Garhwal

In the most technical sense, Garhwal is
the name of a particular hill district in
the northern Indian state of Uttar
Pradesh. Garhwal is more commonly
used as the name for a cultural region in
the Uttar Pradesh hills, made up of the
241
Garhwal
districts of Garhwal, TehriGarhwal,
Dehra Dun, Chamoli, and Uttarkashi.
The Garhwal region contains all the
major tributaries of the Ganges: the
Bhagirathi, the Mandakini, the
Pindara, and the Alakananda. It also
contains many of the holiest sacred sites
(tirthas) in the Himalayas, including
Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, and
Badrinath. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, under the patronage of
the king of the state of Tehri, the region
was also one of the centers for the
Pahari school of miniature painting.