Adi Badrinatha is situated one and a half kilometre south west of Alipura. The natural scenery of this place is very beautiful. There are mountains all around here. Nestled in the heart of this exotic landscape is the famous shrine of Adi-Badrinatha, dedicated to Lord Nara and Narayana Rishi, the twin incarnations of Lord Vishnu. Lord Nara and Narayana are the predominating deities of Bharata-varsa and are worshiped eternally by Narada Muni at Badrikashrama. It is also mentioned in the Srimad Bhagavatam that Krishna and Arjuna are both incarnations of Nara-Narayana Rishi.
Mentioned in Sri Bhakti Ratnakara, “This Setu Kandara is a most charming place. Here we see the merciful Adi Badri-Narayana. He is served most wonderfully within this forest, sitting on this fragrant slab of this enchanting mountain. Here Krishna brought Nanda and the other cowherds and removed their stress by showing them Narayana”.
How to get there: You can go by taxi from Vrindavana, its far away and will take 1 and half hour to reach.
At this place, Lord Nara-Narayana Rishi, who is a strict niashtika brahmachari, is engaged in severe penance for the benefit of the entire human race. Once, the demigod Indra, who is the king of heaven, became extremely envious of the extraordinary tapasya being undertaken by Nara-Narayana Rishi. Due to the fear of losing his position, Indra the King of heaven, sent many beautiful dancing girls known as Apsaras to seduce Nara-Narayana Rishi in the hope of making Him fall down to lusty desires and abandon His severe penance. The dancing girls from heaven arrived scantily clad before Nara-Narayana Rishi and started to perform their highly erotic dance performance. But Nara-Narayana Rishi could understand this trick and created many Urvasis from His left thigh, this destroying Indra’s pride. While dancing before the great Rishi, the Apsaras suddenly saw many more beautiful girls appearing from the body of Nara-Narayana Rishi, and their beauty easily defeated the beauty of the heavenly Apsaras. Seeing this powerful display of mysticism, and having failed in their attempts to seduce Nara-Narayana Rishi, the Apsaras immediately returned to Indra’s abode in the heavenly planets.
When one enters the Sri Adi Badrinatha Mandira, in the front of the temple is Tapta Kunda. Within the temple there are seven deities in a row. After taking darshan in the temple, we went inside the forest around 1 kilometre by walk to take darshan of Sri Gangotri and Sri Yamunotri.
I highly recommend devotees to go inside the forest to go with someone local who know the area or taxi driver to guide you and take you the temples because the path does not have clear directions you may get lost in the forest.
The forest is beautiful. The local pujari showed and explained all the important places of the area. •Sri Neelkanth Mahadev Temple •Sri Lakshmana Gufa •Sri Gangotri •Sri Yamunotri •Sri Alaknanda •Sri Nara-Narayana Mountain •Sri Ganesh Mountain
Pujari also showed me the Sila or Stone with Lord Krishna footprints, Lord Krishna standing on this Sila called all the four Dham (Char Dham)
One day Nanda Maharaja, Krishna’s father, had a great desire to go on pilgrimage and take darshana of Badrinatha Dhama in the Himalayas. According to the Vedic custom, the four Vaikuntha Dhamas in India (Bharata-varsha) should be visited by all religious people at least once before they die. These four Dhamas are; Badrinatha, Dwaraka, Jagannatha Puri, and Rameshwaram, and they represent the planets of Lord Vishnu in the spiritual world. The Dhama of Vrindavana represents the Lord’s supreme abode on the planet called Goloka-Vrindavana which is far beyond the realm of Vaikuntha.
However, Krishna did not like the idea that His father should leave Vrindavana and therefore asked Him why he should take so much trouble to go all the way to the Himalayan Mountains, when the very same Badrinatha Dhama was present in Vraja. Krishna then brought Nanda Baba and all the Vrajavasis to this place and declared its glories before them, saying that this was the original Badrinatha and was thousands of times more spiritually potent then the Badrinatha in the Himalayas. Lord Krishna was conveying the message that one should never leave Vrindavana, because Vrindavana itself is the greatest of all the holy places within the material universe, and every other holy place in the universe has its original form in Vrindavana.
After taking darshan we decided to walk further inside the forest to take darshan of Dev Sarovar, during the month of Kartika all the Demi-Gods come and take bath in this Sarovar.
We also got the opportunity to meet and hear from a very renounced Vaishnava, he likes to live here because it is very peaceful to meditate. He was living in this forest and someone constructed a small room to stay at this place. He has to walk long distance to get basic necessities like water, grains etc but likes to stay here because it is peaceful to meditate.