Kangchenjunga: The Five Treasures of High Snow

Kangchenjunga is so massive that it can be seen from Panchagarh 157km away at almost sea level in Northern Bangladesh. The view is usually clearest on early mornings in November.

"[Kangchenjunga is] like a king sitting on his throne. The four subsidiary peaks are like pillars supporting a baldaquin of clouds. Seen from the valleys the five pinnacles, decked in eternal snow, are like a crown or like the points of a diadem of the gods. Seven crystal-clear lakes lie on the rim of the mountain. They are like a row of libation vessels filled with water. The white crags to left and right resemble lions trying to leap up to the sky. The nests of the lammergeyers are their necklaces. The land that lies at the foot of the mountain is a bowl full of jewels" ~ popular Sikkimese-Tibetan paean to Kangchenjunga, quoted in René de Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Where the Gods are Mountains: Three Years among the People of the Himalayas (1957), p.30.

Kangchenjunga (Tibetan: གངས་ཆེན་མཛོད་ལྔ་ Wylie: gangs chen mdzod lnga, lit. "The Five Treasures of the High Snow" or "The Five Brothers of High Snow") is the third highest mountain in the world and the second highest in the Himalaya, only two summits on earth are higher: Mount Everest/Chomolungma and K2 in the Karakoram. The mountain has five distinct peaks. K-Main is the highest at 8,586m above sea level, followed by K-North (8,505m), K-South (8,476m), K-Mid (8,473m) and K-West (8,077m). Accordingly, these are the five highest points within India's borders, the next highest being the summit of Nanda Devi over 800km away in the Garhwal Himalaya. Rising in regal splendour over the Nepal-India border, Kangchenjunga dominates the landscape surrounding what was once the Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim, annexed by India in 1975. So massive is the mountain, that between 1846 and 1852, the British Survey of India mistakenly assumed it to be the tallest mountain in the world. When the British botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker came to Darjeeling in 1848 to conduct his botanical survey of the Himalaya, he was immediately dazzled by the grandeur of the mountain:

"In the early morning the transparency of the atmosphere renders this view one of astonishing grandeur. Kinchinjunga bore nearly due north, a dazzling mass of snowy peaks, intersected by blue glaciers, which gleamed in the slanting rays of the rising sun, like aquamarines set in frosted silver." ~ Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, Himalayan Journals, November 1848.

Long before the advent of British colonialism, the mountain has had immense significance to the people of Sikkim. There is perhaps no other Himalayan giant more revered than this. Kangchenjunga is sacred to the diverse ethnic communities who inhabit the surrounding landscape, notably to Sikkimese of Tibetan descent and the region's indigenous inhabitants, the Lepcha and Limbu. It is easy to see why: meltwater from the mountain's four massive glaciers provide the headwaters of some of the region's most crucial watercourses such as the rivers Meechi, Teesta and Toorsa. It is no wonder that mountains like this have long been understood as divine or primordial sources of life-giving water. Having said this, let's briefly unpack these different beliefs surrounding the mountain.

Sikkimese Tibetans

Classic sunrise view of Kangchenjunga from Tiger Hill, Darjeeling, India.

In Tibetan, the first meaning of the name Kangchenjunga (The Five Treasures of High Snow) refers to five Buddhist treasures said to be hidden inside the five summits of the mountain: gold, silver, jewels, grain and holy books. Appropriately, the Tibetans also believe that Vaiśravaṇa, the Tibetan Buddhist God of Wealth, resides on the mountain as the guardian and dispenser of these treasures. Additionally, the Tibetans also regard Kangchenjunga as a tutelary deity in its own right - a warrior god named after the mountain itself. The less widely held belief surrounding Kangchenjunga's second meaning (The Five Brothers of High Snow) concerns the custodianship of these same treasures are by five divine brothers each perched atop a different summit each riding a fearsome mount: a lion, an elephant, a horse, a dragon, and the wonder-bird Garuda.

Tibetan portrayal of Vaiśravaṇa [known in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism as 多闻天王 (pinyin: Duōwén Tiānwáng) or 毗沙門天 (Japanese: Bishamonten), one of the famous Four Heavenly Kings 四大天王].

