Jain Spirit 2002 06 No 11

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 47

ENVIRONMENT
SANCTUARY
Michael Tobias explains how mountains have deeply inspired Jain thinking, art and culture
ACRED LANDSCAPES ABOUND IN EVERY CULTURE, MYTH
and human tradition. Species other than human have
S
delighting at particular points of interest in a landscape (for example, chimpanzees have been seen paying obeisance to a waterfall in Tanzania). While the precise definition of sacred varies, there are universal coefficients of the concept that have been ascribed to mountains and caves, to nature that is longer lasting and larger than ourselves. In his essay Modesty and the Conquest of Mountains, Norwegian philosopher and mountaineer Arne Naess once wrote, "...the smaller we come to feel ourselves compared to the mountain, the nearer we come to participating in its greatness."
Even in regions without noticeable mountains, indigenous peoples have harboured mountain lore or some ascension myth preoccupied with the discovery of paradise - typically, a plateau safely sheltered from the woes of the world and endowed with a cornucopia of pleasures. For those regions blessed by areas of higher altitude, the confluence of Creation myths, wilderness ideology and artistic and spiritual retreat all converge on mountains (as well as the caves within) that have for millennia served as focal points of intellectual energy and pilgrimage for whole cultures and civilizations. Hundreds of books, thousands of research papers have been written on the nature of sacred mountains, imagination in wilderness and the artistic. legacies of landscape painting which is so much concerned with the mountain environment.
There are literally thousands of sacred mountains throughout the world like Mt. Fuji or Koya in Japan, Adam's Peak in Sri Lanka, the nine primary sacred mountains of China (such as Hua Shan and T'ien -T'ai Shan), Mount Sinai in Egypt (sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike), Jomo Langma (Everest) in Tibet, the Hagiri sa Kalibutan (Pillars of the World) in the Philippines,
"Mountains have
provided a sanctuary for
generations of artists and explorers."
Peaks Of Sanctuary
Africa's Mount Kenya (sacred to the Kikuyu), Mount Olympus in northern Greece, Gunung Agung in Bali, the Russian volcanoes of Kamchatka, or the four sacred Navajo mountains (Blanca Peak, Mount Taylor, the San Francisco Peaks and Hesperus Peak). On some, God is said to have revealed his/her inner thoughts and commandments. On
others, great ascetics fasted and achieved enlightenment. Some mountains have provided inspiration for one generation after another of explorers, scientists, poets and painters: from the fourth-century Chinese Hsieh Ling-Yun, who went searching to a Taoist paradise south of the Yangtze and invented crampons to assist him, to Leonardo da Vinci, who was fascinated by mountain geology, glaciations and perspective. Goethe lent his omniscient intellect to a contemplation of highlanders and mountain culture, while Percy Shelley perceived in the Caucasus and Himalayas the Biblical paradise ascribed by John Milton in Paradise Lost. In Shelley's epic love poem, Alastor or the Spirit of Solitude, he envisioned himself dying on a lonely ledge somewhere in the Veil of Kashmir, at peace with himself, at home in the world, a monk that had become one with the mountain. Sung dynasty painter-poet Kuo Hsi described this obsession in the mid-11th century:
"Inexhaustible is their mystery.
In order to grasp their creations One must love them utterly, Study their essential spirit diligently, And never cease contemplating them And wandering among them."
There are still some 300 million mountain people in the world those who actually subsist upon mountain environments. There are even more people whose affiliation with mountains are largely spiritual or emotional. The Jains do not live for the most part on the sides of mountains but their traditions, art, pilgrimage sites and
June August 2002 Jain Spirit
45