Since many sympathizers of the ruling party have been trying to keep the southies away from the Uttarakhand temple takeover by stating that south indians are not the stakeholders in those temple, I wish to share an interesting tidbit.

1200 years ago, an azhwar from my hometown in South TN went on a pilgrimage to North India. He visited alot of temples and composed various tamizh verses about the same. These verses also give a description of Badri and Devaprayag and are recited in all Srivaishnava temples

These verses of the azhwar stand as one of oldest testimonies for the existence of Badrinath and Devaprayag temples. Infact the existence of these verses from the time predating Adishankara debunks the recent claims of Badri being a Buddhist shrine before the visit of shankara.

While singing about Devaprayag, he recounts his entire pilgrimage as follows:
வடதிசைமதுரைசாளக்கிராமம் வைகுந்தம்துவரைஅயோத்தி*
இடமுடைவதரியிடவகையுடைய எம்புருடோ த்தமனிருக்கை*
தடவரையதிரத்தரணிவிண்டிடியத் தலைப்பற்றிக்கரைமரம்சாடி*
கடலினைக்கலங்கக்கடுத்திழிகங்கைக் கண்டமென்னும்கடிநகரே*

Meaning - Mathura, Saalagraama (Muktinath), Dwaraka, Ayodhya and Badrikasrama are all residences of Purushotthama who lives on his own at Thirukkandamennumkadinagar (Devaprayag) where Ganga flows so turbulently sending shivers through mountains..

..cutting the earth into two and letting the trees fall into the valleys and stirring even the vast deep oceans

I have been reading alot about Badri and other temples for the past one week and yet to come across any literature which predates these verses from Divya Prabandham. Infact one other azhwar from central TN visited Badri during the same century.

Thus as a follower of vaishnava sampradaya who hails from the hometown of an azhwar whose verses are one of the oldest testimonies of Badri and Devaprayag, I have a deeper association with those temples.

No member of a state apparatus which is merely 20 yrs old or supporter of a party which is 40 yrs old can question this bond which has been existing for more than 1200 yrs. Those temples were, are and will always remain our temples just like every other temple across the country