    The Tibetan foundational myth concerning Kangchenjunga was indelibly linked to the political legitimacy of the chogyal, the Buddhist King of Sikkim, the chief executive of the regime that controlled Sikkim from 1642 until 1975. It is said that when Lhatsun Chempo, the Tibetan lama who brought Buddhism to Sikkim, was seeking a way over the mountains from Tibet, Kangchenjunga took the form of a wild goose and flew to him, describing to him the land he was going to settle and showing him the way. When Lhatsun Chempo was able to lead his party over the passes into Sikkim, he gave thanks to the mountain and appointed one of his followers (presumably Phuntsog Namgyal) as the chogyal. Never forgetting the good service rendered unto him by the mountain god, Lhatsun Chempo brought Kangchenjunga and the rest of the gods of the country an offering the following autumn, a rite that has since been repeated annually in the same season. A century after Lhatsun Chempo's death, this offering was enriched by a great religious masked dance, still performed today, in which Kangchenjunga, his minister Yabdu, and their retinue (represented by Buddhist lamas) appear on scene. This is the Pangtoed Chaam dance, performed during the Pang Lhabsol festival which commemorates the mountain deity every 15 July on the Tibetan Calendar (10 September this year, 2022).

The Lepcha

The Lepcha have an altogether different name for the mountain - Konglo Chu, the "Highest Veil of the Ice". In their animistic/shamanistic Mun faith, they believe that their creator deity Tasheting fashioned their earliest ancestors, the man Furongthing and his wife Nazongnyu, from the pure snows of Konglo Chu. In their belief, the mysterious "Snowman" - whom the Lepcha worship as their god of the hunt, haunts the moraine fields of Konglo Chu. Far beyond the great wall of Konglo Chu to the north (the boundary of their cultural universe) lies the kingdom of the dead where their souls go when they die. The Lepcha build certain shrines in their villages that contain cairn-like structures, which represent Konglo Chu and the peaks around it.

Lepcha man in traditional bamboo hat and woven clothing holding knife in Singhik, Sikkim c. 1965-1971.

Mountaineering and Conservation History 

Kangchenjunga South Face from Goecha La, Sikkim, India.

Kangchenjunga from the 3,000-3,500m high Singalila Ridge which separates Sikkim from Nepal.

Siniolchu (6,888m) a mountain adjacent to Kangchenjunga once described as "the most superb triumph of mountain architecture and the most beautiful snow mountain in the world."

In 1886, a Tibetan surveyor in the employ of the British Survey of India named Rinzin Namgyal produced the first detailed map of the Kangchenjunga circuit. In the following decades, Kangchenjunga, like many of the other Himalayan Giants became the obsession of a new generation of European explorers indoctrinated in the nascent secular religion of mountaineering. When the British mountaineer Douglas Freshfield reconnoitered the mountain in 1899, he remarked that mountain was protected by a "demon of inaccessibility", alluding to the Snowman of Lepcha myth. The first attempt to climb the mountain in 1905 ended in disaster when three porters and one European climber were buried in an avalanche. All further attempts on Kangchenjunga would remain unsuccessful for half a century. Finally, in a 1955 expedition that also experienced its share of casualties, Kangchenjunga was summited. At 1445hrs on 25 May 1955, British climbers George Band and Joe Brown claimed victory over Kangchenjunga, stopping just 5 feet below the summit in compliance with a special request by Sikkimese authorities to leave the summit untrodden out of deference towards local beliefs. This practice of stopping just below the summit would be followed by subsequent climbers for many years thereafter.

    In 1977, the Indian government created Kangchendzonga National Park, encapsulating the mountain and its adjacent glaciers, peaks, valleys, and sacred sites. In 2016, in recognition of its extraordinary beauty as well as its deep cultural and spiritual significance, UNESCO inscribed the park as the first World Heritage Site in India designated as both a cultural and a natural site. These days, Kangchenjunga is well-trodden in the adventure tourism scene, for its base camp and circuit treks, as well as for mountaineers eager to risk their necks summitting an eight-thousander. Kangchenjunga has long been firmly planted in the imaginations of Sikkim's indigenous peoples as well as foreigners who have had the good fortune to gaze upon it. Into the 21st century, with the acceleration of anthropogenic climate change which has exacerbated glacial retreat and disrupted the biodiverse ecosystems of the surrounding environment, it remains to be seen how the relationship between the people of Sikkim and their presiding mountain, which has since time immemorial stood as a permanent fixture on their mental horizons, will be reevaluated in the face of ecological change.

Kangchenjunga's massive Southwest face and the Yalung Glacier seen from Oktang, Nepal.

 Kangchenjunga viewed from the sacred Hindu pilgrimage site of Pathibhara Devi, Taplejung, Nepal.

Kangchenjunga viewed 90km away from Charkhole, North Bengal, India.

Iconic view of Kangchenjunga from Darjeeling, North Bengal, India.