The Heart of the World

by Ian Baker

  Lord Cawdor had described the enveloping jungle as “pestilential,” and he and Kingdon Ward assigned names to their camps that accorded with their mood: The Heights of Abraham, Braefoot, Cold Comfort, Dismal Swamps. It was at a place they called the Banks of Rubicon, however, that Lord Cawdor reached a state of utter abjection. On November 29 he wrote in his journal: “Woken up by steady rain and large drips. My God! what a country. I only look forward to the day I shall see the last of it!”

  AS WE CONTINUED THROUGH THE FOREST, the porters attempted to lasso mushrooms growing from the cliffs. One species—white on the bottom and reddish or honey-colored above—was said to be particularly nourishing, but all the attempts to secure them proved unsuccessful. As a consolation, I offered them one of my last remaining bags of Kashmiri almonds.

  We descended through a narrow gap in the trees and dropped steeply toward a small stream at the bottom of a ravine. The creek led directly into the Tsangpo, and we followed it to where it was consumed in a sea of pounding rapids. I gazed out over the fury of white water. Less than a mile ahead, the Tsangpo surged against the enormous spur, laced with waterfalls, that we had seen days earlier from the top of the Khandro Sang-La. After crashing against the wall of rock the Tsangpo disappeared from view, surging northward into the narrowest and still unexplored section of the gorge, the legendary Five-Mile Gap—the last possible refuge of the fabled Falls of the Tsangpo and one of several routes which Tibetans hold to lead into Yangsang Né, the spiritual heart of the Tsangpo gorge.

  The Great Bend

  WE WERE NOW AT KINGDON WARD and Lord Cawdor’s Banks of Rubicon, the site of their last camp along the Tsangpo on November 29, 1924. Kingdon Ward wrote of this critical impasse in his book, Riddle of the Tsangpo Gorges: A quarter of a mile ahead a blank cliff, striped by two silver threads of water, towered a thousand feet into the air. The river came up against this cliff with terrific force, turned sharply to the left, and was lost to view. We scrambled over the boulders, crossed a belt of trees and a torrent, and made for the foot of the cliff in order to see what became of the river; but even before we got there our ears were filled with a loud roaring noise. As we turned the corner, and before we could see straight down the river again, we caught sight of a great cloud of spray which hung over the rocks within a half mile of where we stood. “The falls at last,” I thought! But it wasn’t—not the falls. A fall, certainly, perhaps 40 feet high, and a fine sight with rainbows coming and going in the spray cloud. But a 3 0to 4 0foot fall, even on the Tsangpo, cannot be called the falls, meaning the falls of romance, those “Falls of the Brahmaputra” which have been the goal of so many explorers.

  Nevertheless, we stood spellbound, as well we might. The river here swung round to the west, boring its way between two mighty spurs which jutted out, one from Gyala Pelri, the other from Sanglung. Cliffs towered up on both sides, so close together that it seemed one could almost leap from crag to crag; and the cliffs were smooth as well as sheer. Only high up against the skyline did a few trees cling like fur to the worn rock surface. Obviously we could get no further down the gorge; to scale the cliff seemed equally impossible.

  Kingdon Ward and Lord Cawdor did eventually scale the wall of rock that rose ahead of us now, streaming with delicate cascades. “Of that climb,” Kingdon Ward later wrote, “I have only an indistinct recollection, beyond the memory that it was a nightmare.” With their porters on the brink of mutiny, the two explorers forged on to the first village in Pemako, where they sheltered in a primitive temple. The abbot of the monastery at Pemakochung who had guided them through the gorge had told them of sacred texts that indicated that there were “no less than 75 waterfalls” in the section of the gorge below where they had been forced to exit and where the Tsangpo seemed to be “boring ever more deeply into the bowels of the earth.” Kingdon Ward tried to urge his porters into this uncharted territory, but they insisted that there was no way through. He wrote that they were anxious “to divert our attention from this forbidden land!”

