Devprayag

Devprayag, in the Tehri Garhwal hills about 70 km up the Rishikesh-Badrinath highway, is one of the most sacred river confluences in India: the last and greatest of the Panch Prayag, the five holy sangams of the Garhwal Himalaya.

• Here the green Alaknanda, descending from the Badrinath valley, meets the paler Bhagirathi flowing down from Gangotri and Gaumukh, and below their meeting the united river is for the first time called the Ganga — so Devprayag is revered, quite literally, as the birthplace of the Ganges.
• The two rivers join at a dramatic rocky sangam ringed by steep terraced hillsides and old stone houses, with bathing steps and iron chains for pilgrims to hold against the powerful current; a footbridge crosses to give the classic view of the two-toned waters merging.
• Above the confluence stands the town's spiritual anchor, the Raghunath Temple, an ancient stone shrine to Lord Rama built in the towering Nagara style and counted among the oldest temples of the region, traditionally linked to Adi Shankaracharya and revered in the Vaishnava tradition.
• Devprayag is also the ancestral home of the tirth-purohits (pandas) of the Badrinath shrine, and it holds a quiet scientific heritage in its old astronomical observatory.
• As a Garhwal pilgrim town on the Char Dham route it is vegetarian and alcohol-free by custom, with simple sattvic pilgrim food — puri-sabzi, kachori, chai and temple prasad — served in the lanes near the sangam and along the highway; confirm any specific eatery is pure-vegetarian on arrival.
• Best visited September to November and March to June; the town is a natural halt on the way to Badrinath and Kedarnath, and the monsoon (July-August) brings landslide risk on the mountain roads.