Becoming A Mountain - Stephen Alter

 

Stephen Alter is an author of non-fiction and fiction, who was born and raised in India, where he grew up as the son of American missionaries. He lives in Littleton, Colorado and in Landour, India. Landour, a small cantonment town contiguous with Mussoorie, is about 35 km from the city of Dehradun in the northern state of Uttarakhand in India. The twin towns of Mussoorie and Landour, together, are a well-known British Raj-era hill station in northern India.

Mussoorie is one of the most beautiful hill stations in India, the place is endowed with the most scenic landscapes you will find anywhere in India and it is no surprise that it has earned the sobriquet, the Queen of Hills. The name Mussoorie is often attributed to a derivation of mansūr, a shrub which is indigenous to the area. The town is often referred to as Mansuri by Indians. In 1803 the Gorkhas under Umer Singh Thapa conquered the Garhwal and the Dehra, whereby Mussoorie was established.

Following an unexpected attack, which remains an unresolved mystery, and his fathers death, Stephen Alter undertook expedition to three major mountains, those, are the major chapter's in the book, though others too are covered in due course. 

Beginning with a Note on the Himalayas, the book covers as main topic, which are further subdivided:

• Flag Hill - (Distant Prayers)
• Nanda Devi (Chasing Bliss) - walking is writing with the feet - 'library inside, study out of the door' - Poet Wordsworth,  inspirations from walking outdoors'.  Tigers Nest, Bhutan. 
• Kailash (A Pilgrim's crossing)- Entering the Mandala, Frontiers of Faith, Trans-Himalaya, Brahma's dream, Upon the Treashold, Circling the summit, Cave of mysteries
• Bandarpunch (Returning Home) - To the North of Mussoorie, it appears the largest and easiest to identify. Hanuman got Sanjeevani booti from here. Hidden behind Bandarpunch is a third peak that is bearly visible, except from certain angles. Known as the 'Black peak' or 'Kaala Naag'(Black Cobra), it is the highest summit of the three. Together the monkeys tail and cobra's hood evoke a mysterious. allegorical landscapes, promising answer to eternal riddles. East of Bandarpunch the mountain concede a valley where the Bhagirathi tributary of the Ganga cuts a passage through the main thrust of the Himalaya. Further on, the Gangotri group and Kedarnath bulge up in a monumental heap of snow-capped ridges. But the peak that catches eye is Nanda Devi. 

These mountains represents three different aspects of the Himalayas. Bandarpunch offers healing and solace, while Nanda Devi promises ananda or happineess that releases us from anger, fear and doubt and Mount Kailash, beyond line of sight, marks an elusive threshold of transcendence. Each is linked to the other by a mysterious triangulation of the foul, an inner cartography that maps the routes to be followed. Trinity of sacred peaks signifying stages of search for reconciliation and recovery. They pull like the same primal impuse that carries a migratory bird across the Himalayas. A ride on the wings of a Himalayan griffon across the mountains, soaring from Bandarpunch to Nanda Devi, then follow a straight line towards Tibet, the trajectory of flight would take one directly to Kailash, no more than 300 kms away. 

When we travel, as Edmund Hillary reminds us, 'It's not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.'

Gretel Ehrlich from Wyoming in 'Questions of Heaven' summarises her experience after viewing paintings in New York and reading Himalayas to be 'the most beautiful mountain in the world' discovered a different view from her first destination being Mount Emei. Wholesale corruption of natural beauty beginning with the  'Stalinesque' architecture of the buildings in the town below, marauding monkeys, shrines to gods of greed, and rat-infested hotels. Summit flattened into a concrete arcade of tea stalls and gaudy souvenir shops with loudspeakers blaring Chinese pop music. Most of her stories are about disillusionment and the impositions of a modern industrial society on the once pristine face of Emei Shan. 'Everything we ae continually invites us to become one with nature'. Dust thou art to dust return, was not spoken of the soul. 

Mom & Me: Whether it be the ziggurats of Mesopotamia or the tiered pyramids of the Aztecs, Hindu temples, Christian and Muslim domes or Buddhist chortens, the architecture of faith attempts to replicate a mountain so that devotee enter its depth and worship at its core. 

