Talk:Mount Kailash

Tallest mountain in Tibet?

Why should the mountains in Category:Mountains of Tibet not be considered mountains of Tibet? Everest is on the border between Nepal and Tibet, so it's Tibet's highest mountain, so Kailash isn't Tibet's highest mountain. I don't see any ambiguity here. Kosebamse 18:16, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've rewritten the intro to clarify the situation. I've also withdrawn my objection on Category:Mountains of Tibet. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 21:29, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

The intro looks fine now. Thanks for your help. Kosebamse 21:52, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

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Kailash is not the tallest mountain in Tibet even if you exclude the Himalayas. The Nyanqentanglha range in central Tibet has peaks over 7000m. You really should remove this claim totally. (Gordon Aug 22 2005)

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I have noted under the subtitle Buddhism in the article that there is some confusion regarding the identity of the "Champion of Tantric Buddhism". Although I think Padmasambhava is likely to be the person to which the contributor is refering, the accuracy of the passage in general may require checking. 83.100.165.35 19:38, 15 November 2006 (UTC)(RD 15th November 2006)

I WANT TO KNOW ANY BODY HUMAN MAN HAVE TO SEE A MOUNT KAILASH S CAFE?

Curiously this Mystique Mountain in the Tibetan plateau is the focal point for the Hindus and the Buddhists alike. The surfacial features of this mountain are unique and I think no other structure in the Tibetan plateau or in the Himalayan range have any resemblance to this mountain. The Hindus and the Buddhists consider this place encompassing the nearby lake of Manasarovar as heavenly place. No wonder as this part of the Tibetan Plateau indeed is one of the most magnificent places on earth. There must be something here in this place which attracts the two religions alike. Vgyan 09:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Buddhism is a kind of "reform Hinduism". You could say that the Buddha critiqued and transformed Hindu doctrine much as Jesus and his followers transformed Judaism into Christianity. In the process the Buddha also transformed a somewhat nationalistic, place-rooted and historical religion into something more universal and broadly accessible. So if the Kailas/Maasarovar region is holy to Hindus, that status tends to carry over into Buddhism, just as the holy land for Christians largely overlaps that of Judaism.

For a long time Hindu cosmography postulated a Mount Meru, center of the universe, but they were not quite certain of its location. Sometimes it was located in the Vindhya range separating the culturally different regions of North and South India, sometimes it was placed in the Pamir Knot. However as geographic knowledge accumulated, it became clear that the Kailas/Manasarovar region in effect was the hydrographic nexus of South Asia, for the Indus, Ganges/Karnali and Brahmaputra rivers all have their sources in this very finite area. Thus Kailas came to reify Mount Meru. LADave (talk) 07:02, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

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Inaccuracies about Climbing the Mountain

It seems that people definitely climb this mountain. See, for example, http://www.summitpost.org/mountain/rock/151369/Kailash.html or http://www.summitpost.org/view_object.php?object_id=151369

There have been no verified ascents of the mountain. The website you mention, http://www.summitpost.org/mountain/rock/151369/Kailash.html#chapter_10 explicitly refutes rumours that the mountain has been climbed. BabelStone (talk) 18:49, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

श or स?

The Sanskrit name is spelled with the letter श ś. In a Hindi context the spelling with स s has also been of frequent occurrence.

The Oxford Hindi Dictionary (I have the 1997 printing) gives कैलास as the main entry, while कैलाश is cross-referenced to it as a "pronunciation variant." So Oxford seems to be citing कैलास as the standard form in Hindi.

The Hindi Vikipīḍiyā article on this mountain uses only the spelling with श. The Hindi editors there have chosen to make no mention of the spelling कैलास for the mountain. In other words, it looks like the tadbhava form has been completely replaced by the tatsama form here. Is this a sign of a movement toward increased Sanskritization of Hindi? This article not only implicitly makes कैलाश the standard form, it ignores the other form altogether, which Oxford gave as standard Hindi.

So my questions are: How do they decide when to use which form of the name? Do you think the English and Hindi Wikipedias should mention the tadbhava form too (if only to note that it is also commonly met with)? I mean, as a foreign student of Sanskrit and Hindi, I always got confused about which spelling is actually preferred. Maybe a little clarification would be helpful to foreigners studying this subject. Thank you. Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 00:23, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Where is a citation to श ś being the Sanskrit form? Monier Williams disagrees: it gives स s as the only form, and cites "MBh. iii , 503 & 1697 Hariv. R. iii , iv , 44 , 27 VarBr2S. &c". For that matter, where is the citation for the meaning crystal either: I know of no etymology in Sanskrit that would give that. 65.100.126.153 (talk) 03:28, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

