Kailas Histories Brill’S Tibetan Studies Library
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Kailas Histories Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library Edited by Henk Blezer Alex McKay Charles Ramble volume 38 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/btsl Kailas Histories Renunciate Traditions and the Construction of Himalayan Sacred Geography By Alex McKay leiden | boston Cover illustration: Tibet’s Tise / India’s Mount Kailas. (Courtesy of Toni Huber) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McKay, Alex, author. Kailas histories : renunciate traditions and the construction of Himalayan sacred geography / by Alex McKay. pages cm. – (Brill's Tibetan studies library, ISSN 1568-6183 ; volume 38) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-30458-1 (hardback : acid-free paper) – ISBN 978-90-04-30618-9 (e-book) 1. Hindu pilgrims and pilgrimages–China–Kailas, Mount. 2. Tibet Autonomous Region (China)–History. 3. Tibet region–Religious life and customs. 4. Kailas, Mount (China) I. Title. BL1239.38.C62K3545 2016 294.5'3509515–dc23 2015034536 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1568-6183 isbn 978-90-04-30458-1 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-30618-9 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. For Jeri McElroy-McKay For her constant support, and not least for encouraging my obsession with a mountain ∵ Contents Acknowledgements ix List of Maps xii List of Illustrations xiii Maps xiv Introduction 1 section 1 Indic Histories 1 Mountains and Renunciates: The Early Pan-Asian Cultural Landscape 25 2 “The Play Garden of the Gods … Beyond the Course of Humans” 45 3 Recreating the Divine Order: The Puranic Kailas 65 4 A Tantric Kailas: The Alchemical Trail 92 5 An Early Buddhist Kelāsa 114 6 Kailas on the Edge of Modernity 132 section 2 The Kailas Mountains of India 7 Above the Naga Lakes: Kaplaś Kailas and Manimahesh Kailas 149 8 The Kinnaur and the Adhi Kailas 174 9 Sri Kailas: The Mountain at the Source 200 10 Sri Kailas: The Epic Prototype? 224 Illustrations 248 viii contents section 3 Tibetan Histories 11 Tibet’s Tise 273 12 Buddhacising the Mountain 304 13 Zhang-zhung, Bön, and the Mountain 339 14 The Tise (Kailas) Deities 364 section 4 Modern Histories 15 The European Construction of Kailas-Manasarovar 375 16 From Theosophy’s Mahatmas to a Globalised Kailas 410 Conclusions 427 Bibliography 453 Index 512 Acknowledgements This study began with a yatra to Kailas-Manasarovar in late 1986, and in com- pleting a project that has stretched over nearly three decades I am acutely conscious of the great number of people who have assisted me—far more than can reasonably be acknowledged here. Firstly I must thank the institutions that have enabled my work, in particular the ideal model of a post-doctoral centre, the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands, which has provided unceasing support and encouragement for my work. I owe a great deal of thanks to the outstanding, now retired Director Wim Stokhof, to my long-time friend and colleague Senior Consultant Paul van der Velde, and to the support staff. This study formally began when I was a student in the Religious Studies and History departments at the School of Oriental and African Studies (London University). During that time I benefitted from fellowships awarded by the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust, the Spalding Trust, and the University of London Central Research Fund. I subsequently enjoyed the flexibility of research fellowships at soas and at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London, and the support of the Namgyal Institute for Tibetology (Gangtok, Sikkim, India), and the Australian National University School of Asia and the Pacific. I am pleased to acknowledge my debt to each of these institutions and academic bodies. At soas i enjoyed support and advice from many individuals: Humphrey Fisher who introduced me to the study of pilgrimage, Peter Robb who demon- strated the practice of the profession of history, and Timothy Barret, Shirin Akiner, and Werner Menski, as well as Tadeusz Skorupski, Daud Ali and Julie Leslie. Dominic Wujastyk gave me unstinting support and Indic expertise at both soas and ucl, and at the latter my thanks are also due to Director Hal Cooke and Administrator Alan Shiel. Of the many librarians to whom I