  I SAT ON THE ROCKS at the edge of the Tsangpo, looking out over the cresting waves toward where the river began its great horseshoe bend to the north. Clouds sealed off the top of the gorge and silvery waterfalls streamed down the cliffs. Rainbow Falls, the farthest point on the Tsangpo that Kingdon Ward had been able to reach, was hidden behind the spur of Gyala Pelri that terminated in the pyramidal peak called Dorje Pagmo. The Tsangpo carved around this towering monolith and disappeared into unexplored territory, arching back on itself and flowing northwest into the part of the gorge that Morshead’s map of 1913 showed only as a conjectural, dotted line.

  Directly in front of me, a wave-polished cliff jutted into the Tsangpo, barring farther progress down the river. The earthquake that had obliterated the ledges around the headwall at Pemakochung had altered vast sections of the gorge. It was clear that we would have to climb high above the level of the Tsangpo before we would be able to descend again to river level. Some of the porters had gathered on the rocks and were staring across the maelstrom to where the Tsangpo, as in local folklore, seemed to disappear into the earth. I tried to convince them that after finding a way around the cliff we still had a chance of forging a route into this unknown territory. At the very least, I told them, we could find a way up the stream-laced cliffs that Kingdon Ward and Cawdor had scaled in 1924.

  The following morning we made an attempt to climb above the obtruding rock wall. The cliffs were sheer and dripping with moss, ferns, and runoff from the rains that were falling now in earnest. Every attempt to push farther down the river brought us higher up on the slopes of the gorge. We followed a narrow ridge through a tangle of wet rhododendrons, the cliffs below us dropping into mist and dense vegetation. Using our climbing ropes, we crossed a precarious avalanche chute but found no passage back down toward the Tsangpo. We followed the arete higher in hopes that the slope would eventually lessen and allow us to contour eastward toward the gap. But every effort led us upward toward the glaciated spurs of Sanglung or, as the Tibetans referred to it, Kangla Karpo—a white snowy peak representing the left breast of Dorje Pagmo. (Although other accounts locate her left breast to the east of the Tsangpo on a similarly named mountain, Kangri Karpo.)

  Olmula had described the Shekar-La, or White Crystal Pass, which leads over the spurs of Kangla Karpo into the valleys of Pemako, but had warned that at this time of year it was likely to be blocked by snow. Clouds hung against the mountains like a white veil, and we could see nothing above us. Still, we had no choice now but to climb higher toward the mist-shrouded pass.

  In the afternoon, we stumbled into a small cave where hunters from Pemako had previously camped. Hair from a musk pod lay on the ground among the remnants of a fire. Sherab estimated from cut branches that the hunters had camped there less than a month earlier, so unless the rain that was falling in torrents here was falling above us as snow, there had to be a way over the pass. We sheltered under the overhanging rock to wait out a heavy shower and then continued through the tangle of roots, mud, and branches that had become our accustomed terrain. As we climbed higher, the rhododendrons grew lower and more densely, and we navigated through their interlacing limbs as if it were a forest of petrified snakes. When we rested, Gunn stared blankly at his map as if some clue would emerge from the empty spot caused by his inattentive photocopying. One of the porters, the only one who spoke Chinese, watched raptly over his shoulder.

  High up a ravine, we came across a cave where half of the porters settled in for the night. The rest of us continued up the streambed in unrelenting rain. We found a larger rock shelter where the porters immediately began building a fire and drying out their wool tunics, which served as everything from blanket to sleeping pad to all-purpose outerwear. The matted felt shed rain at least as well as our own Gore-Tex jackets, which, though certainly lighter, had proved far less durable.

  To escape the smoke, I set up my tent beneath a large bou
lder across the stream. The rain continued throughout the night and into the morning. When I wandered over to the cave, there was nearly zero visibility; a dense unmoving cloud had enveloped us. With no sense of the route ahead and the snowline only 100 meters above, we had no choice but to wait for a change in the weather. Jill lay curled up in her sleeping bag. Eric carved away at his walking stick with a Swiss Army knife. Ken was marking a passage in his copy of The Prelude.

  The Spirit of Nature was upon me

  and the Place

  Was throng’d with impregnations, . . .

  And naked valleys, full of caverns, rocks,

  And audible seclusions. . . .

