Kailas Histories: Renunciate Traditions and the Construction of Himalayan Sacred Geography

by Alex McKay

Tibet's Mount Kailas is one of theworld's great pilgrimage centres, renowned as an ancientsacred site that embodies a universal sacrality. But Kailas Renunciate Traditions and the Construction ofHimalayan Sacred Geography demonstrates that this understanding is a recent construction by Britishcolonial, Hindu modernist, and New Age interests. Using multiple sources,including fieldwork, Alex McKay describes how the early Indic vision of aheavenly mountain named Kailas became identified with actual mountains. Heemphasises renunciate agency in demonstrating how local beliefs were subsumedas Kailas developed within Hindu, Buddhist, and Bön traditions, how five mountainsin the Indian Himalayan are also named Kailas, and how Kailas sacred geographyconstructions and a sacred Ganges source region were related. 

550 pages, Hardcover

First published November 23, 2015