from Gaurikund, the end of the road. The nearest town of size is Srinagar in Garhwal, about 63 km away in a straight line, and the nearest airport is Dehradun's Jolly Grant Airport (DED), about 105 km away.