Four Dhams

(“[divine] abodes”) Four major pilgrimage sites in the four geographical corners of India, which lay out the
boundaries of India’s sacred geography:
Badrinath in the Himalayas; the city of
Puri in the east, on the Bay of Bengal;
Rameshvaram in the south; and
Dwaraka in the west. Each site is associated with one of the four Sanyasi maths
all supposedly founded by the great
philosopher Shankaracharya: Badrinath
has the Jyotir math in the town of
Joshimath (about thirty-five miles
south of Badrinath), Puri has the
Govardhan math, Dwaraka has the
Sharada math, and Rameshvaram has
the Shringeri math (in Shringeri). The
first three of these maths are close to
their associated sacred sites (tirthas),
but Shringeri is about 450 miles away
from Rameshvaram.