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The village of Badrinath is the pilgrimage place of Lord Viṣṇu in the incarnation of Badrī Viśāl. It is a site where millions of people come every year from the whole world, from all of India, from the south, from everywhere, to take the blessings of Badrī Viśāl. They all touch the feet of Badrī Viśāl in the temple. It is written in the Purāṇas and other holy scriptures that here, in this area, is a place of meditation and mokṣa. Below the temple, there is a hot spring coming from Nārāyaṇ Parvat, which flows under the temple. It is very hot water at 54 degrees. The tradition is that first the pilgrim should take a holy bath in the water and only then enter the temple. In Badrināth, we have many pūjās, many ceremonies, many festivals. When all the Uttarakhand people come with their personal deity, they make a procession. They bring the deity for people, decorate it, come to the mandir, and bow down to the statue in front of the main altar. They perform pūjās. It is a very divine place, a place of bhakta, a place of meditation, a place of great devotion, and a place of mokṣa. Three kilometers from Badrinath, on the right side of the Alaknanda River, is a small village called Mana. The people of Mana came centuries ago from Tibet, and they have their own community, their own traditions. Their deity is Kaṇṭa Karam, the dog keeper of Lord Viṣṇu. Near every pilgrimage route here is the cave of Ved Vyāsa, who wrote the Vedas. It is very interesting that the cave of Ved Vyāsa is in the middle of the mountain. Above the cave, which is thousands of years old, there are little layers like old papyrus, sheet by sheet. It looks like a huge book. Above the Ved Vyāsa cave, and not far away—just a few hundred meters—is the Beem pool. Here, Beem placed a big rock over the Sarasvatī River so that Draupadī could cross it. On the right side, over the Beem pool, is the river where she couldn't cross, the Sarasvatī River. The Sarasvatī River comes from a valley in the direction of Mana. Its very beautiful green water flows down and joins with the Alaknanda, which comes from the Alkapuri mountain and from Satopan. This confluence is called the Saṅgam Keśav Priyak. I will now describe the mountains around Śrī Alakhpurījī’s cave. First, we come from Badrinath down. The last village of India beside the Chinese border is near the Kubera mountain. On the top of Kūbera mountain, you see the Kūbera Bhandāra. Kubera is the Lord of Wealth, and it is said that in this glacier is his old jewelry, but nobody is allowed to go there. The next mountain we see opposite Alakhpurījī’s cave is Nārāyaṇa Parvat, the mountain of Lord Nārāyaṇa. To go to Śrī Devpurījī’s cave is about 33 kilometers. We start from the Mandir of Badrināth and go on the opposite side on a small path, which you see here, till Lakṣmīvan. Lakṣmīvan is a place where two rivers join. The first river comes from the glaciers of Alkapuri; it flows from the huge glaciers of the Alkapuri mountain down, down, down here till Lakṣmīvan. The other, coming from the Satopanth Glacier, comes down and goes in a circle. At Lakṣmīvan there is a very big Saṅgam that looks like a lake, and from this point on the river is named the Alaknandā. The Alaknanda then flows down to Badrinath, and then it goes down to Devprayag. In Devprayag, it joins the Bhagirathi coming from Kedarnath, and after this confluence it is called the Gaṅgā. One part of the Swāgarohiṇī mountain is formed by the Satopānth mountains, and the other side is formed by Chokamba. Directly opposite is a very huge mountain called Baikunṭh. When you see the top, one person sees Śiva; another can see Gaṇeśa on the side. So everybody can see something different in the mountain. This triangle is formed from these glaciers: one from Gomukh and the other from the Satopan Glacier. This mountain here is the Mukut Mountain.