Kedarkantha is no stranger to the trekking world. Ever since Indiahikes explored it as a Winter Trek in 2010, word of mouth has only grown stronger. Every winter, its trails see an unbroken stream of people, making it one of the most walked treks in the country.

While that makes us happy, it also worries us. We have already moved away from the popular Sankri Route and go for lesser known but beautiful routes from Kotgaon or Gaichawan.

The overwhelming crowd is also one of the reasons why we explored the Phulara Ridge Trek to offer trekkers a stunning alternative right next to Kedarkantha.

But we fear that may not be enough. 

As the crowds at Kedarkantha grow year after year, its identity weakens. Trekkers begin to look at it as just another checklist item on our to-do list. So we started building Deep Dive Pages to set these Himalayan Treks in context. These are the most detailed guides about the History, Culture and Geography of the trekking hotspots of our country.

In the process, we arrived at an interesting question.

How did Kedarkantha get its name ?

If you think of it, it is actually unusual to find a peak named Kedarkantha — after Lord Shiva — when Kedarnath, the more well-known Shiva shrine, is several valleys away. Given that Kedarkantha lies in the Yamuna basin, where Yamunotri is the main spiritual centre, its naming becomes even more intriguing.

When Harish Kapadia, one of India’s most celebrated mountaineers, went to Kedarkantha in 2012, he was trying to find answers to the same question. His notes gave us golden insights. 

We found more stories among our team members at Kotgaon and Sankri, many of whom have been associated with Indiahikes for more than a decade.

In this article, we take you through some of these stories and hope they help you recognise Kedarkantha for how special it truly is.

Stories from Harish Kapadia’s Notes

The first story that Kapadia narrates, goes like this:

Shiva descended from the skies onto the Swargarohini massif, a peak locally revered as the stairway to heaven. From there, he spotted the striking ridge of Kedarkantha and the peak that crowned it. Taking the form of a bull, he chose this quiet ridge as a place to settle. But just as he began to do so, he heard the low call of a cow to her calf. The sound drifted up from Sirka village, across the Tons River. That was enough. Shiva realised this place would never be truly quiet. So he left — crossing valleys and ridges until he reached the spot we now know as Kedarnath.

Kapadia heard another story from locals, linking Kedarkantha to all five of Uttarakhand’s famous Panch Kedar.

It begins, once again, with Shiva, who descended from heaven to earth on the legendary Swargarohini massif. A celestial ladder connected the heavens to the mountains. As Shiva descended, he was unaware that one of the rungs of that heavenly ladder had broken. There was no way back. Time passed. Then came the Pandavas, the legendary brothers from the Mahabharata, making their final journey. They, too, tried climbing up the Swargarohini, hoping to ascend into heaven. But that broken rung had never been repaired. And Bhim, the strongest of the Pandava brothers, slipped and fell. In his rage, Bhim turned to Shiva. He believed the broken rung was a trick, and he set out looking for Shiva. Sensing Bhim’s fury, Shiva transformed into a bull and fled. But Bhim was relentless. He followed the bull through mountains and ridges, until the bull suddenly vanished into the earth. This happened right at the top of what is now known as Kedarkantha. Unwilling to give up, Bhim dug the bull out. And in that moment of divine confrontation, he dismembered the bull, flinging each part in a different direction. Wherever a piece landed, a temple was built. Today, those five places are known as the Panch Kedar — Kedarnath, Tunganath, Madhyamaheshwar, Rudranath and Kalpeshwar.

And then there was an old shepherd, who offered Harish Kapadia a very different take on how Kedarkantha got its name.

In Garhwal, the traditional method for extracting oil from seeds was to grind them in a stone mill known as a ‘kohlu’. The ‘kohlu’ comprised two round stone slabs placed one on top of the other. The upper stone had a hole into which the seeds were fed. The upper stone was rotated continuously by bullocks, which were tied to it by a rope. To prevent the bull from getting dizzy, they were blindfolded. The pilgrimage to Kedarkantha is compared to the working of the ‘kohlu’. You go round and round in life blindfolded, tied to your desires. When you are here, going around Kedar liberates you and enables you to see the great beauty around you. The sight you behold opens your eyes, and you are freed from the burden of your desires - you cut the rope and you are free.

But that’s not all. 

Over the years of working in this region, we’ve talked to our local team members about Kedarkantha. Many of them have worked with us for over a decade. And from they had all heard of different stories revolving around Kedarkantha, which have been passed on orally across generations. 

Read on for two of the most well-known versions of these stories.

Kedarkantha: The Echoes of an Unfinished Temple

The Legend of Bhima
The story starts far away, at the mythical Kurukshetra. Bhim, the strongest of the Pandavas, was helping cattle cross a river in spate. Tired and worn out, his thumb swollen, he lost grip on one of the cows. It was swept away in the current. Shaken and filled with guilt, Bhim turned to Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva requested Bhim to find a place where He could sit and meditate, away from the noise of the world. Bhim found a quiet peak for Him and went about gathering stones to build a space for Lord Shiva to meditate. Slowly, the structure began to rise and it reached up to Shiva’s kanth, His neck. Just then, a cow from a nearby village let out a loud bellow. Shiva was startled and disappeared from that spot. He made his way towards the quiet, snow-covered lands of Kedarnath. By the time Bhim returned with more stones, he realised Lord Shiva had vanished.


The Legend of Bhasmasura
This is a lesser-known story around Kedarkantha. It’s the tale of Bhasmasura, a demon, cursed and desperate for release. In search of redemption, he set out to find Lord Shiva. At the time, Lord Shiva was in deep meditation near the Kedarkantha peak. A temple was slowly taking shape around him, the stone walls rising steadily — almost up to his kanth, his neck. But word reached him that Bhasmasura was close by, and Shiva knew this peace wouldn’t last. Unwilling to confront the relentless demon and have his meditation disturbed, Lord Shiva transformed into Nandi, the sacred bull, and quietly merged with a herd of cattle grazing nearby. When Bhasmasura arrived he saw only a large herd of bulls making their way down the mountain slope, toward Kedarnath.Still, Bhasmasura was no fool. He knew Lord Shiva wouldn’t make himself easy to find. So he came up with a clever trick. Placing one foot on a tree and the other on another, he formed a living bridge, forcing every bull in the herd to pass beneath him. No God would ever pass beneath a demon’s legs. And he was right. Every bull passed through. Except one. This was Lord Shiva. Bhasmasura leapt up, ready to seize him. But Shiva was faster. Before Bhasmasura could catch hold of him, Shiva vanished, making his way to Kedarnath.

In both these stories, we hear the story of a structure that had risen only up to Kedar’s (Lord Shiva) throat, kanth, before being abandoned. This unfinished temple still stands on the summit till date and gives the peak its name, Kedarkantha.

We know such folklore never provides definitive answers. There are no rights or wrongs here, only many different versions. These stories evolve with time, as they do with distance and geo-political context. Yet, these narratives form fragile threads that connect us to the past. If we don’t document them today, we risk losing this connection forever.

If you liked reading this article, I’m sure you’ll also love to learn about how Kedarkantha had served as a crucial vantage for early cartographers, trying to map the Great Himalayas. Here’s the link to that story.

Do you know of any story about Kedarkantha that we missed out on telling ? Write to us at [email protected] and we'll add them to this article.

Acknowledgement: A lot of the history and stories of Kedarkantha, referred to here, have been sourced from the article, “An Autumn Walk to Kedar Kantha” by Harish Kapadia which appeared in the Himalayan Journal [Issue 68, 2013]