Sunday, December 9, 2001		Article

MOUNT Kailas and Lake Manasarovar stand the holiest among all the geographical places of pilgrimage in the Land of Snows. Not only that, but they are held deeply in reverence both by Tibetans, such as Bonpos, and Buddhists, and by Hindus alike. For centuries, believers of these religious systems have journeyed to this sacred area, formely dotted with several temples and monasteries, in order to perform the traditional circumambulation (Tib. bskor-ba, Sanskrit parikrama) so as to gain spiritual merits and ensure themselves a better life in the next birth. In the area of western Tibet (mNa’-ris) the pyramidal centre — the mountain identified with the fabulous mount Ri-rab 1 Hun-po, Meru or Sumeru, the axis mundi in the Bonpo, Buddhist, and Hindu scriptures.

Ramon Prats in Gans Ti Se’I Dkar C’ag (A Bon-Po Story of the Sacred Mountain Kailas and the Blue Lake Mansarovar).

Bhaktavatsalamanandam Shivamavahayamyaham.

"I invoke that Shambhu Shiva, who dwells on the summit of Kailas, is the consort of Goddess Parvati, and is the most exalted among all deities, who has been truly described by the Shastras, who is manifest in attributes although beyond attributes, whose greatness has been sung by the Vedas and the Shastras, who is ever praised even by Vishnu and Brahma, who is Himself the ultimate Bliss, and who is tender to his devotees."

On Infinite Effulgence, praise be to thee, Hail!... Thou who is water, fire, wind, ether too! Hail thou who creates all souls but is Himself uncreated. Hail thou the culmination of all souls, hail!... To the one who embodies within Himself the Vedic hymns and Vedic sacrifice, truth and untruth, light and darkness, joy and sorrow, the divided and undivided, the attachment and release, the beginning and ultimate end — to Him our songs of praise we sing. — Saint Manikkavasagar

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MATSYA Purana says Mount Kailas is in the Himalaya that has many bejewelled peaks. To its South is Elashram, to the North Saugandhik Parvat, to the South-East Shivgiri, to the North-West Kukudman mountain and to the West a mountain named Arun. From the first hills of mount Kailas has emerged a lake named Mandida, which is full of cool water. It is from this lake that the limpid Bhagirathi flows out. Its bank is a sacred and beautiful paradise, Kubera and king of the Yakshas, always lives on this mountain with Yakshas and Apsaras. Matsya Purana 214-A.

The greatest of Kailas has been described in scriptures like Vikhyad Purana, Varaha Purana. The Puranas also call it Gana Parvat and Ratadri.

According to Jain scriptures, the first Tirthankar Shri Rashabh Dev had attained absolution on mount Kailas. His son Bharat, the first universal conqueror, had built 72 golden Jain Shrines here in the name of 24 Tirthankaras who knew the past, present and the future. (Uttar Purana).

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If you could see the arch of his brow, the budding smile on lips red as the kovai fruit, cool, matted hair, the milky-white ash on coral skin and the beautiful golden foot raised up in dance, then even human birth on this widen earth would become a thing worth having. — Tirumurai

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The symbolism of Shiva Nataraja is religion, art and science merged as one. In God’s endless dance of creation, preservation, destruction and paired graces is hidden a deep understanding of our universe. Aum Namah Sivaya.

Nataraja, the King of Dance, has four arms. The upper right hand holds the drum from which creation issues forth. The lower right hand is raised in blessing, betokening preservation. The upper left hand holds a flame, which is destruction, the dissolution of form. The right leg, representing obscuring grace, stands upon Apasmarapurusha, a soul temporarily earth-bound by its own sloth, confusion and forgetfulness. The uplifted left leg is revealing grace, which releases the mature soul from bondage. The lower left hand gestures toward that holy foot in assurance that Shiva’s grace is the refuge for everyone, the way to liberation. The circle of fire represents the cosmos and especially consciousness. The all-devouring form looming above is Mahakala, "Great Time." The cobra around Nataraja’s waist is kundalini sakti, the soul-impelling cosmic power resident within all. Nataraja’s dance is not just a symbol. It is taking place within each of us, at the atomic level, this very moment. The Agamas proclaim, "The birth of the world, its maintenance, its destruction, the soul’s obscuration and liberation are the five acts of His dance."

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Kailas and Manasarovar remained unknown to the Western world until the eighteenth century, hidden behind some of the greatest natural barriers on earth. The first European to pass through the region was an Italian Jesuit missionary, Father Ippolito Desideri. In the winter of 1715 he crossed Western Tibet, a ‘vast, sterile and terrible desert’, following the course of the Tsangpo river all the way to Lhasa. On the way he passed Lake Manasarovar and a cloud-hidden mountain that he reported was sacred to the powerful Tantrik wizard Urghien’, or Padamasambhava.

The mountain was Kailas. A century later it became the key piece in a geographic puzzle which was to intrigue European explorers for nearly another hundred years: the riddle of the sources of India’s four great rivers, which Hindu tradition placed at Lake Manasarovar. Beginning in 1812, a parade of explorers journeyed to remote Western Tibet, intent on filling in one of the last remaining blank spots of the nineteenth century’s world map. In 1812, William Moorcroft made the British discovery of Manasarovar. Subsequent visitors had mixed motivations; there were Victorian-era adventures, explorers of the Raj, and sportsmen sneaking across the Tibet border for a good hunt. One Englishman launched a rubber boat on the sacred waters of Manasarovar, an indignity for which the local Tibetan official reportedly lost his head.

The boldest and most persevering of the lot was the Swede Sven Hedin, whose explorations took in a previously unknown 65,000 square miles of Western Tibet. On his 1907 expedition to the Kailas region, he discovered the source of the Indus river and clarified the sources of the Brahmaputra and the Sutlej. (He also became the first Western to follow the pilgrim path around Kailas.) Hedin’s victory was tarnished by accusations of exaggeration when he returned to Europe in 1909. Regardless of this, he had succeeded in solving the mystery of the four rivers. The Indus, the Sutlej, the Brahmaputra and the Karnali all had their sources in the small corner of Western Tibet dominated by Kailas — a geographic imporbability with uncanny parallels to Mount Meru, from whose summit are said to flow four great rivers which water Asia. — Russell Johnson and Kerry Moran

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Once upon a time the king of Langak Chho (Ravan Hrid or Rakshas Tal) wanted to take Kailas to keep it in Rakshas Tal. He bound the mountain on all sides with ropes and prepared to fly away with it. Through his divine sight Lord Buddha came to know about this. So he and his five hundred Boddhisattvas took the form of swans and they flew to Sershung. There the Lord performed such a beautiful dance that the king was enchanted. He watched the dance and did not realise when the night was over. In the morning he strapped Kailas to his back but before he could lift the mountain, Lord Buddha pressed it down on all sides with his feet and cursed the king to become a stone. That king-turned stone is the mountain called Gombofeng. A line that is seen at the waist of mount Kailas is considered Gombofeng’s rope by the Tibetans and Ravan’s rope by the Hindus. To the West of the Summit of Kailas is a mountain called Tachung Mapgya (500 foot prints), on which one can see a number of footprints.Excerpted from An Odyssey in Tibet by Tarun Vijay, published by Ritwik.