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Cult of Pure Crystal Mountain
THE CULT OF PURE CRYSTAL MOUTAIN. By Toni Huber. Pp. 297, 7 b/w photos, 2 maps, 1999. (Oxford University Press, New York, Rs.1395).
From where did the snow lion come?
It came from the glaciers of Tsari.
It brings joy to the world by just coming
To show off its turquoise mane.
The sacred mountain of Takpa Siri, as known to Tibetans, translates roughly as ‘Pure Crystal Mountain’. It is one such abode of snow lions, of both the mythical and the human kind. Tsari, the remote part of southeast Tibet has long been a place for symbolic and ritual significance to people of Tibet. ‘It has served as a centre for Tantric meditation and yoga, a site for mountain deity worship, and not the least, as one of Tibet’s outstanding natural venues for popular pilgrimage’.
This book is a comprehensive account of the Tibetan life in Tsari, their beliefs, tantric and esoteric traditions and popular traditions of a major Tibetan pilgrimage. This is a pioneering work and a different view of Tibet and its people and mountains. For trekkers and mountain lovers the traditions of the pilgrimage around Takpa Siri should be of great interest.
Tsari lies in the Pemako area which is holy in Tibetan Buddhism – one of the holy sites for pilgrimage, the other being Kailash peak in western Tibet. Takpa Siri, is a mountain of 5735 m standing on a long ridge, and Tibetans undertake a kora (circumambulation) around this peak. They believe that because of four water bodies (rivers and lakes), four passes and four peaks here, this area and the peak is an abode of the gods. They perform two types of koras. The Kingkor is a shorter but higher route,which can be performed yearly. The Ringkor is a long circuit, which was undertaken every 12 years. Elaborate arrangements were made for the latter pilgrimage as thousands of pilgrims would descend along the Tsari chu to the Lopa country (the present day Arunachal Pradesh, India) and trek along the Subansiri river back into Tibet. This was an arduous journey in an unknown and wild terrain.
After the political changes, the Chinese forbade all pilgrimages after 1956. The Indo-China war of 1962 divided the Ringkor route across the McMahon Line (the present international boundary) and this tradition was lost. However no sooner restrictions were eased by the Chinese in 1982 than the shorter pilgrimage restarted , symbolising the human spirit which could not be forbidden by political masters. Takpa Siri lived in hearts of Tibetans for all those years.
Undertaking parts of the Ringkor pilgrimage from the Indian side in 2005, we found the going hard, up and across wooden ladders, traditional hanging bamboo bridges and snakes and malarial flies infested jungles. It is wonder how these Tibetans, not used to walk in such forests, bought peace with Lopas and with their help passed on this route. When I asked a Lopa, ‘what if the Tibetan government did not pay tribute for a safe pilgrimage?’ ‘We will cut them to pieces’! Was the fierce reply. Today there a few elders alive who had undertaken this pilgrimage and recall the traditions and routes. Following the pilgrim trail we could gather much physical information, but the true essence of the pilgrimage to Takpa Siri is provided by Huber’s book.
In this book Huber has recorded the vast fund of knowledge about Takpa Siri before it is lost to mankind. He brings out inner feelings and devotion of pilgrims, trying to analyse and explain their inner urge to obtain merit. This is a wonderful record of oral history.
If they abandon the oral guide to Tsari,
The pilgrims are liable to turn into sightseers.
Without the eulogies of the Tsari pilgrimage circuit,
They just gossip about the theft of the monastery’s yak.
The western concept of a map is piece of paper which represents ‘the earth’s surface, to include, among others, cognitive and social maps, the complex electronic maps of computer systems, and mathematical maps…’. The Tibetans, like many ancient cultures have used a variety of mapping systems for navigating their ‘world-space’ (shingkham) and these are used for pilgrimages, such as for Takpa Siri. These are narrative maps. They are handed down for generations and now perhaps for the first time are published in this book as a definitive record. The book also records journeys and explorations by westerners like F Kingdon-Ward, George Sherriff, Frank Ludlow and ‘highly trained observers (that is, spies, as were (F.M.) Bailey and (H. T.) Moreshead)’. (italics mine).
When the Chinese first came to Tsari in 1950s they wondered why people lived here at all. There was no farming and no cultivation. The Tsariwa replied that this was a great ‘power place’. The Chinese promised to change everything by a colonial version of modernity. Still there is no cultivation in upper Tsar and the promised public schools and clinics are missing. But people still live there by power of Takpa Siri.
Why are such arduous pilgrimages undertaken, where many perish? What merit do they hope to gain in this material world? This is a perennial question for any pilgrimage, be it Hindus trudging across Himalayan passes or Muslims rushing to Mecca. Tsariwas and their beliefs provide the answer : . The pilgrimage rises the person from gross (admiring mountains only, like we mountaineers do!), to subtle (to feel the spirit behind such hardship) so that one becomes sublime.
(At Tsari) paranormal powers are bestowed in various ways:
Directly in person those who are advanced and superior,
And visions of bodies and images to those who are middling,
And also as lakes, rock mountains, and trees to those who are lowest.
As the likes of this do not exist anywhere else,
This (Takpa Siri) is a magical place for sure.