Disaster season is once again in upon the Himalayas. Monsoon 2025 has again caused havoc across the mountain range, especially in its western section. Within a span of days, Seraj in Himachal’s Mandi, Dharali in Uttarakhand and Chashoti in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar have experienced mayhem and tragedy.
We all know the reason: the process of ‘development’. The building and widening of roads and bridges. The construction of houses, hotels and tourist lodges.
But as we intensify our attacks on these geologically youngest mountains of the globe, they are bound to strike back. Which they are doing.
Our ancients perhaps understood these mountains better. We already know the Himalayas to be the abode of the gods in Hinduism, including Shiva, one of the Hindu Trinity.
Like Hinduism, the Himalayas are a sacred geography and ecology for Buddhism and Buddhists too. And why not? The Buddha was born in the foothills of the Himalayas.
In his time, the mountains were known, like they are now, as a retreat for ascetics.
“Although the Himalayas could have been seen on a clear day from some places in the ancient region of Kapilavastu, the Buddha’s home for his first twenty-nine years, there is no evidence in the early canonical records of Śākyamuni Buddha visiting, or of an early Saṃgha being established, in the Himalayan middle hills or beyond. What is found in the popular stories of the early canons is an awareness of Mount Kailash and Lake Manosarowar as holy places, and of “snow mountains” or “Himavat” as forested regions for ascetic retreat, as well as venues where gods and other spirits dwell,” writes Todd Lewis, professor in the Religious Studies Department at The College of the Holy Cross, in Himalayan Buddhism: Traditions among the Newars and other Tibeto-Burman peoples (2015).
This shows that the idea of mountains as places of seclusion and isolation may have preceded both Hinduism and Buddhism.
In his 1987 article The Sacred Himalaya, Johan Reinhard agrees with this line of thought.
“Mountain worship must predate the development of the established religions, since mountains doubtless would have been worshipped by primitive groups living near them. In the Himalaya—and in mountainous regions throughout the world as well—we find a common ground for such worship. The mountains influence weather and are the sources of rivers. In short, they affect the economic welfare of agriculturists and pastoralists alike. Due to their dominating positions, they unite the earth and sky and are perceived as the guardians of the land, people and animals within their domains,” he writes.
Following the demise of the Buddha around 483 or 400 BCE, Buddhist monks fanned out, according to Lewis along the Uttarapatha, the great northern route.
“This route established the monastic migration corridors in antiquity; where the Uttarapatha met trade routes going northward toward Central Asia, they facilitated the faith’s spread to highland Gandhara and Kashmir, a process likely intensified under Aśoka that grew in significance after 100 BCE,” he notes.
He adds that Buddishm was similarly introduced in other Himalayan regions as well, with merchants and political figures building “the first modest monasteries in emerging settlements and along trade routes, seeking legitimation, ritual protections, and merit for themselves on earth and in the afterlife; as these towns grew, so did their Buddhist institutions”.
Perhaps the greatest thrust of Buddhism into the Himalayas came with Padmasambhava or Guru Rinpoche, as he is also known in the region.
The eighth-century mystic from Nalanda is revered as the leading propagator of tantric Buddhism in Tibet. “He is believed to have gone to Tibet at the invitation of King Trisong Detsen and there founded the Nyingma Order of Tibetan Buddhism,” notes the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Wherever Padmasambhava went, he syncretised Buddhism with the prevalent local beliefs which were shamanistic or animistic in nature, like Bon, the indigenous pre-Buddhist faith of Tibet.
Reinhard describes this fascinating process.
“According to Tibetan Buddhist beliefs, mountains were the most important of the pre-Buddhist Bon deities. They were the warrior-protector gods, and the original kings of Tibet were closely associated with them. Some scholars claim that the early kings were believed to be incarnations or manifestations of the mountain gods,” he writes.
Reinhard notes that when “Padmasambhava established Buddhism in Tibet during the eighth century, he is believed to have defeated these deities and turned them into protectors of the Buddhist doctrine—an obvious means of syncretizing the new and old religions”.
He adds that across the Himalayas, place names give hint to these battles that were fought between Padamasambhava and the deities.
“Many place names refer to these battles, e.g. Darjeeling (from Dorje-ling) is said to be named for the place (ling) that Padmasambhava defeated the mountain goddess Chenchigma with his magical scepter (dorje).”
Padmasambhava did something else. He created the notion of beyuls, sacred valleys or the Buddhist equivalent of a utopia.
“According to legend, Padmasambhava, the cultural-religious hero of the Nyingmapa (rNying ma pa), the adherents of the ‘old school’ of Tibetan Buddhism, concealed them [beyuls] in the eighth century to serve as refuges during times of need,” Karénina Kollmar-Paulenz, Professor Emerita of Science of Religion and Central Asian Cultural Studies at the University of Bern, Switzerland, writes in Conceptualizing utopias: Tibetan perceptions.
Kollmar-Paulenz then describes what a beyul is.
“The beyul presents itself as a fertile valley of enchanting beauty, where food is plentiful. Its caves are full of grain and already prepared Tsampa, the Tibetan staple food of roasted barley. There are springs from which an inexhaustible stream of milk flows. The fruits are at least twice their normal size, and crops grow without the need for laborious cultivation. In addition, the hidden valleys are famous for their variety of medicinal plants and other treasures such as salt or turquoise. It is said that anyone who reaches such a valley will never have to suffer hunger or thirst again in their life.”
This, then, is the stature that the Himalayas enjoy in Buddhism or at least some of its sects. And yet, as the recent disasters show, the Himalayas are now in great danger. Perhaps, it is time to remember the Buddhist concept of dependent origination or pratitya-samutpada. Nothing in the world exists in isolation. All phenomena are interconnected. Everything arises and exists in dependence upon multiple causes and conditions.
If we destroy these mountains, we will ourselves be destroyed.