Posted on January 24th, 2021
Ashley de Vos
Stemming from the advice given by Arahat
Mahinda to King Devanampiya Tissa (3 C.BCE), that all beings including the
animals in the forest and the birds in the air have a right to live, tradition
dictated that all precious resources, are always protected. The thick forest
covered hills and mountains, referred to, by Ferguson (1815) as black, leach
infested and full of animals”, were dedicated to the Gods or Devas, and as a
royal decree ensured its continuous protection, very few went in to desecrate
it.
The central highlands were mostly uninhabited;
the few villages that existed were limited to the edges of the fertile valleys.
January 7, 2021
The Earth asked Vishnu, “Why do you come in the form of mountains and not in your own form?” Vishnu replied: “The pleasure that exists in mountains is greater than that of animate beings, for they feel no heat, nor cold, nor pain, nor anger, nor fear, nor pleasure. We three gods as mountains will reside in the earth for the benefit of mankind.”
In the late summer of 1995 I flew to India for my first experience of climbing in the Himalaya. The monsoon was still strong and in those days, a quarter of a century ago, parts of Delhi flooded more readily; many lower-lying streets were submerged in brown water. It was still raining as we drove north in a bus, stopping for a night in Rishikesh on the banks of the swollen Ganges. The Beatles studied transcendental meditation here in 1968 with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, turning on millions of young Westerners to eastern spiritual practices. “After I had taken LSD,” George Harrison recalled, “a lingering thought