Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration
- 1 Living Fossils: Impressions of a Once and Future World
- 2 Spiral Notebooks: A Multi-Local Shaligram Ethnography
- 3 Picked-Up Pieces: Constructing a History of Mustang
- 4 A Mirror to Our Being: Locating Muktinath, Finding Śālagrāma
- 5 A Bridge to Everywhere: The Birth/Place of Shaligrams
- 6 Turning to Stone: The Shaligram Mythic Complex
- 7 River Roads: Mobility, Identity, and Pilgrimage
- 8 Ashes and Immortality: Death and the Digital (After)Life
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Picked-Up Pieces: Constructing a History of Mustang
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration
- 1 Living Fossils: Impressions of a Once and Future World
- 2 Spiral Notebooks: A Multi-Local Shaligram Ethnography
- 3 Picked-Up Pieces: Constructing a History of Mustang
- 4 A Mirror to Our Being: Locating Muktinath, Finding Śālagrāma
- 5 A Bridge to Everywhere: The Birth/Place of Shaligrams
- 6 Turning to Stone: The Shaligram Mythic Complex
- 7 River Roads: Mobility, Identity, and Pilgrimage
- 8 Ashes and Immortality: Death and the Digital (After)Life
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Abstract
The history of Mustang, Nepal is complicated and can vary significantly depending on the textual sources one uses. For local Mustangis and pilgrims, however, issues of place, space, and time are a vital part of what it means to be Hindu or Buddhist as well as Nepali, Indian, or Tibetan, even though these categories remain continuously blurred and fluid. Beginning with the paleontological history of Mustang's extensive fossil formations and ending with an overview of the political history of the region, this chapter focuses on the ways in which historical narratives have affected access to the Kali Gandaki River Valley, and to Shaligrams specifically, since the earliest days.
Keywords: Muktinath, fossil, Himalayas, paleontology, history
“may came home with a smooth round stone as small as a world and as large as alone.”
− e.e. cummingsDawn had barely broken over the horizon as Bikas Shrestha and eight other Hindu pilgrims made their way along the narrow mountain road between Kagbeni and the village of Ranipauwa. Having spent nearly three days searching for Shaligrams along the banks of the Kali Gandaki River below, they were eager to reach Muktinath temple by no later than mid-day and begin their ritual bathing in the 108 waterspouts of the Vishnu mandir. Bikas was especially excited as he clutched the embroidered bag that now held his four most recent Shaligrams, each of which he hoped to lay at the feet of Sri Muktinath (Vishnu/Avalokiteshvara), the principal deity of Muktinath temple, during the afternoon darshan. “It is said,” he began breathlessly, still struggling against the thin high-altitude air, “that wherever there are twelve or more Shaligrams, that place is the same as the dham. It is no different than Muktinath. These four make fourteen for me now, so I think that this will be my last pilgrimage. I have enough for my children to take when they are older and two that I will give to my guru. Wherever I go now with them, it is pilgrimage to Muktinath.”
Several hours later, as we approached the temple complex just beyond the village, we passed a small group of Buddhist nuns of the Nyingma order on their way to the Vishnu mandir.
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- Shaligram Pilgrimage in the Nepal Himalayas , pp. 77 - 110Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020