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मुक्ति क्षेत्र

Nilkanth Varni and the sacred ground of his tapasya

Pulhashram and Muktinath — as remembered in scripture, and as the living sampraday has long known them.

Descend

Among every sacred site on the subcontinent, Bhagwan Swaminarayan — as Nilkanth Varni — chose this place for the deepest tapasya of his van vicharan.

Nilkanth Varni in tap mudra
Chapter 44

Four months of tap mudra

On the banks of the Kali Gandaki, he stood on one leg — both hands raised, chanting the Gayatri.

The Satsangi Jeevan records, across thirty-six shlokas, that Nilkanth Varni consciously chose Pulhashram — where Bharat, son of Rishabhadeva, had once performed his penance. He bathed thrice daily in the Gandaki. He survived on fruits and leaves. For four months, the discipline did not break.

On Prabodhini Ekadasi, Suryanarayan appeared. The boons asked there shaped the sampraday that would follow.

Satsangi Jeevan  ·  Prakran 1  ·  Chapter 44

A kshetra where Vishnu manifests
by his own will.

Svayam-vyakta · one of only eight in the Hindu canon

Shaligram with sacred tilak
The Shaligram

The stone form of Vishnu

Every Shaligram shila in every Vaishnava home comes from one river on earth.

The Kali Gandaki rises in upper Mustang and carries down, from Jurassic Tethys strata, the ammonite fossils that become Shaligram. The geological conditions that produce them exist nowhere else.

Bhagwan Swaminarayan performed Shaligram puja. Across two centuries, every satsangi's ghar mandir has been in unbroken contact with that same worship — sourced from this single river.

The Living Tradition

From the river, into every ghar mandir

The shilas classified in the shastras — Lakshmi-Narayan, Shivling-roop, Garud-roop, and others — each with their own marks and mode of worship.

Shaligram shilas with haldi and kumkum offerings
Anointed with haldi and kumkum
Shaligram in the Kali Gandaki riverbed
In the Kali Gandaki riverbed
Garud-roop Shaligram
Garud-roop
Shivling-roop Shaligram
Shivling-roop
22 Jan
Ram Mandir
consecration, 2024
2
Shilas from the
Kali Gandaki
1
Ram Lalla murti,
carved from them
Dr. Chalise
On the selection
committee
Mukti Nath

The Lord of Liberation, named

At 3,710 metres. The sole Divya Desam beyond India's borders — sung by the Alvars as Thiru Saligramam more than a thousand years ago.

Muktinath temple under blue sky
The pagoda
Where Nilkanth Varni did puja
Muktinath in winter snow
Winter darshan
Beneath the peak in snow
The Shikshapatri

Pilgrimage is not recommended.
It is commanded.

Bhagwan Swaminarayan wrote the Shikshapatri in his own hand in 1826 — two hundred and twelve shlokas to be read daily.

In shloka eighty-three, the instruction is direct: all followers shall undertake pilgrimage. The verb form in the Sanskrit is imperative — anukul, concordant, not optional.

Among Bhagwan's one hundred and eight sacred names, one is Tirthkrute — the one who creates places of pilgrimage. The attribute itself is woven into his divine identity.

तीर्थकृते नमः

"Om Shri Tirthkrute Namaha."
One who creates places of pilgrimage.

108 Sacred Names · Shikshapatri Bhashya
K
On the scholarship

Dr. Kul Raj Chalise

Scholar · Kali Gandaki Corridor

Three decades of field research in the sacred geography of the Kali Gandaki, beginning in the 1990s. In early 2023, Dr. Chalise served on the committee that identified and authenticated the Shaligram shilas later consecrated in the Ram Lalla murti at Ayodhya.

His family has lived in the region of Muktinath for generations. This presentation draws on his research and is offered to the sampraday as an act of seva.

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A scholar-led yatra
September 2026

Dr. Chalise will guide a small gathering of families through the Kali Gandaki corridor to Pulhashram and Muktinath. Scholar-mediated, family-suitable, small in size.

Inquiries are welcomed without obligation.