Monday, July 2, 2001
On the Kora
(27 June)
For weeks we'd been hearing pretty much the same story again and again
from different travelers. "We did the kora," they'd say, "but the
weather was so bad we only saw Kailash once." Or, "It was nice, but it
rained, snowed, and hailed on us every day." The worst report came the
morning we were preparing the embark on our circuit around the mountain:
"We went almost half-way and waited for two days to see the north face,
but the weather was so terrible we gave up and came back."
Things did not look good for us as we donned our backpacks to start the
kora; the rain was pouring down and dark clouds blanketed the sky.
"Would you be disappointed if we do the kora without ever seeing Kailash?"
I asked Juliette as we began walking through the downpour.
"No," she answered after a moment, "I don't expect seeing Kailash,
so how could I be disappointed?"
We both have a tendency to make our expectations as low as possible
so that we can be pleasantly surprised if anything goes the way we
hope. I walked on, comfortable that if we hadn't made each other
miserable with complaining already, we weren't likely to start now.
Slowly the rain tapered off and the clouds began to thin. As we reached
the first big cairn topped with hundreds of prayer flags, the sun
revealed itself simultaneously with the instantly recognizable
southern face of Mount Kailash. We were only an hour and a half into
the kora, and Kailash had given us his first blessing.
It's funny to think of the concepts of pilgrimage and circumambulation
from an American perspective. In India and Tibet they're so much a part
of the culture that nobody bothers explaining the significance, and so
I suppose I've made up a few ideas of my own to fill in the blanks.
In India, there's really no distinction between a vacation and a religious
pilgrimage. What would be a family road trip to the Grand Canyon in the
States is a pilgrimage to Gangotri, the source of the holy Ganga, in India.
You're just as likely to see a pudgy kid dropping his ice cream wrapper
on the ground in either case, and I think you're just as likely to have a
deep personal experience in either case too. Indian culture happens to
provide an elaborate structure with which to frame that experience, while
American culture provides a few powerful authors like Thoreau who write
about their own experiences, a flourishing New Age lexicon with which
you can analyze your experience, and a lot of expensive distractions
so you can forget about it. But either way, it's a pilgrimage.
For me, an important aspect of a pilgrimage is the process of getting
there. This trip was more about getting to Kailash than it was about
being there. If it had been easy, it wouldn't have been as powerful,
and I wouldn't have grown as much through the experience. The really
unique and amazing thing about Kailash is that there is no easy way
to get there. Even the richest pilgrims have to confront the altitude
and the weather -- you can't buy Kailash. And, Juliette reminds me,
they also have to confront their attachment to money.
For Hindus and Tibetans, Mount Kailash holds a deep religious
significance, presented in their scriptures and mythology. I don't
subscribe to any particular doctrine emotionally, so the significance
to me is merely in its natural beauty and symbolic power -- but by
dedicating an ordeal, an intense physical and emotional experience,
to this mountain, I imbue it with the power of my own purification.
I allow my suffering to be transformed into something positive,
steering my mind towards a symbol of good. That's how I think about
the concept of pilgrimage, anyway.
Circumambulation is a little less clear to me. Literally, it means
walking in a circule, which already sounds a bit fishy to a western
mind. Indians call it "parikarma," and Tibetans say "kora." Hence,
the Kailash kora is walking in a circle around Kailash. Part of
visiting any Hindu temple or Tibetan stupa is to walk around it
(clockwise), often three times. So the question is, why walk in
a circle around a mountain? In the west, our inclination would be
to climb the dang thing -- stop all that wlaking in circles and
get the job done already. I don't know the answer, but I'd like to
make one up. Perhaps it's related to the symbolism of power: if you
climb a mountain, symbolically you conquer it -- you assert your
own power over nature. On the other hand, if you walk around the
mountain you show it respect -- you assert your awe of its power.
That's how I felt walking around Kailash, at any rate; the mountain
held the power of my experience -- the weather, water sources,
and even whether he chose to show himself.
And he did choose to show himself; as often as we glanced in his
direction he proudly but calmly matched our gaze. The weather was
so amazing that we ended up taking six days to do the trek, each
night sleeping under the white glow of his snow cap.
The highest point on the kora is nearly in the middle, a pass called
Drolma-la after a Tibetan Goddess, covered with colorful prayer flags.
It was a difficult climb up to 5600 meters, a new high for both of
us. On the way up we'd stopped to rest, and saw an Indian man climb
steadily towards us. He stopped and stared for a moment, then approached
us.
"Are you Shiva?" he asked me.
I figured he was joking -- Shiva is a Hindu god who has dreadlocks
from meditating in caves in the Himalayas for so long, and Mount
Kailash is supposed to be his home. "Perhaps an incarnation," I
smiled back at him.
"Oh, I thought you were Shiva and Parvati," he explained elatedly;
Parvati is Shiva's wife. It turned out this Indian man was a swami
on his 121st circuit around Kailash -- perhaps he was looking a little
too hard for a holy vision when he saw me and Juliette. He'd done one
of his parikarmas with full length prostrations, bowing to stretch
fully on the ground, then stepping forward the length of his body
and bowing again. It took him 20 days to prostrate for the entire
56 kilometers of the kora.
In spite of our not being gods, he treated us as he would if we had
been. He insisted we take some Indian snacks as an offering to Shiva,
then he accepted some back as a blessing. I can't think of a higher
compliment from a Hindu swami than to be mistaken for Shiva at
Mount Kailash.
When we finally reached Drolma-la, we made an offering of some tsampa
I'd brought from Dharamsala. May all Tibetans be free in their homeland.
To symbolize this sentiment, we formed tiny frisbees out of the barley
flour dough and flung them as far as we could -- a trick I'd learned
from my friend Dudul the monk.
The kora was full of magical moments and peaceful interludes, and often
it was difficult to distinguish between the two. We followed lush river
valleys past grazing yaks, we hiked across small glaciers, we were
constantly passed by Tibetans walking the kora in one day -- often in
as little as 12 hours; and of course every time we set eyes on Mount
Kailash, we were reminded how lucky we were to see his snow peak, and
indeed to be here at all.