कैलाशनाथ

Meaning

Kailash stands at 6,638 meters in the Tibetan plateau , never climbed, by human agreement as much as by its difficulty. Not the tallest mountain on earth. But the one around which four of the world's great religions have independently organized their cosmology as the center of the universe, the source of four great rivers. To be Kailāśanātha , the lord of this mountain , is to claim sovereignty over what all human traditions, across their differences, have pointed toward as the still center. The Mount Meru of cosmology, the axis around which the world-wheel turns. Not owned by any tradition. Visited by pilgrims of four faiths who walk its circumference , the Kora , in barefoot devotion, in the certainty that the mountain itself is the deity.

Story · From tradition

The Shiva Purana's Kailasa Samhita describes Kailash , referred to as Kailāsaparvata , as the abode Shiva chose not because it was assigned to him but because its quality of crystalline, silver-white perfection matched his own nature most completely. The text describes the divine household at Kailash: Parvati beside him, Nandi at the gate, the Ganga in his hair, Ganesha and Skanda nearby. But the Kailash story that resonates most deeply in the tradition is recorded in the Shiva Purana's Rudra Samhita: Ravana, in his supreme arrogance, once attempted to lift Kailash , to relocate the mountain of Shiva to Lanka by sheer force of his twenty arms. He managed to make the mountain tremble. Shiva simply pressed down his toe. Ravana was pinned for a thousand years until, humbled beyond all pride, he sang the Shiva Tandava Stotra , and was released. The mountain cannot be moved by force. It can only be approached by surrender.