The Sacred Mountain: The Complete Guide to Tibet's Mount Kailas

The Sacred Mountain: The Complete Guide to Tibet's Mount Kailas

Mount Kailas-the most sacred mountain in the world. Uncannily symmetrical, this remote and remarkable peak located in the forbidden land of Tibet might have been built by superhuman hands. It stands out of primordial hands. It stands out from a primordial landscape: horizontally stratified plinth thousands of feet high, crowned with a perfect cone of pure snow.

To Hindus, it is the Throne of the great god Shiva. Buddhists associate it with Chakrasamvara, a powerful Tantric deity, and with the sage Milarepa, who fought a magic duel there with a shaman priest in ancient times. To the Bonpo, the followers of the indigenous religion of Tibet, it is the giant crystal on which their founder, Thonpa Shenrab, descended to earth from the skies.

For more than a millennium, Buddhist, Hindu and Bonpo pilgrims have been visiting this Throne of the Gods and performing pious circumambulation around it. John Snelling recounts their difficult and dangerous pilgrimages and analyzes the spiritual significance of Kailas and of sacred mountains in general. He also retells the tales of the handful of Western travellers who reached Kailas between 1715 and 1949-an exclusive club of intrepid explorers, mountaineers, big game hunters and officials. Then in 1984, the Chinese authorities allowed Westerners freer access; so the tales of a new wave of contemporary travellers have in this completely revised and enlarged edition been added to those of their great precursors.

The new edition of this acclaimed travel book is particularly indispensable for all those wishing to visit Mount Kailas, for it contains a comprehensive Guide for Travellers as well as up-to-date maps. For the armchair traveller, there is much to absorb and thrill too-not least the lavish array of photographs, many in colours.

About the Author : 

John Snelling was born in Wales in 1943 and brought up there as well as in London and Canterbury. After graduating in both English and Philosophy, he lectured at Maidstone College of Art for several years before leaving to travel to the East, where began a serious interest in Oriental religion and philosophy.

From 1980 to 1984 he was General Secretary of the Buddhist Society and worked with the late Christmas Humphreys Q. C., who founded the Society in 1924. for 8 years from 1980, he edited The Middle Way, the journal of the Buddhist Society. It was founded in 1926 and its distinguished previous editors include the late Alan Watts, whose early writings John Snelling has edited. In addition, he has worked extensively for BBC radio and television as both scriptwriter and presenter. For recreation, he enjoys watercolour painting in the traditional English manner.