Editing Dharmic Circuits: The Tale of Many Kailashas (section)

==== No Concept of One True Kshetra ====
This does not mean that he sees all space and time in an undifferentiated sacredness. This would negate all concepts of sacred kshetras. But there is no concept of ‘One True Kshetra’, like there is no concept of One True God, One True Book or One True Belief. That sacred can attain many avataras, that time can repeat, and that kshetras and sacred centers can repeat and recreate themselves is a sense so central to the Hindu consciousness that no devotee is even conscious about it. For him the fact that divinity can repeat itself at various places and times is as natural as the belief in the universal presence of air and other elements.

For a devout Hindu to consider one Kailash to be original and other to be copies would necessitate a belief in only a linear view of time, because the concept of originality is wedded to the linear view of time. If time can repeat on itself in Yugas, the very words ‘original’ and ‘copies’ lose all meaning. For a devout Hindu like this, time becomes circular, space repeats itself in sacred circuits, and teerthas reappear like fractals at every receding circle of geography.

The Mani Mahesh Kailash fulfills all the requirements of a Kailash. It is perpetually laden with snow. It belongs to a range which is well nigh impassable. It has a sacred lake at its feet which is the center of a great pilgrimage circuit across the great Chamba region. People from all the state and the entire district gather here during the sacred month of Mani Mahesh Yatra.