Yamunotri

Sacred site (tirtha) in the Himalayas
at the headwaters of the Yamuna
River. Ritually speaking, Yamunotri is
considered to be the source of the
Yamuna, although the actual source
lies farther upstream, at the foot of the
Bandarpunch Mountain. Its high altitude also means that it is only accessible between late April and October,
after which it is closed for the winter
months—a pattern echoed at
Gangotri, Kedarnath, and Badrinath,
the other three major Himalayan pilgrim sites. One ritual center in
Yamunotri is the river itself, in which
pilgrims bathe (snana), braving the
frigid waters. There are also several
temples—the oldest built by one of
the kings of Nepal—but the temples at
Yamunotri are quite modest compared with those at Gangotri, and the
only large one was built in the 1980s.
Aside from the holy river and its temples, Yamunotri is also noted for several hot springs from which water
emerges almost boiling; some of these
hot springs have been channeled into
a tank, and many pilgrims take advantage of the hot baths.