The saligrama or shaligrama is the most sacred stone worshipped by vaishnavas and is used to worship Vishnu in a symbolic form (i.e., God without actual form) as a saligrama. Use of the shaligrama is similar to the use of lingam, a symbolic form of Shiva. The Shaligram Stone File links The following pages link to this file: Saligrama ... Vaishnavism is the branch of Hinduism in which Vishnu or one of his avatars (i. ... Jump to: navigation, search For other uses of the name Vishnu, see Vishnu (disambiguation). ... Linga worship (Estate of Cynthia and Harlen Welsh) Lingam or Linga (Sanskrit: Gender as in purusha-linga : Phallus) by some etymologists, is used as a symbol for the worship of the Hindu God Shiva. ... Aghora redirects here. ...

The stone is an ammonite fossil found in river Gandaki (Near Muktinath) in Nepal. According to Hindu tradition this stone is the shelter for a small insect known as vajra-keeta that cuts through the shaligrama stone and stays inside it, in reality the Saligram stones are actually fossils of common ammonites that lived hundreds of million years ago when the Himalayas was an ocean floor. This article is about the marine animal. ... Jump to: navigation, search Muktinath, a sacred place both for Hindus as well as the Buddhists, is located at an altitude of 3,710 meters, at the summit of Dhaulagiri (part of the Himalayas) , Mustang district, Kingdom of Nepal. ... Jump to: navigation, search It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Hindu people. ... Perspective view of the Himalaya and Mount Everest as seen from space looking south-south-east from over the Tibetan Plateau. ...

The marks made by the shell of the ammonite gives the shaligrama a special significance, with the pattern often representing that of Sudarshan Chakra (the Discus of Lord Vishnu).
Shaligrams come in different colors, such as red, blue, yellow, black, greeen. The yellow and blue varities are considered more sacred while the black ones are more common. Shaligrams of different shapes are often associated with different incarnations of Lord Vishnu (such as Narasimha Avatar, Kurma Avatar and so on).
According to vaishnavas the shaligram is the dewelling place of Lord Vishnu and any one who keeps it must worship it daily, he must also adhere to strict rules such as not touching the shaligrama without bathing, never placing the shaligrama on the ground, avoiding non-vaishnavaite (or non-satvic) food and not indulging in bad practices. // Introduction In Hinduism, Narasimha (man-lion), also known as Narasingh, is one of the avatars of Vishnu. ... In Hinduism, Kurma was the second avatar of Vishnu. ...

A broken or damaged shaligrama is not to be worshipped under any circumstance. Lord Krishna himself mentions the qualities of shaligrama to Yudhishtra in Mahabharata.
Not all shaligramas are considered auspicious, some are very sacred, some are even considered to bring bad luck, infamy, disease, while others are considered to bring good luck, money, peace and so on. Therefore care must be taken before obtaining any shaligram for household worship. This article is about Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu. ... ... The Mahabharata (Devanagari: महाभारत, phonetically Mahabharata - see note), sometimes just called Bharata, is one of the two major ancient Sanskrit epics of India, the other being the Ramayana. ...

Temples can use any kind of shaligrams (good or bad) in their rituals.
The place where shaligrama stone is found is itself known by that name and is one of the 108 sacred pilgrimage places for the vaishnavas outside India. In fact such is the auspiciousness of this place that the puranas mention that any stone from this land is equally sacred to shaligrama. The Puranas (Sanskrit पुराण, purāṇá ancient, since they focus on ancient history of the universe) are part of Hindu Smriti; these religious scriptures discuss varied topics like devotion to God in his various aspects, traditional sciences like Ayurveda, Jyotish, cosmology, concepts like dharma, karma, reincarnation and many others. ...

Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...