Bhagavad Gita explains, 'When the sage climbs the heights of Yoga, he follows the path of work; but when he reaches the heights of Yoga, he is in the land of peace.' The Katha Upanishad echoes these thoughts with the exhortation: ' Awake, arise! Strive for the Highest, and be in the Light! Sages say the path is narrow and difficult to tread, narrow as the edge of a razor.' - This reminded be of Swami Vivekanada's quote - 'Awake, Arise and stop not till the goal is achieved. '

Nanda Devi is often translated as the 'bliss-giving goddess', though the Sanskrit word 'ananda' at the root of her name is better understood as 'contentment'. 'Darshan' releases from discontentment rather than evoking euphoria. Darshan does not require the intercession of a priest, so it is appealing. The act is unencumbered by liturgies, pious rhetoric or moralizing. Can appreciate the spiritual experience others claim through Darshan without accepting the theology and dogma. At Nanda Devi - mountain and goddess are inseparable. Topology and myth converge in a mysterious, multi-layered landscape of narratives where nature takes on may different forms, such as rock and ice, lichens and moss, air and sunlight, just as the gods assume their various permutations - Shiva, Bhairava, Rudra and Mahasu - consorting with feminine aspects of Uma, Maya, Parvati or Nanda all of them being one and the same. 

Similarly I have often wondered - first Shiva and then Shankaracharya - at various places - are they one and the same or different? 

Search for Nanda Devi (ND) begins at the Kauri pass, where the Curzon Trail crosses over into the Dhauliganga Valley above Joshimath. She is hidden behind the Pangarchula Ridge. Lata is the last village before the ND Sanctuary.  The route is referred to as the Curzon Trail as it was prepared for the viceroy of India in 1900, though he never made his intended visit. 

Enroute there is Roopkund with its mysterious legend and lore, and pilgrims who came to this place sacrificed themselves to the goddess by leaping from the cliffs of Junarali, above the lake; and those wanting to continue, brace themselves to a slippery, instable descent to Bhugubasa.  Even in Kedarnath, people do that from Bhairav Jhamp.

Formation of the Himalayas is one of the greatest creation myths ever told. Gaia's dance displacing oceans, a process that continues even today, mountain eternally reaching up to meet the sky. 

While flying over the Himalayas one is overawed by the vast expanse of snow-caked ridges and summits extending form one Horizon to the next stretching beyond the limits of history and human imagination. It seem as infinite as an ocean, frozen at the climax of a storm. Tsunami of ice and rock rearing up. 

His Majesty the King of Bhutan has decreed the Gross National Happiness is the primary objective of his Himalayan state. With an attempt to turn itself into a modern Shangri - La, a mountainous Eden that excludes all forms of discontentment and banishes sorrow. But authority dictates its own cheerful benevolence. Happiness isn't truth - too absolute a noun. Nor is it faith, which is a charade of human psyche. Peace might serve as a suitable synonym, though it leads in far too many directions. Happiness is a transient motion that can arise out of discipline and meditation to some. Surprising at the times when we least expect. View of mountains reduce human travails to insignificant proportions. Terrible things happen in beautiful places just as beautiful things happen in terrible places. Yet we are alive and grateful to be here. Destination here is Taktsang.  

'Walking' Henry David Thoreau's essay - is as much a sermon as an essay, exhorting us to get outdoors and discover our place in nature. 

Before the trip to Kailash, a picture of Shambala was procured from Kathmandu. Inside it like the petals of a lotus, were various scenes of human figures and buildings. It seemed an enchanted garden, the promised land, a country of eternal happiness.  During the time of Shambala all languages would be understood, and one could see with the third eye. 

'Yatra' means both pilgrimage and journey - when a 'Yatri' boards an airplane, bus or train in pursuit of business, pleasure or salvation, it fulfils that person's dharma and leads them on a quest, both secular and spiritual. 

Kailash itself is stark black granite, but the stones in the valley are variegated hues of every shade and texture extending deep into the earth? What lies above the surface appears to be huge and magnificent, but even more compelling must be the molten currents beneath the earth's crust, where the mountain foats upon a raft of magma. The geological forces that thrust Kailash into the sky hundreds of millennia ago also formed its subterranean structure, the buried weight of rock that provides its hidden foundation.  The colours in the landscape, the myriad shapes of rocks around, trail of footprints in the dust is like a giant sand mandala, with the sacred mountain at its axis. Created through aeons of erosion, it could easily be a natural diagram of the cosmos. Compared to Kailash, each of the boulders is a granule, and the mineral pigments create mysterious patterns, like a maze that leads beyond perception. The valleys and mountains around Kailash are believed to be full of terma,  buried texts and treasure that will be found when the time is right. Intended to be discovered at auspicious moments by protectors of the Dharma, tertons and oracles who reveal the truth contained in terma, thereby renewing and reaffirming the faith. Padmasambhava is said to have rescued Buddhism from occult and profane influences, including the so-called sorcery and shamanism of Bon tradition. Bon pilgrims shout  'Tashi Delek!', while Hindu Pilgrim chant 'Om Namah Shivaya!', and some with the prayer wheel. Most of the Tibetan pilgrim carry prayer beads, which slip silently between their fingers. 

