Four Directions, and an Attribution to Handle with Care

The all-India Char Dham is the one great Hindu pilgrimage in this atlas that is not a journey on foot but an idea about the shape of the subcontinent.

The arithmetic of the four

Badrinath in the north, Puri in the east, Rameswaram in the south and Dwarka in the west are understood as completed only as a set, and what binds them is the geometry of the four directions rather than any road between them. The distances are continental, and the yatra is made by rail, road and air, often across several years and several separate journeys. Each of the four temples is individually ancient and had its own regional pilgrimage long before it was one quarter of anything.

The Shankara problem

The set is traditionally credited to Adi Shankara, said to have founded seats at the cardinal points to bind the country doctrinally. The attribution should be treated with care: the four Shankara mathas at Badrinath, Puri, Dwarka and Sringeri are not the same four places as the Char Dham as it is now named, and the popular temple set in its current form crystallised considerably later. The pattern is old; the packaging is not.