Kedarnath

A remote Himalayan shrine at the source of the Mandakini river, where tradition holds that Adi Shankara, having established monastic centers at the four corners of India, ended his short life still in his early thirties.

Kedarnath stands at around eleven and a half thousand feet in the Garhwal Himalaya, reachable only on foot for most of its history and buried in snow half the year. Tradition holds that Shankara died near here after founding monastic seats at the four corners of India, still in his early thirties. Other accounts place his death elsewhere. The mountain version has held partly because it suits a life spent walking and partly because the argument he made points toward exactly this kind of thin air.