owe thanks, Tim Thomas at the Oriental and India Office Library, Yvonne Sibbald, the Alpine Club Librarian, and Hakan Wahlquist of the National Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm have been particularly helpful. In the Tibetan Studies world I have been helped by many more scholars than I can properly thank, but I must note my gratitude to—in no particular order— Gene Smith, Samten Karmay, A.W. Macdonald, Françoise Pommaret, Geoffrey Samuel, Mona Schrempf, Amy Heller, Charles Ramble, John Bray, Wim van Spengen, Rafal Beszterda, Isrun Englehardt, Dan Martin, John Bellezza, Karma Phuntsho, John Powers, Scott Berry, David Templeman, Christopher Beckwith, x acknowledgements Mark Turin, Anna Balikci-Denjongpa, Roberto Vitali, Tsuguhito Takeuchi, Christian Luczanits, Ivette Vargas, Sean Gaffney, Diana Cousens, and Robert Mayer. Three others must be singled out for special mention, for they have been a constant source of encouragement, support, and expertise throughout this lengthy endeavour; to Toni Huber, Henk Blezer, and Katia Buffetrille, my warmest thanks. For Indological expertise, I must firstly thank the late Jan Heesterman, un- failingly encouraging of the work of others and the most stimulating of dis- cussants in matters Indic. I am also greatly indebted to Reinhold Grunendahl, Ronald Davidson, Richard Gombrich, Lance Cousins, David Gordon White, Kumkum Roy, Hans Bakker, Peter Bisschop, Frederick M. Smith, Michael Willis, Greg Bailey, Mathew Clark, Kathleen Taylor, R.T.J. Bakker, Arik Moran, and James Mallinson, while I have also benefitted from the different perspectives of Felix Dawe and the late Oliver Winrow. My thanks also to Peter Flugel for his sage guidance in matters Jain and to Carol Dunham for numerous insights into the Himalayas. In India two incisive historians of the western Himalayas, Laxman Thakur and Mahesh Sharma kindly and generously shared their knowledge of that region, and I was also fortunate to be guided in Manimahesh lore by Molly Kushal and by retired Medical Officer K.P. Sharma of Chamba. My thanks are always due to the Government of India for access to border regions. I am also indebted to Senior Acquisitions Editor Albert Hoffstädt, to Patricia Radder and editorial and production staff at Brill, and to their anonymous readers whose detailed comments were of great value. For technical wizardry I am very thankful to Linden Rudge at Sunne Printing, Taree (nsw) Australia. To those who have accompanied me on my travels to the various Kailas mountains, Danny Shaw and Jacinta (Kailas-Manasarovar), Terry Lehane and Colin Wylie (Kinnaur Kailas), and Richard Beale (Kaplas and Manimahesh) my warmest salutations! Thanks for the companionship and the memories. My thanks also to Mr. Karan, Uttarakashi expert on the Gangotri region, and to my local guides and porters notably Uttam Singh Kutiyal of Kuti, resourceful Bhadarwah guide Chander Shekhar, my regular Dharamsala driver Sudarshan who calmly shared our experience of a guerrilla war-zone, and finally porters Buddhi Ram and Karam Chand of Kissoram village, Chamba district. To Gangnani pujari the late Siva Prasad and his family I owe a great deal for their assistance, hospitality, and teachings as well as their good name which opened many doors for me in the upper Gangetic regions. Much of the analysis of renunciate activities derives from fieldwork, formal and informal, principally among the Giri order of Śaivite renunciates. I am greatly indebted to these consecrated warriors for their kindness, hospitality, and willingness to share acknowledgements xi their insights and their duni. In particular my thanks to long-time confidant Om Giri Maharaj and to Om Naga Giri, as well as to Gangotri savant Swami Sundaranand. I can only regret that there is much here with which they would not agree. Indeed in sincerely thanking all of the above persons, I acknowledge that they may not necessarily agree with the details or the conclusions of this work, for which I take full responsibility. Unpublished Crown Copyright documents in the Oriental and India Office Col- lection appear by permission of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Some material here was previously published in (1) ‘Asceticism, Power, and Pilgrimage: Kailas- Manasarovar in Classical and Colonial Indian Sources.’ In Alex McKay (ed.) Pil- grimage in Tibet. Richmond: Curzon Press