October 28, 2018 Sunday
Bedtime Story
Appeal of Mount Kailash in Hindu Mythologies
Following this Hindu tradition other religions
too followed suit taking a similar liking to this mountainous abode of Hindu
gods.
According to the Jain mythology their first
tirthankara or the first savior and spiritual teacher Rishabhanatha (also from
a Royal family) attained his moksha (some form of spiritual enlightenment which
really defies any scientific and rational explanation and is a self-made
unverifiable subjective claim) in this very same Mount Kailash.
Moksha is a subjective claim about
achievement made by a soul and since the subject matter of soul has no evidential
basis, it lies beyond the parameters of the story telling chimpanzee.
In Buddhism too, Mount Kailash occupies a
significant place; in fact it is central to Buddhist cosmology.
This makes Mount Kailash a popular
pilgrimage site for all these three group of believers with a commonly shared
belief that circumambulating its base by foot will beget them good fortune.
In the end all rituals entice us apes with
some kind of materialistic greed and pleasures.
I think I can figure out the reason why so
many Indic religions have found such an appeal in Mount Kailash, say instead of
Mount Everest which is far more in height.
Mount Kailash is the highest peak of
Kailash Range that in turn is a subrange of the Transhimalaya system which is a
1600-kilometer long mountain range in China.
Transhimalaya is a mountainous range that
runs in the west-east direction parallel to the Himalayas.
This makes Mount Kailash to lie in Tibet
but claimed by China to be a part of its territory and hence given the fancy
name of Tibet Autonomous Region.
The very presence of the word “Autonomous”
signifies that it is not truly autonomous but given such a status as a palliative
to its people and government.
In height Mount Kailash is 6638 meters
(against Mount Everest which is stands at 8848 meters) and yet while more than
4000 people have scaled the summit of Mount Everest Mount Kailash has till date
remained unconquered.
Its North cliff is sheer vertical making the
logistics of mountaineering extremely complicated with the climatic conditions
of extremely low temperatures and winds only worsening the operation.
It is also possible that because of the
political Sino-Indian border dispute and religious restrictions relatively
fewer people have been given legal permission to climb it.
The aura of “unclimbable” around it (and
the fact of it till date) has sent the religious zealots off spinning yarns of
gods and demons protecting the mount, and once such fairy tales begin they only
get exaggerated over the years.
So this perhaps is the reason why Mount
Kailash has found its place in the Holy Books and narratives of so many Hindu
religions.
(7.) Yet another leitmotif that is very popular
with religious mythologies is the idea of large unprecedented global floods.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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