There is the great Kailash temple in Ellora. The landscape in this treeless valley has a hypnotic quality. Rocks and boulders take on weird and magical shapes like an optical illusion. You experience trance walking here. Though ancient writers about being lost here, it seems impossible now, could be because of the crowd, and dozens of trails that separate and re-converge along the eastern bank of the Lha Chu River laid out over centuries by the wandering footsteps of pilgrims, each taking their own circuit around Kailash. 

As we walk towards the base camp, the tea shops- just a couple of them are large tents, outer fabric a sturdy green canvas, inner fly made of printed cotton, a floral pattern of blues and pinks. In the centr of the tent stands a cast-iron stove, where two cauldrons of tea are brewing slowly over smouldering yak dung. These tea shops are set up during the pilgrimage season, from end of May to October and is dismantled during winter when the Kora route is closed. 

Some Pilgrims circle Kailash in a single day, walking a total of 56 kilometres. Some prostrate themselves at every step, lying flat on their stomachs and progress by lengths of their body. Then there are men with wooden blocks in each hand and pads on knees but instead of flattening himself completely , they move forward in a tight squat, like a frog.  There are trail of garbage accumulated over many years. There seems to be an equation between faith and filth. Religion is nothing more than the detritus and debris of spirituality discarded on the refuse heaps of credulity. 

Each of the summits here has a name - Chenresi Ri, the peak of Avalokitshvara or Jampelyang Ri, the pinnacle of Manjushree. Though trial at feet is littered with trash summits rise up in pristine grandeur, inaccessible to man. There is a small pond called 'Mirror of Yama.' People discard cloths, and carry dozens of pebbles from the pass, tiny fragments of the mountain, each representing miniature version of Kailash. Norther face gives a feel of awe and reverence. Dolma La is a dramatic landscape but it does not move one. Just below Doma La is another pond, not more than 9 metres across. Hindus call this Gauri Kund and Buddhists refer to it as the Lake of Compassion. For most of the year it is frozen, except in summer when it is chalky green in colour. Some believe that it was here Ganesha's head was transplanted to that of Elephants.  From the crest of the pass, the trail cuts down a steep slope, traversing a field of rocks and boulders. Farther on, the Lham Chu Valley open up and leads one back towards Manasarovar, descending on foot. The path is too step for horses to carry riders to valley floor. East side of Kailash, unlike the other three sides, there are no telltale bands of rock and snow. Instead, this side of the peak is a pure white cone wedged between clefts in the ridges. Enroute there is Zutrul Phuk, a monastery and settlement where the poet-saint Milarepa took shelter in a cave and meditated for many years. A few photographs of aged monks are on display but no pictures of the Dalai Lama, whose image is forbidden in Tibet. This side has some vegitations and plants. There is a vulture flying above - which is believed to be Garuda, vehicle of Vishnu. Finally back to the small settlement called Tangsar. 

Healing light, Jwala booti, magical herb. Despite our doubts and disbelief, the spiritual radiance of a mountain flows off its glaciers and shines like a beacon of eternity. in the course of acnt and retreat to Bandarpunch, one can see various summits like that of Srikantha and a dozen other mountains above. This mountain can be viewed on the way to Yamunotri. The name of Bandarpunch properly applies only to the highest peaks of this mountain, all the subordinate peads and ridges have their own peculiar names. Jamnotri has reference only to the sacred spot. According to native account there are four peaks, only two to be seen from south-west. The travel path is driving from Mussoorie to Uttarkashi, then further up the Ganga, to Dodital passing Gangori, there is the Darwa pass. Mountains rise above the Ganga. They wait at Sukhi to begin the journey. Base camp is Phurbu. 

Mountaineering is different from trekking. Acclimatization is important. Tom Longstaff, one of the Himalayan pioneers, wrote in his memoir, This My Voyage, 'To know a mountain, you must sleep upon it.'