Borobudur

The mountain stood there to be pointed at.
— Robert Frost.

“I keep a mountain anchored off eastward a little way, which I ascend in my dreams both awake and asleep. Its broad base spreads over a village or two, which does not know it; neither does it know them, nor do I when I ascend it. I can see its general outline as plainly now in my mind as that of Wachusett. I do not invent in the least, but state exactly what I see. I find that I go up it when I am light-footed and earnest. It ever smokes like an altar with its sacrifice. I am not aware that a single villager frequents it or knows of it. I keep this mountain to ride instead of a horse.” — Henry David Thoreau.

The mountain as a spiritual pilgrim destination is not specific to any one region; it is an archetypal metaphor that transcends location and time. Think of Olympus, Ararat, Zion, Sinai, the Temple at Delphi, the Tower of Babylon, Ziggurats, Pyramids, Manchu Picchu, Temples on Mounts, Mounds, Tells and so many other upward looking locations where we are inspired to consider if not engage in intense communication . We have real mountains where real gods reside, and man-made mountains where we see the achievements of civilizations. This holds true for the Americas, Africa, Australia and of course Asia. But it is the mountain in Asia that inspires my imagination. It’s the small temples perched on hilltops, the monuments of Borobodur and Angkor Wat, and the gaze of the regions religions up to Mount Meru, Mount Sumeru, and Mount Kailas. The first step into climbing up in a pilgrimage and physically experiencing the bliss of the summit made me hungry to see mountains in a range of locations and range of manifestations.


The next location was Borobudur. A man made mountain metaphor in the shape of a mandala, where the circumnambulation and the visual richness of the striated friezes leads the pilgrim through a symbolic 10 cycle walk mirroring the 10 steps of enlightenment towards Buddhism.

pil·grim·age: 1. A journey to a sacred place or shrine.
2. A long journey or search, especially one of exalted purpose or moral significance.
— The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000,

The sophistication of the experience is made clearer by researching the nature of Buddhism. By walking Borobudur you live out by physically enacting spiritual concepts which are extraordinarily complex and conceptual. The experience of Borobudur is one of the most advanced spaces made for pilgrims to read as they walk. It’s impossible to put into words how much information is packaged into the mountain monument.


Being on site for three days, in the only hotel within the complex walls, meant we had full access to the monument whenever we became hungry for further reading. it is a tranquil and harmonious space. It takes time and transcends time. It is a bold statement and unlike anything in the region.

Mount Meru: a sacred mountain in Hindu, Buddhist cosmology, and Jain mythology considered to be the center of all physical and spiritual universes. It is believed to be the abode of Brahma and other deities. The mountain is said to be 80,000 yojanas or leagues (450,000 km) high and located in Jambudvipa, one of the continents on earth in Hindu mythology. Many Hindu temples, including Angkor Wat, the principal temple of Angkor in Cambodia, have been built as symbolic representations of the mountain.” — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Meru.

Mount Sumeru: the polar center of a mandala-like complex of seas and mountains. The square base of Sumeru is surrounded by a square moat-like ocean, which is in turn surrounded by a ring (or rather square) wall of mountains, which is in turn surrounded by a sea, each diminishing in width and height from the one closer to Sumeru. There are seven seas and seven surrounding mountain-walls, until one comes to the vast outer sea which forms most of the surface of the world, in which the known continents are merely small islands. The known world, which is located on the continent of Jambudvipa, is directly south of Sumeru.” —http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumeru.

“Some beliefs, local to that area of the Himalayas, associate mythical Mount Meru with a mountain called Kailas near the Lake Manasarovar in Tibet, which can be traced to some later layers of Mahabharata.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Meru.

Mount Kailash:“The most sacred mountain in the world. Uncannily symmetrical, this remote and remarkable peak located in the forbidden land of Tibet might have built by superhuman hands. It stands out of a primordial landscape: a horizontally stratified plinth thousands of feet high, crowned with a perfect cone of pure snow. To Hindus it is the Throne of the great god Shiva. Buddhists associate it with Chakrasamvara, a powerful Tantric deity, and with the sage Milarepa, who fought a magic duel there with a shaman priest in ancient times. To the Bonpo, the followers of the indigenous religion of Tibet, it is the giant crystal on which their founder, Thonpa Shenrab, descended to earth from the skies.” — John Snelling, The Sacred Mountain (Travellers and Pilgrims at Mount Kailas in Western Tibet and The Great Universal Symbol of the Sacred Mountain).

With the understanding of or at the very least the point of reference of these mountains in mind, every mandala, every stupa, every 5 peaked architectural wonder suddenly becomes a reference or a metaphor for at least one of these mountains, pivotal to the regions grand religions.

“The ordinary man looking at a mountain is like an illiterate person confronted with a Greek manuscript.” — Aleister Crowley.