Himalayas

himalayas

Introduction to Himalayas

The word ‘Char dham’ is very popular in India. Sripad Shankaracharya devised an intelligent plan to unite entire India under vedic tradition so that people can travel and see each other’s cultures with in vedic tradition.So he constituted four dhams in four corners of India. Badrinath in north of India, Rameshwaram in south of India Jagannath Puri in east of India and Dwaraka in west of India. Apart from this main char dham, there is also laghu (mini) char dham. It is present in Himalayan mountain ranges. In this, Himalayas talks about the laghu char dham or the Himalayan ranges.
Himalayas is called by various names. It is also called as Dev bhumi because great devatas reside. They often visit and return to their heavenly abode. It is also called as Shiva bhumi as he performs many pastimes here.
Himalayan ranges are spread from upper Kashmir area to north east Arunachal Pradesh including Nepal. Geographically, Himalayas is divided into five parts.
First part is Kashmir khanda which contains Kashmir valley and it includes Amarnath and Vaishnavi Devi temple.Second part is Jalandhar khanda which contains parts of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. Shimla, a well-known tourist spot, comes under Jalsaghar khand.Third is Khedar khand which primarily includes the entire Uttarakhand. All the four laghu char dhams (Badrinath, Kedarnath,Gangotri, Yamonotri) come under Khedar Khanda. Khedar means Lord Shiva. He is present everywhere here. Fourth part is called as Kamau, it is in northern part of Uttarakhand. The place Nainital comes under Kamau region. The name Nainital, a hill station, was originally derived from the word Naini and tal. Naini means eyes and tal refers to place. When Sati Devi’s body fell in different parts of India, her eyes fell at this place and hence this place is called as Nainital.Fifth part is in Nepal. It contains Muktinath and Pasupatinath.