  DESPITE THE RAIN AND THICK CLOUDS, Sherab had left with two others at first light to scout the route ahead. I returned to my waterlogged tent and read through Kingdon Ward’s account for possible clues as how to proceed. He had written in his journal that he had “only the dimmest recollection” of his passage through Shekarlungpa; the disorienting terrain having made it difficult to account for his movements. During our climb to the cave, we had seen through rents in the clouds the lower slopes of the spur that Kingdon Ward and Cawdor had crossed to reach the village of Bayu, but sheer cliffs had prevented us from getting there. The lama Shepe Dorje had also reached the Tsangpo’s lower gorge by climbing over these spurs, but his account of his passage focused more on his visions than on the physical topography. Shepe Dorje ascended a “sky high track” where rocks fell continuously from ramparts above. One of his porters tumbled off the escarpment but was drawn back up unharmed. The Gyala headman who had accompanied him on his pilgrimage told him that “The Shekar-La is the most dangerous of all paths. When Lopas travel this route, almost every time someone dies, especially now in the spring.” Shepe Dorje continued on undaunted: I have completely entrusted myself to the lamas, dakinis, and meditational deities; I recited mantras and asked for help from the dharma protectors. Blowing on our kanglings [thigh-bone trumpets], we climbed one by one up the near-vertical rock as if up a ladder. . . . Loose stones lay everywhere and the rock was very slippery. . . . Thick mist hung over the four directions and a rainstorm was imminent. I generated the vajra-pride of the deity Lokitri Pala and fiercely recited mantras to control the eight classes of spirits. . . . We moved forward very slowly as dense fog covered the mountains and sacred places. Although we could not see clearly the spectacle of our surroundings . . . they matched the descriptions in the neyigs and revealed that we were in the center of the throat chakra of enjoyment [drimpa lungjod kyi korlo], the palace of the lords of the hidden-land and a gathering place of dakinis and mamos [female spirits].

  On the morning of May 12, the rain had intensified, and the roof of my Chinese tent collapsed under the weight of the water. I sought refuge in the cave where our porters were lying amid our gear, complaining that they had only a few days of rations left. Sherab’s reconnaissance the day before had led them into vertical gullies and impenetrable mists where there was no sign of takin or edible plants. Some of the porters favored a dash back the way we had come. They sat amid pack baskets, coils of rope, and drying clothes, reciting mantras to appease local protectors whom—presumably along with us—they held responsible for the deluge of rain. Gunn sat by the fire, still staring at his map as if the crucial blank spot would miraculously fill in and reveal a way out.

  Gunn had become more forthcoming with his map, and he pointed out places where it indicated forest resources for potential exploitation as well as strategic military positions near the border with India. Maps invariably reflect the interests of their makers; the early maps commissioned by the British Raj had similarly been created to lay claim to their frontiers. The Tibetans’ textual maps—the neyigs—had a no less ambitious purpose: to convert wilderness into a sacred realm and to chart the interface between mind and landscape.

  During a lull in the storm, Ken and I headed out with Sherab to look for a route to connect with the one Kingdon Ward had followed in 1924, or some clear line toward the snow-covered pass that Olmula had described. The snow above us was deep and unstable and boulders and small avalanches cascaded out of the mists. Sherab was eager to find a route below the snow line. We traversed through a labyrinth of cliffs and ravines, but after several hours the walls of rock became steeper and the visibility poorer. The porters sat down dejectedly on a ledge. “We’re going to die here,” said one, wrapping himself in his matted tunic.

  It was becoming increasingly clear that we would have to climb into the snow and search for the Shekar-La as we had exhausted all our other possibilities. Olmula had given no specific directions, perhaps doubting that we would ever make it this far. The pass didn’t appear on any of our maps, and none of the porters had ever traveled this way before. If we crossed the wrong col or gully we would end up trapped in the trackless glaciers, swamps, and jungles beneath the southern walls of Kangla Karpo.

