Govardhan Math

Purvamnaya Sri Govardhana Pitham or Govardhan Math is one amongst the four cardinal pithams established by the philosopher-saint Adi Shankara to preserve and propagate Hinduism and Advaita Vedanta, the doctrine of non-dualism. Located in Puri in Odisha, India, it is the Eastern Āmnāya Pītham amongst the five pithams, with the others being the Sringeri Śārada Pīṭhaṃ (Karnataka) in the South, Dvārakā Śāradā Pītham (Gujarat) in the West, Badari Jyotirmaṭha Pīṭhaṃ (Uttarakhand) in the North .It is associated with the Jagannath temple. Their Vedantic mantra or Mahavakya is Prajñānam brahma (Consciousness is supreme being) and as per the tradition initiated by Adi Shankara it holds authority over the Rigveda. The head of the matha is called Shankarayacharya, the title derives from Adi Shankara.

The deities here are Jagannath (Vishnu) and the goddess is Vimala (Bhairavi). There are Shri Vigrahas of Govardhananatha Krishna and Ardhanareshvara Shiva installed by Adi Shankara.

The whole of the Eastern part of the Indian subcontinent is considered as the territory of Sri Govardhan Peeth. This includes the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh till Rajamundry, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Telangana, Tripura, Mizoram, and Uttar Pradesh till Prayag. The countries Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan as well as the Southeast Asian and Tibetan regions, are also considered spiritual territory of the math. Puri, Prayagraj, Gaya and Varanasi are some of the holy places under this Math.