Kedar Nath & Badri Narayan: (A Pilgrim’s Diary)

The previous title of the book The Northern Tirtha : A Pilgrims Diary" was of too general an import to indicate to the reading public the partcular nature of its contents which is a description of a pilgrimage to the famous shrines of Kedar Nath trid Badri Narayan in the North of India ; and therefore it has been changed into the more particular and apropriate name of "Kedar Nath and Badri [...] On the mountains too the night made visible the forest-fires and over all poured down the moonlight throwing the wooded"A PILGRIM'S DIARY 15 hills into strong shadow against the silver blueness of the river and the snow-whiteness of the sands. [...] Here in the days when the characteristic culture of the epoch lay in a kfroledge of the Mahabharata and when the effort of all this region was to appropriate the scenes and incidents of t great work here it was psissibje for the pious pi im to make salutation at the feet of master-poet efore entering on the sacred UP to this tinge t e only mention of the Pandavas that we had come upon had bee [...] But the great feature of the place is an immense unenclosed terrace 34 KEDAR NATH AND MDR! NARAYAN representing the monastery-court or vilage-square) which stands on the face of the hillside looking oull over the valley and having access to an old road from the riverside which the villagers call the Gangarastra. [...] The archi-A PILGRIM'S DIARY 37 rctural form and the fact that on the lintel of the floor is a medallion containing Ganesh would go to show that this is more ancient than the shrines near it and perhaps belonged to the Birbhadra centre before the Vaishnava movement of Ramanuja caused the building of a Lakshmi-Narayana temple here.