Mount Kailas

To see the greatness of a mountain, one must keep one's distance; to understand its form, one must move around it; to experiece its moods, one must see it at sunrise and sunset, at noon and at midnight, in sun and in rain, in snow and in storm, in summer and in winter and in all the other seasons. He who can see the mountain like this comes near to the life of the mountain, a life that is as intense and varied as that of a human being. Mountains grow and decay, they breathe and pulsate with life. They attract and collect invisible energies from their surroundings; the forces of the air, of the water, of electricity and magnetism; they create winds, clouds, thunderstorms, rains, waterfalls, and rivers. They fill their surroundings with active life and give shelter and food to innumerable beings. Such is the greatness of mighty mountains.

The mountain stands so completely isolated in the center of the Trans-Himalayan range that it is possible to travel around it within two or three days; and its shape is so regular it is as if it were the dome of a gigantic temple, rising above a number of equally architectural forms of temple-shaped mountains which form its base. And as every Indian temple has its sacred water-tank, so at the sountern foot of Kailas there are two sacred lakes, Manasarovar and Rakastal, of which the former is shaped like the sun and represents the hidden forces of light, while the other is curved like the crescent moon and represents the hidden forces of the night.

The solar and lunar symbolism of the sacred lakes is illustrated in Tibetan pictures by showing the sundisk in the sky above the circular shape of Manasasrovar, and the waning moon above the crescent-shaped Rakastal. These sun and moon symbols are used in every Tibetan scroll-painting (thang-ka) in which Buddhas, deities, or saints are depicted.

Mount Kailas represents the axis of the spiritual universe, rising through innumerable spheres or planes, indicated by the actual horizontal geological strata of the mountain, which is as regular and distinct as that of an Indian temple.1

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1.Heart of Asia; Memoirs from the Himalayas
by Nicholas Roerich - excerpts printed with permission of the publisher

The painting at the top of the article is by Nicholas Roerich and used with permission of the Nicholas Roerich museum in N.Y.

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Offering to the Teacher
by Nicholas Roerich

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