The Himalayas have been revered as the abode of divinity, since the dawn of Indian religious thought. Several venerated pilgrimage sites dot the foothills and the peaks of the Himalayas. The Ganges, revered as a holy river originates in the glaciers in the unsurmountable heights of the mighty Himalayan ranges. Most noteworthy of the Himalayan pilgrimage sites are Badrinath and Kedarnath.