Kedarnath Temple
Kēdāranātha Temple is a Hindu temple, one of the twelve jyotirlinga of Śiva. The temple is located on the Garhwal Himalayan range
near the Mandākinī river, in the state of Uttarakhand, India. Due to extreme weather conditions, the temple is open to the general public only between the months of April and November. During the winters, the vigraha of the temple is carried down to Ukhimath to be worshiped for the next six months. Kēdāranātha is seen as a homogeneous form of Śiva, the 'Lord of Kēdārakhaṇḍa', the historical name of the region.
The temple is not directly accessible by road and has to be reached by a uphill trek from Gaurikuṇḍa. According to Hindu legends, the temple was initially built by the Pāṇḍavas, and is one of the twelve Jyotirlingas, the holiest Hindu shrines of Śiva. The Pāṇḍava were supposed to have pleased Śiva by doing penance in Kēdāranātha. The temple is one of the four major sites in India's Chota Char Dham pilgrimage of Northern Himalayas and is the first of the Pañca Kēdāra pilgrimage sites. This temple is the highest among the 12 Jyotirlingas. It is one of the 275 paadal petra sthalams expounded in the Tēvaram. This temple is sung of by Tirugnāṇasambandar, Appar, Sundarar and Sekkizhar in their Tēvaram texts.
Kēdāranātha was the worst affected area during the 2013 flash floods in North India. The temple complex, surrounding areas, and Kēdāranātha town suffered extensive damage, but the temple structure did not suffer any major damage. A large rock among the debris acted as a barrier, protecting the temple from the flood.
Background
Etymology
It is not certain who built the original Kedarnath temple and when. The name "Kedarnath" means "the lord of the field": it derives from the Sanskrit words kedara and natha. The text Kashi Kedara Mahatmya states that it is so called because "the crop of liberation" grows here.History
Earliest written reference
At a height of, from Rishikesh, on the shores of Mandakini river, a tributary of Ganga, is a stone edifice of unknown date. One of the earliest references to Kedarnath occurs in the Skanda Purana, which contains a story describing the origin of the Ganges river. The text names Kedara as the place where Shiva released the holy water from his matted hair.According to the hagiographies based on Madhava's Sankshepa-shankara-vijaya, the 8th century philosopher Adi Shankara died at the mountains near Kedarnath; although other hagiographies, based on Anandagiri's Prachina-Shankara-Vijaya, state that he died at Kanchipuram. The ruins of a monument marking the purported death place of Shankara are located at Kedarnath. Kedarnath was definitely a prominent pilgrimage centre by the 12th century, when it is mentioned in Kritya-kalpataru written by the Gahadavala minister Bhatta Lakshmidhara. Adi Shankara was believed to have revived this temple, along with Badrinath and other temples of Uttarakhand; he is believed to have attained Mahasamadhi at Kedarnath.
2013 floods
The Kedarnath valley, along with other regions of Uttarakhand, experienced catastrophic flash floods on 16 and 17 June 2013. On 16 June, at about 7:30 p.m. a landslide and mudslides occurred near Kedarnath Temple with loud peals of thunder. An enormously loud peal was heard and huge amounts of water started gushing from Chorabari Tal or Gandhi Tal down Mandakini river at about 8:30 p.m. washing everything away in its path. On 17 June 2013 at about 6:40 a.m. waters again started cascading at a huge speed from river Swaraswati and Chorabari Tal or Gandhi Tal bringing along with its flow huge amount of silt, rocks, and boulders. A huge rock got stuck behind Kedarnath Temple and protected it from the ravages of the flood. The waters gushed on both the sides of the temple destroying everything in their path. Even eyewitness observed that one large rock got carried to the rear side of Kedarnath Temple, thus causing obstruction to the debris, diverting the flow of river and debris to the sides of the temple avoiding damage. The rock which protected the temple is worshipped as the God's Rock.Another theory for the temple not being destroyed is because of its construction. Although the temple withstood the severity of the floods, the complex and surrounding area were destroyed, resulting in the death of hundreds of pilgrims and locals. Shops and hotels in Kedarnath were destroyed and all roads were broken. People took shelter inside the temple for several hours, until the Indian Army airlifted them to safer places. The Uttarakhand Chief Minister announced that the Kedarnath shrine would remain closed for a year for clearing the debris.
The experts appointed by the Archaeological Survey of India to assess the condition of the temple's foundation in the wake of the floods concluded that the structure was not in danger. A team from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras visited the temple three times for this purpose. Non-destructive testing instruments that do not disturb the structure of the temple were used by the IIT-team for assessing the health of the structure, foundation, and walls. They have submitted their interim report that the temple is stable and there was no major danger.
Nehru Institute of Mountaineering was given the responsibility of rebuilding Kedarnath. Although the institute did not have the expertise in urban planning or construction, they mastered in high altitude training. Under the leadership of veteran mountaineer Colonel Ajay Kothiyal, NIM worked intensively for a year, enabling the resumption of the pilgrimage the following year.
Legends
The Mahabharata, which gives the account of the Pandavas and the Kurukshetra War, does not mention a place called Kedarnath. However, a folk legend associates Kedarnath with the Pandavas, the protagonists of the Hindu epic. According to the legend, the Pandavas sought to atone for the sins committed during the Kurukshetra war. They handed over the reins of their kingdom to their relatives and left in search of Shiva to seek his blessings. However, Shiva wished to avoid them and assumed the form of a bull. Bhima, the second of the five Pandava brothers, later saw the bull grazing near Guptakashi, a name meaning "hidden Kashi" that is derived from the hiding act of Shiva. Bhima immediately recognized the bull as Shiva and seized the bull by its tail and hind legs. Shiva in the form of the bull, then disappeared into the ground and later reappeared in parts: with the hump raising in Kedarnath, the arms appearing in Tungnath, the face showing up at Rudranath, the nabhi and stomach surfacing in Madhyamaheshwar and the hair appearing in Kalpeshwar. The Pandavas, pleased by this manifestation in five different forms, built temples at each site to venerate Shiva. These five shrines are collectively known as Panch Kedar.After constructing the Panch Kedar temples, the Pandavas meditated at Kedarnath in pursuit of salvation and performed a yagna. They then ascended to heaven along the celestial path known as the Mahapanth, also called Swargarohini. The Panch Kedar Temples are constructed in the North-Indian Himalayan Temple architecture with the temples at Kedarnath, Tungnath and Madhyamaheshwar sharing similar designs.
A variant of the tale credits Bhima for not only catching the bull but also stopping it from disappearing. Consequently, the bull was torn asunder into five parts and appeared at five locations in the Kedar Khand of Garhwal region of the Himalayas.
After completing the pilgrimage of Shiva's darshan at the Panch Kedar Temples, it is an unwritten religious rite to visit Vishnu at the Badrinath Temple, as a final affirmatory proof by the devotee that he has sought blessings of Shiva.