Mount Kailash, a striking dark pyramid of rock in far western Tibet, is held sacred by four traditions at once, and by all of them it is left unclimbed.
Four traditions, one mountain
For Hindus, Kailash is the abode of Shiva, seated in meditation with the goddess Parvati, and the source of cosmic order; it is often identified with the mythic world-mountain Meru. For Tibetan Buddhists it is the dwelling of the meditational deity Chakrasamvara and the scene of the yogi Milarepa's legendary contest with a Bon priest. For Jains it is Ashtapada, where their first ford-maker, Rishabhanatha, attained liberation. For followers of Bon, Tibet's pre-Buddhist tradition, it is the nine-storey mountain at the centre of their spiritual world. Its slopes give rise to the headwaters of some of Asia's great rivers, which deepens its cosmic role as a source.
The circumambulation
Devotion takes the form of the kora, a walk clockwise around the base of the mountain, about 52 kilometres crossing a pass over 5,600 metres high, which pilgrims of all four traditions undertake, though Bon practitioners walk it anticlockwise. Hindus and Buddhists hold that a single circuit cleanses the sins of a lifetime, and that many circuits, or one performed with repeated full-body prostrations, brings far greater merit. The nearby lake Manasarovar is bathed in as part of the pilgrimage.
Unclimbed by consent
Out of reverence the summit has never been climbed, and proposals to do so have been withdrawn in the face of objection from the traditions that hold it sacred; it remains a living pilgrimage rather than a mountaineering objective. Access is by way of Tibet and is subject to the permits and political conditions of the region; the journey is high, remote and physically demanding, and pilgrims continue to make it.