This article has been propagating the most brazen falsehoods. The Sanskrit term is कैलास; there's no कैलाश in Sanskrit as has been so confidently asserted in the article. I'm fixing it. Shreevatsa (talk) 08:50, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

See why this gets confusing? I wish there were a reliable source that could sort out just what is what. Why are there two spellings? I think the article ought to clarify this point, if anyone knows the answer. Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 04:39, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

It seems that Sanskrit "s" sometimes becomes "ś" in Hindi. Thus "Kausalyā" -> "Kauśalyā", "Kailāsa" -> "Kailāś", "Dhanus" -> "Dhanuś" etc. Kannan91 (talk) 12:19, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

No, it only goes the other way around. Sanskrit ś > Hindi s. Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 22:04, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Maybe that's the usual rule, but it's reversed for these instances at least. If you look up those words (see Monier Williams) , you'll find that the version with a normal "s" is the original Sanskrit. This is also reflected in how these words have been borrowed from Sanskrit into other languages - eg. Malayalam, which has a "ś" for "śiva" "śakti" etc, but a "s" for "Kailāsa", "Dhanus", "Kausalyā". Kannan91 (talk) 12:57, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I see. Thank you for the information. So anyway we still don't seem to have gotten any closer to an answer to this question. I feel that somewhere someone must have studied this and published a good explanation of it. Just got to keep looking for it. Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 18:40, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Thubron attempts

I've removed the passage saying that Colin Thubron attempted to climb the mountain between the wars because there was no reference given for this claim. Perhaps he did, but we need a reference. Ericoides (talk) 09:18, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Mount Kailash/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

While there are a number of references, inline citations are lacking for many of the statements made. A number of the sections contain just one statement and some of the paragraphs have unrelated statements within them. The article just reads like some peoples' opinions on the religious significance of the mountain. RedWolf (talk) 16:14, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Last edited at 16:14, 26 October 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 00:31, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Scripts

Lead paragraphs are meant to display scripts of the location in which a subject is found. Kailash is in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, though several months ago, the Chinese/Tibetan names were removed and replaced with Sanskrit - a language not officially in use in the TAR. Of course, there is a major Hindu/Jain connection to this mountain, and so the Sanskrit is rightfully listed in the Etymology section, but keep in mind this mountain is in China's TAR, and so Chinese and Tibetan must be used. The addition of Sanskrit to the lead, again, is not justified because this isn't a subject exclusive to Hinduism, such as pages written about Hindu gods that list Sanskrit in the lead paragraph. This is a mountain in a region of China - and that is the primary topic of the page. Willard84 (talk) 00:28, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

I think what you did here is fine, and I agree with your reasoning. The Hindu/Jain connection is not denied, but this is a geographical article not a religious one. There's no problem with mentions of the religious connections in the article body, given appropriate weight, but the lead is, imo, correct as you have it now in this regard. -- Begoon 02:01, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used in this page has been nominated for speedy deletion

The file Ashtapad replica.png on Wikimedia Commons has been nominated for speedy deletion. View the deletion reason at the Commons file description page. Community Tech bot (talk) 15:22, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

wild mountain god Shiva and a symbol of his penis?

This is straight vandalism. Anyone even with a surface level knowledge of Religious significance of Kailash in Hinduism knows that God Shiva is in no way connected as wild, and mountain God. And there is no relation between Kailash and any Penis. A google search of Kailash has no article even remotely suggesting this.— Preceding unsigned comment added by TrueWinger (talk • contribs) 10:13, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Adding a correctly attributed quote from a source published by a reputable publisher is not vandalism, and it is not constructive to refer to it as such. If you do not believe that the source is reliable, please present your evidence for that - Google searches are largely irrelevant, and referring to general knowledge isn't very helpful either. --bonadea contributions talk 10:35, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

(for the record, I have no particular opinion here - maybe the quoted book is based on poor research, but the fact remains that the quote comes from the book, and the book is published by a reputable publishing house. Then again, if this is the only source for the "mountain-as-penis" claim, there might be good reason to remove it, but there has to be a consensus based on Wikipedia policy.) --bonadea contributions talk 10:50, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

A google search suggests that the identification of Mount Kailash with Shiva's penis is not the invention of a single author, but has fairly wide currency. I would oppose removing the quote just because it hurts the sensibilities of some readers. The continuing vandalism of the quotation is likely to result in a Streisand effect as editors find more sources for this identification and devote a whole section of the article to what was originally a passing mention. BabelStone (talk) 14:40, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

In case it is useful for future editors, this edit from 2010 seems to be the one in which the unbowdlerised quote was introduced. It appears that offended parties have been edit-warring about it since then. Zazpot (talk) 01:47, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

The translation of Lingam into penis is just wrong which western authors often do. The lingam is symbolic of the power of male and female not their genitals. If it is indeed supposed to represent a penis, it would look much different.