Kailas histories : renunciate traditions and the construction of Himalayan sacred geography / by Alex McKay.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McKay, Alex, author.

Series:

Brill's Tibetan studies library ; volume 38.

Brill's Tibetan studies library, 1568-6183 ; volume 38

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hindu pilgrims and pilgrimages--China--Kailas, Mount.

Tibet Autonomous Region (China)--History.

Tibet Region--Religious life and customs.

Kailas, Mount (China).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (550 p.)

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2015]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Tibet’s Mount Kailas is one of the world’s great pilgrimage centres, renowned as an ancient sacred site that embodies a universal sacrality. But Kailas Histories: Renunciate Traditions and the Construction of Himalayan Sacred Geography demonstrates that this understanding is a recent construction by British colonial, Hindu modernist, and New Age interests. Using multiple sources, including fieldwork, Alex McKay describes how the early Indic vision of a heavenly mountain named Kailas became identified with actual mountains. He emphasises renunciate agency in demonstrating how local beliefs were subsumed as Kailas developed within Hindu, Buddhist, and Bön traditions, how five mountains in the Indian Himalayan are also named Kailas, and how Kailas sacred geography constructions and a sacred Ganges source region were related.

Contents:

Front Matter

Introduction

Mountains and Renunciates: The Early Pan-Asian Cultural Landscape

“The Play Garden of the Gods … Beyond the Course of Humans”

Recreating the Divine Order: The Puranic Kailas

A Tantric Kailas: The Alchemical Trail

An Early Buddhist Kelāsa

Kailas on the Edge of Modernity

Above the Naga Lakes: Kaplaś Kailas and Manimahesh Kailas

The Kinnaur and the Adhi Kailas

Sri Kailas: The Mountain at the Source

Sri Kailas: The Epic Prototype?

Illustrations

Tibet’s Tise

Buddhacising the Mountain

Zhang-Zhung, Bön, and the Mountain

The Tise (Kailas) Deities

The European Construction of Kailas-Manasarovar

From Theosophy’s Mahatmas to a Globalised Kailas

Conclusions

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 453-511) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

90-04-30618-8

OCLC:

920944449

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004306189 DOI