Walking in Clouds - Kavitha Yaga Buggana

Walking in Clouds - A Journey to Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar by Kavitha Yaga Buggana was my 56th of 2021; reminded me of my journey, and when Rashmi recommended this, could not resist. So here I go.

A Journey to a holy place can happen only if the traveler is called by the divine. So is the belief. So It materialized for the friends the author and her friend Pallu, and a third one Prarthana tagged in later. 

When you walk for hours and hours , your body become a thing you carry. Your bones drag you down, your muscles  are a series of stretching  and contracting aches. Daily she walks around 9 hours  while some finish the distance in 5 hours. It takes as long as it takes for each. 

Karnali is the longest river in Nepal and starts  in the Lake Manasarovar area and eventually  merge with the River Ganga in India.

This journey means something  different  to each of us. To Pallu and Kavita, it meant adventurer, the beauty.  To the pilgrims,  the journey itself,  is a walk in the shadows of God. 

For decades , this dream was an impossible  one for most Indians.  The Kailash area was closed to pilgrims  and visitors  1962 onwards. The ban reflected the worsening  relationship  between  India and China. In 1959, the chinese government  protested  the sanctuary India had given to the Fourteenth  Dalai Lama after he fled to India on account  of uprising  in  Lhasa. The area was re-open in 1980, just after the start of the Chinese economic reforms.  But permits were granted only to a limited  number of previous screened visitors. The batch of visitors  visited in 1981. 

The two main paths in the Buddhist world are the Theravada path and the Mahayana path. The Theravada path is practisd in Sri Lanka, Burma and other Southern Asian Countries. Based on the Pali canon of Buddha's teachings, Theravada is the stricter of the two and emphasises the goal of enlightenment and liberation from samsara or the material world. The Mahayana path is practiced in China, Japan and other northern Asian countries. Based on the Pali cannon, it also draws from other Buddhist  text which are composed mainly in Sanskrit. Mahayana emphasizes the attainment of the Bodhisattva state. Bodhisattvas are highly compassionate and spiritually evolved beings who delay their own enlightenment so they can help others. The Vajrayana path, a form of Mahayana the emphasises tantric practices, is prevalent in Tibet and the Himalayan region. The Yalbang monastery belongs to the Nyingma sect, which is the oldest of Vajrayana Buddhism. In Mahayana Buddhism, 'Om Mani Padme Hum.' these syllables encapsulate the essence of all the teachings of the Buddha. It points to the 'dependence on the practice of a path which is an indivisible union of method and wisdom; you can transform your impure body, speech and mind into the pure exalted body, speech and mind of Buddha. 

Tibet is the roof of the world. China is 2.5 hours ahead of Nepal. The word border bears such a strong meaning of separation, but when you are at the borderline the meaning seems to disappear, there is earth on both sides. 

Kailash is physically removed and structurally different from bother mountains standing out as if dipped in snow. While Mansarovar, the Lake of God's, is sacred, the water of Rakshas Tal are said to be poisonous. Mansarovar is depicted as a circular sun-lake and Rakshas Tal as a semi circular moon lake. Mansa means consciousness and Sarovar mean Lake.  Sun and moon, God's and Demons, sacred and poisonous sit side by side in the shadows of mount kailash. Rakshas Tal water it's salt water is so blue, it looks unnatural. To our right is the south face of mount kailash. Travellers must walk around the mountain in an elliptical path, like planets traversing around sun, Buddhist call this Kora,  Hindus call Pradakshina or parikrama. Both believe going around it, means going around the Universe, and it is the center of the physical and spiritual universe. Most Shiva temples are in the shape of Kailash and you cannot go round around it in full, and there is mostly pond near Shiva temple, symbolizing the Lake. 

Shiva has many aspects each denoting a certain quality or mood. As Sadashivs, his dance is benevolent and destroy illusion, so truth can be realised. As Neelakantha, he is the protector, one whose throat has been made blue by the poison he drank from the oceans in order to save the world. As the ancient pre aryan Rudra, he is the partron of good and bad, of kings and thieves. As the terrible Kala Bhairava, he roans cremation grounds and smears himself with the ashes of the dead until he turns blue and starts dancing frnzied and uncontrolled, burning everything so new things can come to be. As Kala Bhairava, he is the supreme destroyer, representing Kala (time), the greatest annihilator of all. In some versions Buddha Demchok of Kailash is said to be the Buddhist version of Kala Bhairava. Hindu worship different gods for different reason and all Gods for the same reason. 

In Chinese school History it is taught that Dalai Lama was troubling Tibetans, and they were happy to be rid of him, and wanted that. The monks were also soldiers. A war does not justify the destruction of an entire culture. The monastery was not only a place of worship, but also a centre for Tibetian cultural life, for its dance, music and art; for its community events and its literature. With the destruction of the monasteries, an entire way of life has been wiped out. After the cultural revolution, a generation of Tibetans grew up without learning their own language in school or their own history. A destruction of mental landscape as well. 

Now they are building roads, to reach Kailash. The travel would be much more easier. This is a land of contrasts. The geography is composed of endless desert of soil and rock on which the vast lakes of Rakshas Tal and Manasarovar are perched, like birds of paradise. Four rivers - the sutlej, the Brahmaputra, the Indus and the karnali - originate around here. A waterfall of melted ice cascades from an immense height. The Bon are the original inhabitants of Tibet. To them Kailash is an indestructible crystal mountain at the centre of the world. It is the place of their God, Shenrab. In prostrating themselves, they are worshipping the earth on which they walk. Every stone, every blade of grass, every insect on Kailash is sacred. 

Reality and truth are not always the same, they do not necessarily oppose or preclude one another. The myths of Shiva, the lake and the mountain, Buddhist stories and visualisations, the feeling of a mountain rising, none of these need be literal in order to be considered truthful. Such moments simply point to a truth as complex as the people who seek to understand them. 

Nothing in this world is eternal and everything is Transient.