© Blackwell Science Ltd, GEOLOGY TODAY, March–April 1998/67 Kailas: geology of a sacred mountain TONY WALTHAM Standing isolated on the barren Tibetan Plateau, the gleaming white snow-clad pyramid of Mount Kailas is a remnant of massive conglomerates formed within the Himalayan orogeny. Reached by an approach walk through the Himalayas in western Nepal, the circuit of Kailas on the pilgrims’ kora path offers some views of the impressively exposed geology. M ount Kailas is quite simply the most sa- cred mountain in the world. Remote as can be in the windswept and awfully cold high- lands of western Tibet, it is revered by the great religions of Asia. To the Buddhists, it is the throne of the gods, known in the Tibetan lan- guage as Kang Rinpoche, the Precious Snow Mountain. The Hindus have provided its inter- national name, Kailas; they regard it as the abode of their great god Shiva, and also as the physical embodiment of Meru, the mythical ‘World Pillar’ which rises to the centre of heaven. The Jain sects of India know Kailas as Ashtapada, where their founder gained spir- itual enlightenment. And for Tibet’s pre-Bud- dhist Bonpo religion, Kailas is the Nine Storey Swastika Mountain, the very soul of their world. For all its illustrious credentials, Kailas reaches only to the unremarkable altitude of 6675 m. It attracts its reverance and awesome symbolism largely due to the fact that it is a sin- gularly beautiful mountain. It is an almost per- fectly symmetrical four-sided pyramid, draped with a veneer of the cleanest snow (Fig. 1). A fortuitous sequence of strong conglomerates has been eroded into profiles which allow all old snow to avalanche down precipices directly into the melt zone; so there are no glaciers of dirty ice, except a very small and clean one tucked away under its north-eastern flank. It has nei- ther long shoulders nor neighbours which are high enough to retain any snow cover. Instead, the great snow pyramid rises in splendid isola- tion above the barren mountains and plains of the Tibetan Plateau. In the clear light of the high altitudes, its pure white snow achieves al- most luminous qualities, and Kailas is a beacon which can be seen from afar in any direction (Fig. 2). So it is not surprising that Kailas has achieved almost supernatural status. Pilgrims have been coming to it for over a thousand years, although westerners have only known of its existence for about 200 years. Buddhist pil- grims have walked or ridden yaks across the vast wastes of the Tibetan Plateau, from Lhasa, Ladakh, Qinghai or Bhutan. China’s invasion of Tibet almost put an end to these pilgrimages, but the new Chinese roads (actually very rough tracks) now allow most Buddhists to come by truck. Hindu holy men, the sadhus, have a shorter approach from India or Nepal, but have to cross the high Himalayan passes. No pilgrim comes to climb the mountain; Kailas has never been climbed and never will be, for it is the abode of the gods. Instead, they come to complete a kora (parikarama in San- skrit or Hindu), a clockwise walk around the sacred site (alhough the Bonpo go round in the opposite direction). There are valleys on both Fig. 1. The gleaming snow cone of Mount Kailas towers above the conglomerate walls of the Lha Chu canyon when viewed from close to the Chukku monastery. (All photos by Tony Waltham.) Fig. 2. Mount Kailas rises from the barren ridges of the Kailas Range when viewed from the south across the Barga Plains and the bare rolling hills which lie along the Zangbo Suture. In the left foreground, the Chiu monastery stands on a crag of volcanics with a view out over the holy lake of Manasarovar. Kailas is 38 km from the monastery.