It is okay if some people find Mount Kailash just a very interesting mountain, because it is certainly that. But to many, it is much more. This massif with a base of stark black granite and a sedimentary top, is overlaid with a cap of snow, history, myth, illusion and spirituality. With a technical interest in parallax and perspectives in relation to mountain flanks, I have for some reason long believed that Kailash is the one mountain – 'himal' – which looked more or less the same from all sides. This was clearly not true, but that is what I thought.
Without doubt, I had to go on a circumambulation – kora or parikrama – to confirm this personal presumption, but somehow never managed to over the years. Even though it has become easier to make this loftiest of pilgrimages, due to the internal combustion engine, helicopter rotors, and the roads and bridges that take one very close.
I recently found the opportunity to do a vicarious kora, through the medium of Deb Mukharji's just published work, Kailash and Manasarovar: Visions of the Infinite (Nepalaya, 2009). And, Jai bam bhole! was I wrong. You could have told me that the massif of Kang Rinpoche (Ti se for the Bon) has distinct six facets that become visible during the circumambulation. I now know.
The author and photographer is a retired Indian diplomat and ambassador to Nepal in his last posting. This citizen from New Delhi has produced a fine tribute to a mountain in Tibet, under the aegis of a Kathmandu-based publisher – a thoroughly Southasian venture. Over three decades, Mukharji nurtured his interest on Kailash and the nearby Raksas and Manas lakes, taking inspiration and perspective from the Bon, Buddhist, Hindu, Jain and Tantrik traditions.