  As we walked back toward the cave, I lingered behind at a snow field on a moraine above our camp. Rocks tumbled down around me out of the mist. I walked into the whiteness, enveloped in rain and snow, imagining a route toward the pass. Snow gullies led off in various directions and it was impossible to guess which one would lead us to the Shekar-La. Perhaps Sherab would resort again to divinations. According to Tibetan accounts, we were near one of the doors into Yangsang Né, but the idea of a nearby Elysium seemed as improbable as that of a colossal waterfall. I returned to my tent, emptied my mind as best I could and, displacing thoughts with mantras, linked myself to the unseen presences of the gorge. One of the Tibetan texts that I had brought with me was entitled Opening the Door to the Hidden Land: Relieving the Heart’s Darkness. One of its stanzas had left a deep impression on me: “Pemako’s protector spirits will cause perilous circumstances to test the power of your realization. They will assist those who abide by their spiritual commitments and will mislead those who do not.”

  We had only two days of food left, and in these higher altitudes there were no signs of takin. Several days earlier, at the stream by the Tsangpo, one of the hunters had walked up to a takin calf and killed it with a rock, but the meat had lasted them only a single meal. Since then the porters had subsisted on black tea thickened with spoonfuls of tsampa. Our own combined stores were minimal—three freeze-dried dinners, a box of pilot bread, a bag of almonds, and a few remaining energy bars. Gunn’s supply of tinned fish had finally come to an end. It was still raining hard when Sherab came to my tent and said that whatever the weather, we would have to leave the next morning or stay where we were and starve.

  The following morning, May 13, we climbed up the moraine above the cave and headed for a rock spur that led up into the snow. The crumbling conglomerate soon forced us into a snow-filled gully that steepened as we climbed. We had cut staves of bamboo in lieu of ice axes, while the porters used their apches to cut steps, burying their blades to the hilt in the softening snow. When the mists briefly parted, we saw a wall of snow cornices like milky waves far above us. The pass at last, we thought, only to have the vision recede into pale clouds. We climbed higher into the mists and rain, kicking steps into the snow. Enveloped in clouds, we finally reached a knife-edge arête that rose steeply on both sides, laced with cornices. It was cold, and our first instinct was to reach lower elevations. A scree-filled gully dropped below us into mist. Sherab fashioned a small cairn to mark the way we had come. After each of us added a stone to the pile of rocks we let go and slid down into the clouds, snow, and broken rock, gliding with muttered or unvoiced prayers through a gray-white world between the breasts of Dorje Pagmo. Gunn’s Chinese tennis shoes had delaminated in the snow and he looked to be on the verge of tears. I told him that according to Buddhist texts, we were on the brink of a paradise. He replied with a saying popular during China’s Great Proletariat Revolution: “If this is heaven, where then is hell?”

  Tselung

  WHEN SHEPE DORJE CLIMBED toward the Skekar-La in 1729,
the kudanpa, or spirit medium, who traveled with him began to sing, inciting local spirits to guide them through the perilous terrain. The lama wrote, “We entered a narrow passage through the snow, ascending one steep precipice after another. The rocks were wet and slippery. Nowhere could we step with a full foot, and there was nothing to hold on to. At every moment, we were likely to slip over the edge. One of the porters from Gyala fell down the height of five stories and injured his eye. . . . We passed through a mirrorlike rock where a special feeling came over my mind . . . [I later realized] that it was a palace of dakinis called Raga Ra Da Ling.”

  For Tibetans the key to pilgrimage is danang, the sacred vision that transfigures the environment into a pure realm of enlightened energies. Even the most miserable of circumstances invites this shift in perception.

  In the Tantric tradition, the ideal of pilgrimage is not simply to visit sacred sites, but to facilitate an inner transformation at places that challenge conventional ways of seeing. In this sense, the more destabilizing the surroundings the better. As the fourteenth-century scholar and meditation master Longchenpa urged: Go to mountain tops, charnel grounds, islets, and fairgrounds. . . .

  Places that make the mind waver,

  And let the body dance, the voice sing,

  And the mind project innumerable thoughts:

  Fuse them with the view and practice

  of spontaneous liberation

  Then all arises as the Path!

  The eleventh-century adept Padampa Sangey was even more emphatic in advocating this esoteric approach to pilgrimage, beyond divisions of sacred and profane: Approach all that you find repulsive!