What to Know About Mount Kailash, a Sacred Site for Pilgrims Missing After Floods in Nepal and Tibet

Beijing: More than 100 of the nearly 1,300 people missing after massive floods in a border area of Nepal and China were on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, a sacred site in the Himalayas. The disaster left at least 168 people dead and displaced hundreds of people across thdestabilize region. Here’s what to know about the mountain and its centuries-old role as a pilgrimage site.    

A sacred mountain for several religious traditions

Mount Kailash is a Himalayan peak in southwestern Tibet, near China’s borders with Nepal and India. It rises more than 6,400 meters (21,000 feet) above sea level and lies close to Lake Manasarovar. Both have long been part of Sanskrit religious and literary traditions. Mount Kailash holds sacred significance for Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and the Tibetan Bon tradition.

Each associates the mountain with different beliefs and sacred histories. According to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, the mountain is considered the home of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction, and Parvati, a Hindu goddess associated with marriage, fertility and motherhood.

Followers of the Tibetan Bon tradition regard it as a seat of spiritual power and associate the region with Tonpa Shenrab, the tradition’s founder. Geographer Emily Yeh, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, who has conducted research in Tibet, wrote in 2017 that Kailash is associated with the mythical Mount Meru, considered the center of the world in Hindu and Buddhist cosmology. 

The surrounding landscape also figures in local legends and Himalayan traditions. “Shared Sacred Landscapes,” a book published by ICIMOD in 2017, gathers some of them. One story tells of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, who visits villagers longing to make the pilgrimage to Mount Kailash. Nanak teaches them that the true pilgrimage is a spiritual journey within themselves.

Pilgrims travel to Kailash for a journey of purification

According to India’s Ministry of External Affairs, pilgrims can reach Mount Kailash by crossing the Lipulekh Pass from Uttarakhand into Tibet. India’s government operates an official Kailash Manasarovar pilgrimage from June through August or September each year, with routes through the states of Uttarakhand and Sikkim. Private operators also organize pilgrimages through Nepal.

Pilgrims traditionally walk around Mount Kailash rather than climb it, completing a roughly 33-mile (53-kilometer) circuit around the mountain. The journey around the peak is believed to cleanse pilgrims of their sins and can take about three days to complete. Hindus and Buddhists traditionally circle the mountain clockwise, while followers of Bon travel counterclockwise.

At nearby Lake Manasarovar, some Hindu pilgrims bathe in its waters as a ritual of spiritual purification. Yeh wrote that Tibetan pilgrims stop at monasteries and other sacred sites along the route, touching prayer beads or their foreheads to features believed to bear sacred imprints. Other rituals are meant to test a pilgrim’s merit, sin or fortune.

Pilgrims among hundreds missing after floods

The disaster has left at least 165 dead and 826 people missing in Nepal, and three dead and 558 missing in Tibet, authorities said. Hundreds of those missing were foreigners. Nepal’s tourism board said 179 of those missing were from India. Officials said most were on pilgrimage to Mount Kailash. 

Also missing were 65 from the United States, 35 from Australia, 33 from Britain and 25 from Canada. Indian spiritual guru Jaggi Vasudev, also known as Sadhguru, said in a post on X that 77 people returning from the mountain with groups organized by his Isha Foundation were at an immigration center in Gyirong, Tibet, when the floods struck. The floods followed a glacier collapse that sent debris rushing downstream through communities on both sides of the border. Similar flash floods have struck the region as warming temperatures increasingly destabilize Himalayan ice.