Badrinath - The Legend and History of The Temple - The Isha Blog

7/21/2014 Badrinath The Legend and Historyof the Temple - The Isha Blog
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Badrinath The Legend and History of
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30 Jun 2014 2 Comments
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Badrinath temple
Sadhguru looks at the legend of Badrinath temple and how Vishnu tricked
Shiva and Parvati, and its history of how Adi Shankaracharya established
the temple over a thousand years ago.
Sadhguru: There is a legend about Badrinath. This is where Shiva and
Parvati lived. It is a magnificent place at around 10,000 feet in the
Himalayas. One day, Shiva and Parvati took a walk. When they came
back, at the entrance of their home a little baby was crying. Looking at
this child crying his heart out, Parvatis maternal instincts came up and
she wanted to go pick up the child. Shiva stopped her and said, Dont
touch that child. Parvati replied, How cruel. How can you say that?
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Shiva said, This is not a good baby. Why does he land up at our doorstep
by himself? There is no one around, no footprints of parents in the snow.
This is not a child. But Parvati said, Nothing doing! The mother in me
will not allow me to let the child be like this, and she took the baby into
the house. The child was very comfortable, sitting on her lap, looking very
gleefully at Shiva. Shiva knew the consequence of this but he said, Okay,
lets see what happens.
Parvati comforted and fed the child, left him at home and went with Shiva
for a bath in the nearby hot water springs. When they came back, they
found the doors were locked from the inside. Parvati was aghast. Who
has closed the door? Shiva said, I told you, dont pick up this child. You
brought the child into the house and now he has locked the door.
Parvati said, What shall we do?
Shiva had two options: one was to burn up everything in front of him.
Another was to just find another way and go. So he said, Lets go
somewhere else. Because its your beloved baby, I cannot touch it.
This is how Shiva lost his own home and Shiva and Parvati became
illegal aliens! They walked around, looking for an ideal place to live and
finally settled down in Kedarnath. Did he not know, you may ask. You
know many things, but you still allow them to happen.
Adi Shankaracharya and Badrinath
Badrinath also has historical significance because the temple here was
installed by Adi Shankara. Adi Shankara was born in a place called Kaladi
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Adishankaracharya
in Kerala over a thousand years ago. He was a prodigal child and an
extraordinary scholar with almost super-human capabilities. At the age of
two, he could fluently speak and write Sanskrit. At the age of four, he
could recite all the Vedas, and at the age of twelve, he took sanyas and left
his home. Even at such a young age, he gathered disciples and started
walking throughout the country to re-establish the spiritual sciences.
Adi Shankaras guidance came
from Gowdapada. Under his
guidance, Shankara went about
doing all this incredible work.
Gowdapada is very much a part of
our tradition also. He was an
extraordinary guru, but his
teachings were never written
down. He made sure it was not
written down. He must have
taught thousands of people but he
produced fifteen to twenty good
people who re-established the
spiritual science in the country very quietly, without any noise, without
starting a new religion or anything. In many ways, that has been the
intention of Ishas work also not to establish a new religion or a new
scripture, but to establish the spiritual sciences just as a way of life, as an
inculcation within a human being.
The Badrinath temple was installed by Adi Shankara. He set up his own
people there. Even today, the descendants of the families that he set up
traditionally, the Nambudiris, are the priests in the temple. Visually, this
area is an incredible place. The town is not very well kept, but if you look
around at the rest of it, it is incredibly beautiful. From Govind Ghat to
Badri, that 25-kilometer drive is probably the most incredible drive you
can have anywhere in the world. I have traveled to many places but this
25-kilometer drive is so incredible, there are no words to describe how the
mountains are.
From Kaladi to Badrinath, the distance is more than three thousand
kilometres by walk. Adi Shankara walked such distances not just south to
north but also east to west. He walked up and down the country thrice and
east to west once. Once, when he was up in the north, he came to know
intuitively that his mother was dying. At the age of twelve, his mother had
given him permission to take sanyas only after he had promised her that
he would be there with her at the moment of her death. So when he
realized that his mother was ill, he walked all the way back to Kerala just
to be with her beside her deathbed. He spent a few days with his mother
and after she had died, he walked back north again. When you travel to
the Himalayas, you will wonder how anyone could have walked through
this. Imagine the effort involved. Motorized travel destroyed pilgrimage! If
you had walked, it would settle your life for good.
The purpose of coming to the Himalayas is not to achieve something. This
was an opportunity to simply be dwarfed if not dissolved, at least to be
dwarfed. You cant believe that thousands of years of ago, people went
into these mountains when there were no roads, automobiles or maps of
where the mountain begins and where it ends. Just going. If you want to
progress on the path of yoga, this is needed. Not knowing where the end is,
simply keep going. It doesnt matter where it begins or where it ends, till I
reach there, I simply keep going. Unless a person has this attitude and
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POSTED IN: YOGA & MEDITATION, HISTORY OF YOGA, YOGA & MEDITATION,
SCIENCE OF TEMPLES
TAGS: Himalayas, Sacred Walks
RECOMMENDED:
Images courtesy: Neelkanth from Wikipedia
Alaknanda river, Badrnath by Kumara Sastry
Badrinath village by Dena v.d.Wal
Badrinath by spaceppl
Badrinath by sumeet basak
Badrinath temple front view from Wikipedia
Adishankaracharya from Wikipedia
strength within himself, the spiritual path is out of question.
Editors Note: Ishas Sacred Walks to the Himalayas will be taking place
in September 15 25 this year. Registrations are now open.
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Krishna 21 days ago
"It doesnt matter where it begins or where it ends, till I reach there, I simply keep
going....We wish it for ourselves Sadguru..

3
Reply
Nishanth Ulhas Nair 20 days ago
Namaskaram dear Admin. I think there is a factual mistake in the article. Govinda
Bhagavatpada is the guru of Adi Shankara. Gaudapada is the teacher of Govinda
Bhagavatpada. Gaudapada did write a commentary on the Maandukya Upanishad.
Sadhguru may have meant Govinda Bhagavatpada and not Gaudapada in this post.
Or there may have been an error. Thank you very much. Pranams.

Reply
Jaganathan 21 days ago
How to go to this temple.

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