Seeking the hub of the world

Press, 28 May 1983, Page 16

Seeking the hub of the world

A Mountain in Tibet. By Charles Allen. Andre Deutsch, 1982. 254 pp. Bibliography, index. $45.75. (Reviewed by Ruth Zanker) “A Mountain in Tibet” is a story of rediscovery. Throughout Hindu and Buddhist Asia exists a legend about an archetypal mountain, at the hub of the world, from which four mighty rivers take their sources. This image is reflected diversely in public structures such as the temple mountain of Borobudur in Java, and in private contemplative forms such as the Mandala. The traditional site of “Meru,” abode of Gods, core of the universe, navel of the world, lay beyond the Himalayan ramparts, and, gradually, an “acolyte mountain,” Mount Kailas, became elevated into its earthly avatar. Here Hindus and Buddhists travelled to perform “Parikarama,” or circumambulation, and bathed in the sacred Lake Manasarova at Mount Kailas’ foot. We know now that Buddhist and Hindu writings celebrated an astonishing fact: that the four largest rivers in the subcontinent, the Indus, the Sutlej, the Brahmaputra and the Ganges, even though they emerge from mountains many hundreds of miles

apart, all have their origins in this small corner of south-western Tibet dominated by Mount Kailas. It took many years for Europeans to prove this. There are no great heroes of Centra] Asian exploration. That may seem surprising when one realises that it presented explorers with rigours equal to the polar regions or the Nile river. Along with those zones, Central Asia presented a last, unmapped void to Victorian geographers. Yet explorers in the other regions became national heroes and those of Central Asia are forgotten. Why? Much of the area remained out of bounds for most of this period. Tibet was a useful bufferzone between the. British Raj and Russia and, indeed, Britain openly discouraged from the region any Victorian gentlemen-explorers of the type feted in other areas. Some of Allen’s most fascinating and impressive material relates to the clandestine work done for the British by the tribal Bhotia mappers codenamed the “pundits.” (Fans of “Kim” and Kipling will find echoes here.) This did not prevent a mixed bag of Europeans from taking up the challenge. There were doughty

servants of the British Raj, such as Wilcox and Burlton, who surveyed the terrible Terai approaches to the eastern Himalayas. There were the adventurers, including Hyder Jung Hearsey, who, when snubbed by the British, proceeded to explore the forbidden south-west area of Tibet in disguise. There was the rumoured illegal Shikar party of Smyth and Drummond who allegedly came upon the source of the Brahmaputra by accident when hunting for game. There was the ghastly Henry Savage Landor, an upper class twit if ever there was one, who showed appalling insensitivity to British, Indian and Tibetan feelings in his search for “bloody tales of derrydoing.”

Finally, larger than life, there is the flawed hero-explorer Sven Hedin. His strange mixture of courage and arrogance was inspired by Nietzschean racial superiority and drove him to staggering feats of endurance during his Central Asian explorations. His significant discoveries were undermined, and his bid for fame wrecked, when he fell foul of the British political and geographical establishment. For white-water adventurers, Alien’s book suggests the ultimate challenge: to be the first to travel the length of the Brahmaputra through the Himalayan gorges. For armchair explorers, his book is simply a treat. He uses an easy journalistic style to trace the theme of the European discovery of a fascinating region and to draw together disparate and obscure material. The maps are interesting, the backdrop is stunning, and the tales are amazing. New Zealanders craving such escapism will have to pay $45, too. much for a book costing £12.95 in Britain.