GANGOTRI, mountain temple in Garhwal state, Panjab ; lat. 30° 59' N., long. 78° 59' E., and 10,319 feet above the sea. It stands on the right bank of the Bhagirathi or Ganges, 8 miles from its source, in a, small bay or inlet, surrounded by a, wall of unliewn stone. The temple is a square bailding about 20 feet high, containing small statues of Gauga, Bhagirathi, and other mythological personages connected with the spot. Near the temple the scenery is grand. Four peaks rise there, huge, lofty, covered with snow, and the river runs impetuously in its shingly bed, the stifled sound of the stones which it rolls along, mixing with the roar of its waters. Soorgarounee is the nearest of the peaks, and forms the western point of the great snowy hollow. Rudra Mina's. is the eastern and forms the other point ; but from that point' runs down a huge snowy shoulder, that seems to give off or end in the mountains that surround, and form a great un broken, though unequal, snowy ridge, bounding and confining the glen of the Bliagirathi. The
other three peaks form different points in the back of the immense hollow, and altogether com pose one of the most magnificent and venerable mountains, perhaps, that the world can produce.
Below Gauri Kundah the river falls over a rock of considerable height in its bed, and continues tumbling over a succession of petty cascades or rapids nearly all the way to Mance ka Gad'h. Above the debouch of the Ked or Ganga, the bed widens into a small shingly space, in which the river rapidly rolls. A bridge has been thrown across, and above the bridge is the small temple dedicated to the goddess Ganga or Bhagirathi. It is built on the sacred stone on which, as Hindus believe, Bhagirathi used to worship Siva Mahadoo.
B. Fraser in Jam. Ed. Journ. 1820, iii. p. 229 ; Fraser's Himalaya Mountains ; Herbert ; Hodgson.