Mount Kailas and Pyramid Architecture
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Axis Mundi, the centre of the universe, the navel of the world, the world pillar, Kang Tisé or Kang Rinpoche (the ‘Precious Jewel of Snow’ in Tibetan), Meru (or Sumeru), Swastika Mountain, Mt. Astapada, Mt. Kangrinboge (the Chinese name) – all these names, belong to one of the holiest and most mysterious mountains in the world – Mount Kailas.

Kailas mountain rises to an altitude of 6714 meters and is smaller than the nearby mountains in himalayan range but its speciality lies not in its height but in its mysterious shape and radio-active energies by pyramids around it.The area around this great mountain is the source of four life-giving rivers; the Indus, Brahmaputra, Sutlej and Karnali, which is a major tributary of India’s sacred Ganges, begin here.

Two lakes are situated at the base of the mountain. The higher lake Manasarovar (one of the highest freshwater lakes in the world), is the sacred lake, and is round like the sun. The lower lake Rakhas Tal (one of the highest salt-water lakes) is the devil’s lake and has the shape of the crescent moon. The two lakes represent solar and lunar forces, good and negative energies respectively.

“In shape it (Mount Kailas) resembles a vast cathedral… the sides of the mountain are perpendicular and fall sheer for hundreds of feet, the strata horizontal, the layers of stone varying slightly in colour, and the dividing lines showing up clear and distinct…… which give to the entire mountain the appearance of having been built by giant hands, of huge blocks of reddish stone.”

(G.C. Rawling, The Great Plateau, London, 1905).

The Russian claims to have discovered in the Mt.Kailas area the highest ever human-built pyramids were denied three years later by Chinese scientists in the official Chinese Press.

The idea of the pyramid in this region is not new. It goes back to the timeless Sanskrit epic of the Ramayana. Since then, numerous travelers, especially in the beginning of the 20th century, have expressed the view that Mt.Kailas is too perfect to be a totally natural phenomenon, or at any rate give the appearance of human intervention.

Of human construction or not, Mt. Kailas is one of the most mysterious, secret and at the same time one of the most holy and sacred mountains of Asia, if not of the world -the circumambulation of which has for many centuries or possibly many millennia remained a vital pilgrimage, symbolizing the life’s stages of death, purification and rebirth.