Mount Kailash: The Forbidden Mountain No One Is Allowed to Climb

This is what four religions, five expeditions, and three thousand years of ancient testimony agree on — and why the modern world has decided you cannot go there. SOURCES: Rig Veda, hymns describing Mount Meru as the axis of the world Vishnu Purana, geographic description of the four rivers descending from the sacred mountain Kailasa Samhita of the Shiva Purana, identifying Kailash as the earthly seat of Shiva Buddhist Kangyur, canonical descriptions of Mount Sumeru and the pilgrimage tradition Jain scriptures on Ashtapada and the liberation of Rishabhanatha Bön monastery archives, Nepal and northern India, pilgrimage accounts predating the fifth century AD Kalachakra tantra, Sanskrit text describing the central mountain surrounded by eight petal-like peaks Herbert Tichy, Zum heiligsten Berg der Welt, 1937, Austrian mountaineer's account of circumambulating Kailash Ernst Schäfer SS expedition to Tibet 1938 to 1939, Ahnenerbe records, partial archives at the Bundesarchiv Ernst Muldashev, In Search of the City of the Gods, published record of the 1999 Russian expedition Reinhold Messner, 2001 public statement on the Spanish climbing permit, Alpine Club archives Chinese Mountaineering Association permit records, Tibet Autonomous Region Chinese Academy of Sciences, glaciological and geological surveys of the Gangdise Range Indian earth-sciences journal reporting on the geometric arrangement of the eight satellite peaks around Kailash, 2019 Salinity and hydrological measurements of Lake Manasarovar and Lake Rakshastal, Indian and Chinese joint survey data International Federation of Mountaineering and Climbing correspondence on the 2001 permit reversal