Guptakashi: the secret Kashi on the road to Kedarnath
A night halt on the Kedarnath road that Sadhguru calls the secret Kashi, with a linga he says was made in Agastya's way, and where he says an earlier life of his found shelter.
Checked by Sadhana Saarthi on
Thousands of people stop at Guptkashi every season and leave before breakfast. The town is a bed on the way up to Kedarnath, and that is all most yatris ever ask of it. In Himalayan Lust, a book of talks given on Isha's Himalayan journeys, Sadhguru treats it as something else altogether. Here is what he says, where he says it, and what the district's own record adds.
What the source says
- Lineage text
A seeker tells Sadhguru that simply sitting at Guptakashi and at Tapovan was beyond describing, and asks what the two places are. He answers that they are different in kind. Guptakashi, he says, is country that Agastya muni walked, and the linga there was consecrated in Agastya's way, which he describes as energy work alone, without mantra or ritual. He adds that this is the only way he himself knows how to work.
“it's hundred per cent energy work”
Himalayan Lust, Sadhguru, "Part Two: Life as Pilgrimage (Uttarkashi, Guptakashi, Tapovan)"
- Lineage text
He sets the three names side by side. Kashi is the holiest of the holy, Uttarkashi is the northern Kashi, and Guptakashi, which the group reached just after Kedar, is the secret Kashi, not meant to be widely known. In his account each of these places holds a powerful linga spoken of as a jyotirlinga, and he describes such lingas as self-created rather than carved.
Himalayan Lust, Sadhguru, "Part Two: Life as Pilgrimage (Uttarkashi, Guptakashi, Tapovan)"
- Lineage text
He then tells why the place is dear to him. Over seventy years before that talk, in a life he names as Sadhguru Sri Brahma, he came with four young men to help them with a sadhana. They walked about eighty-five kilometres from Rudraprayag to Kedar, were defeated by the cold and by hunger, having come from the warmth of the south, and walked back down to stay in this temple for close to two months. He says he stops here briefly on every Himalayan journey since.
Himalayan Lust, Sadhguru, "Part Two: Life as Pilgrimage (Uttarkashi, Guptakashi, Tapovan)"
- Lineage text
Elsewhere in the same book, describing his solo travels in the early 1990s, he says that when he came to the Shiva temple at Guptakashi, the place, the temple and the priests all felt known to him, as though he had been there before.
Himalayan Lust, Sadhguru, "Part Three: No Take-away (Badrinath)"
What tradition holds
- Pilgrim tradition
That Guptkashi carries an importance like that of Kashi itself. The Rudraprayag district administration names the ancient Vishwanath temple, the Ardhnareshwar temple and Manikarnik Kund as the temples of the town, and says the Ganga and the Yamuna are believed to meet at that kund.
What you will find today
Guptkashi sits on the Kedarnath road in Rudraprayag district, and in season it is mostly a place to sleep before Sonprayag and the walk up. The district administration gives Rishikesh as the nearest railway station for the district, about 180 km away, and says the district is served by National Highway 107.
No timings are published for the temple, and we have not been to note them ourselves. Ask at the temple the evening before if you want to sit there early.
One honest caution about this page. Sadhguru's account of an earlier lifetime, and his reading of who consecrated the linga, are his own. We record them as his words, with the part of the book they come from, and we leave them there.
Last checked via District Rudraprayag, Government of Uttarakhand (https://rudraprayag.nic.in/tourist-place/guptkashi/).
A practice for this place
Reach the temple before the buses start, when the town is quiet. Sit where you are out of the way of worship, spine upright, and watch the breath as it is for ten minutes, without counting or lengthening it.
Then walk once around the temple slowly, and leave without asking for anything. If you are going up to Kedarnath the next morning, this is a good way to begin the climb.