Sacred Mountains of Northern Thailand and Their Legends


Book Description

The mountains of northern Thailand inspire fear and awe, respect and love, curiosity and creative imagination. Drawing on the legendary histories of three mountains in the regionDoi Ang Salung Chiang Dao, Doi Suthep, and Doi Khamthis book explores the various ways that mountains in northern Thailand are seen as sacred space, and therefore as an environment to be respected rather than exploited.




Journey to the Sacred Mountains


Book Description

This book explores in depth the wisdom and fierce beauty of an ancient Sioux story, which teaches the value of setting out on a quest in the natural world in order to discover who and what one truly is. What unfolds, in a dramatic and inspiring way, is a vision of the elements intrinsic to the pathless path toward freeing oneself from constraining beliefs and conditioning in order to awaken to the wonder and mystery of pure presence before the soul of the world.




Circling the Sacred Mountain


Book Description

Chronicling the inner as well as the outer journey, an influential author offers his personal view of his spiritual adventure amid the breathtaking vistas of the Himalayas.







Sacred 5 Of China


Book Description

First published in 2007. Geil argues in this book that five is a number most remarkable to the man of the Central Kingdom. Crafted to the rule of fifths, the author discusses aspects of the world, mountains and religion which lead to the analysis of five. These include the ascent of five key figures: Tai Shan, Nan Yo, Sung Shan, Hua Shan and Heng Shan. This title includes illustrations throughout with a comprehensive index.




The Sacred Mountains of Asia


Book Description

"The Sacred Mountain" is a symbol revered by people in every religious and ethnic tradition of Asia. The 29 articles contained here celebrate these sacred peaks through prose, poetry, travelogue, historical and spiritual texts, art, and photos, and will be of interest to all students of Asian culture.




Inca Rituals and Sacred Mountains


Book Description

The Incas carried out some of the most dramatic ceremonies known to us from ancient times. Groups of people walked hundreds of miles across arid and mountainous terrain to perform them on mountains over 6,096 m (20,000 feet) high. The most important offerings made during these pilgrimages involved human sacrifices (capacochas). Although Spanish chroniclers wrote about these offerings and the state sponsored processions of which they were a part, their accounts were based on second-hand sources, and the only direct evidence we have of the capacocha sacrifices comes to us from archaeological excavations. Some of the most thoroughly documented of these were undertaken on high mountain summits, where the material evidence has been exceptionally well preserved. In this study we describe the results of research undertaken on Mount Llullaillaco (6,739 m/22,109 feet), which has the world's highest archaeological site. The types of ruins and artifact assemblages recovered are described and analyzed. By comparing the archaeological evidence with the chroniclers' accounts and with findings from other mountaintop sites, common patterns are demonstrated; while at the same time previously little known elements contribute to our understanding of key aspects of Inca religion. This study illustrates the importance of archaeological sites being placed within the broader context of physical and sacred features of the natural landscape.




Cuchama and Sacred Mountains


Book Description

W. Y. Evans-Wentz, great Buddhist scholar and translator of such now familiar works as the Tibetan Book of the Dead and the Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation, spent his final years in California. There, in the shadow of Cuchama, one of the Earth's holiest mountains, he began to explore the astonishing parallels between the spiritual teaching of America's native peoples and that of the deeply mystical Hindus and Tibetans. Cuchama and Sacred Mountains, a book completed shortly before his death in 1965, is the fruit of those explorations. To Cuchama, "Exalted High Place," came the young Cochimi and Yuma boys for initiation into the mystic rites for their people. In solitude they sought and received guidance and wisdom. In this same way, the peoples of ancient Greece, the Hebrews, the early Christians, and the Hindus had found access to inner truth on their own holy mountains: and in this same way must the modern person find the path to inner knowing. Surveying many of the most Sacred Mountains in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia, Evans-Wentz expresses the belief that the secret power of these high places has not passed away but only awaits the coming of a New Age. This new age, in accord with the oldest prophecies of our continent, will be a time of renaissance, the long-waited era of harmony and peace among all peoples. This renaissance shall be uniquely American, a renewal based on the values so long honored by the Americans before Columbus, and so ruthlessly trampled by the "civilized" Europeans who overran them. No other race of people has been as spiritual in their way of life than the original Americans, notes Evans-Wentz. Perhaps none other has known such martyrdom. Yet the secret greatness of the Indian religion still lives, ancient as the Earth itself, yet ageless in its power to renew.




Sacred Mountains of the World


Book Description

From the Andes to the Himalayas, mountains have an extraordinary power to evoke a sense of the sacred. In the overwhelming wonder and awe that these dramatic features of the landscape awaken, people experience something of deeper significance that imbues their lives with meaning and vitality. Drawing on his extensive research and personal experience as a scholar and climber, Edwin Bernbaum's Sacred Mountains of the World takes the reader on a fascinating journey exploring the role of mountains in the mythologies, religions, history, literature, and art of cultures around the world. Bernbaum delves into the spiritual dimensions of mountaineering and the implications of sacred mountains for environmental and cultural preservation. This beautifully written, evocative book shows how the contemplation of sacred mountains can transform everyday life, even in cities far from the peaks themselves. Thoroughly revised and updated, this new edition considers additional sacred mountains, as well as the impacts of climate change on the sacredness of mountains.




From the Holy Mountain


Book Description

In the spring of A.D. 587, John Moschos and his pupil Sophronius the Sophist embarked on a remarkable expedition across the entire Byzantine world, traveling from the shores of Bosphorus to the sand dunes of Egypt. Using Moschos’s writings as his guide and inspiration, the acclaimed travel writer William Dalrymple retraces the footsteps of these two monks, providing along the way a moving elegy to the slowly dying civilization of Eastern Christianity and to the people who are struggling to keep its flame alive. The result is Dalrymple’s unsurpassed masterpiece: a beautifully written travelogue, at once rich and scholarly, moving and courageous, overflowing with vivid characters and hugely topical insights into the history, spirituality and the fractured politics of the Middle East.