Khumbila: Country God of the Sherpa

Nestled within the Mahalangur subrange of the Himalaya in northeastern Nepal lies the Khumbu valley, one of the most spectacular locations in the world. Its landscape is adorned with mountains, glaciers, and rivers encapsulating a dramatic elevation range from 2,600m to 8,849m. Among the myriad snow-clad peaks of the Khumbu, three of the ten highest peaks in the world (Everest, Lhotse and Cho Oyu) stand on the periphery of this valley, home to a Tibetic people called the Sherpa, world-famous for their skill as high altitude athletes and workers. Having arrived in Khumbu from Kham in Tibet in the 1530s, the Sherpa lived in relative isolation until the 20th century when two major transformations affected them. Firstly, Sherpa migrant workers in Darjeeling over in India began to trickle into the mountain tourism market of Darjeeling in the early 20th century as mountaineering guides and porters. Secondly, after Nepal opened its borders to the world in 1951, the Khumbu became a locus of nature and culture-based tourism. The 1950s saw the first mountaineering expeditions there, including the first successful ascent of Mount Everest by Tenzing and Hillary in 1953. Then from the 1960s onwards, significant trekking and sightseeing activities began in the Khumbu. The Sherpas have pursued tourism with entrepreneurial intensity, viewing it as a viable and essential income source after the uprooting of the trans-Himalayan trade following the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Today, they operate their own trekking tour agencies, work as guides on commercial mountaineering expeditions, and run their own teahouses and lodges that accommodate growing numbers of tourists from all corners of the world who flock to the Khumbu to experience its culture and natural beauty.

View of Khumbila from Monjo.

    Every one of the 30,000 or so tourists that trek in the Khumbu will come into contact with Mount Khumbila, a jagged peak of granite 5,761m high. The principal Sherpa villages of Khumjung, Khunde as well as the tourist hub of Namche Bazaar lie on its flanks. Most trekkers will never learn its name, for it is absolutely dwarfed by the six-, seven-, and eight-thousanders of the Khumbu that tower over this relatively minor Himalayan peak. To the Sherpas on the other hand, the utmost deference is reserved for Khumbila. Where giants like Everest and Lhotse sit on the periphery of the Sherpa homeland, Khumbila rises up from its very center. The Sherpa maintain agricultural fields on its slopes as well as pastures for cattle grazing, relying on its snowmelt-derived streams for irrigation and drinking water. To no surprise at all, mountain-climbing has always been religiously problematic for the Sherpa. The Sherpa historically adhered to a set of taboos in relation to high mountains, including the belief by some that to ascend above the tree line intruded on the preserves of the gods, who would punish their transgressors by afflicting them with a form of "mountain madness," potentially a religious interpretation of the cause of altitude sickness. With their heavy involvement in adventure tourism and mountain athleticism, the Sherpas have generally abandoned these taboos or found ways to justify mountain-climbing, such as the performance of the now-routine base camp puja that asks the mountain for permission to climb it at the start of every expedition. Nonetheless, they make no exception for only one mountain: Khumbila. To understand why this is the case, it is necessary to briefly explore the place-based model of spirituality that the Sherpa adhere within their local tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.

[Note: all landscape photographs in this essay are my own, taken c. November 2022 during my EBC trek]

Beyul Khumbu

Thangka painting of Padmasambhava, c. 19th century.

The Khumbu Sherpa recognise two categories of sacred landscape: beyul or hidden valleys, and yul-lha or sacred mountains and their associated divinities. The former is associated with Tibetan Buddhism, whilst the latter is a concept that originates from pre-Buddhist animistic beliefs. Most Khumbu Sherpa adhere to a localised strand of Nyingma, the 'old translation school,' of Tibetan Buddhism. Sherpa religion is essentially a syncretic tradition incorporating elements of pre-Buddhist Tibetan beliefs like Bon and folk customs, as well as the tenets of institutional Vajrayana Buddhism. As Nyingmapa, the Sherpa revere the Indian tantric master of the 8th century and transmitter of Buddhism to Tibet, Padmasambhava, or as they call him, Guru Rinpoche (Tibetan-Sanskrit, "the precious teacher"), as second only to the Buddha himself.

    Padmasambhava features very heavily in the local folklore of the Khumbu Sherpa. In the wider Nyingma tradition, it is held that Padmasambhava maintained meditation retreats and refuges in a collection of 108 beyuls (Tibetan: སྦས་ཡུལ Wylie: sbas-yul), hidden mountain valleys often encompassing areas as large as several hundred square kilometers. Beyuls were revered as sacred spaces, consecrated by Padmasambhava as refuges that could protect faithful Nyingmapa practitioners during times of crisis, and which could function as safe spaces for the practice of Buddhism. Within each beyul were a plethora of yul-lhas. In Sherpa language, Yul-lha refers not only to sacred mountains but is also a generic term for a range of nature spirits and deities. In the Buddhist interpretation, the yul-lhas were originally mountain demons and spirits in the time before Padmasambhava's coming. In a large volume of folk stories that form a cultural schema across the Himalaya, Padmasambhava would come to these valleys and subdue these spirits and bind them by oath to reemerge as protector deities of Buddhism. The locations of these beyuls would be kept hidden in secret texts called terma, until a tertön (a discoverer of terma) would reveal its location at specific or appropriate times.

The Khumbu Valley viewed from near Syangboche. (left to right): Taboche (6,495m), Mount Everest (8,849m), Lhotse (8,516m) and Ama Dablam (6,812m).

    In Sherpa myth, it is reckoned that Padmasambhava designated Khumbu as one such beyul. It is told that he spent three days meditating in a cave above Khumjung subduing mountain spirits hostile to Buddhism and converting them to tutelary deities of the Nyingma faith. Around 1533, the Sherpa arrived in the Khumbu over the Nangpa La, fleeing warfare from Kham in eastern Tibet. They first settled around the areas of present-day Pangboche and Dingboche, which had previously been used by Tibetan Buddhist hermits as meditation retreats. Since then, the Sherpas have strictly followed a set of rules or codes of conduct in the beyul. Believers generally refrain from performing any negative action that is inconsistent with Buddhist philosophy. These rules include not harming or killing any living thing in the beyul, refraining from any form of violence, not stealing or cheating another person, and performing the proper rites and actions to please the local gods and spirits. Since many mountain deities or yul-lha are tasked with the onus that Buddhism is protected in these valleys, human actions that are inconsistent with Buddhist principles are believed to have the potential to upset the yul-lhas and lead to unforeseen negative consequences for human communities, usually in the form of natural disasters. This is perhaps one reason why the anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner has observed in her 1989 monograph High Religion: A Cultural and Political History of Sherpa Buddhism, that homicides and armed conflicts are uniquely rare occurrences within the Solukhumbu region throughout Sherpa history.

Khumbu Yul-lha

Khumbila seen from Tengboche.

Artistic depiction of Khumbu Yul-lha, Namche Bazaar dzong gate.

Gold patterned Khumbu is the seat of Khumbu Yullha,

Offer a ceremonial scarf to pay respect to the Yullha,

The deities are pleased with us,

Our gathering today is like a life-long meeting,

When we depart let us go safely.

~ Sherpa folk song. Gert-Matthias Wegner, Music of the Sherpa People of Nepal, I: Shebru Dance Songs from the Everest Region, 1999.

The Sherpa believe that almost every mountain in the beyul is inhabited by at least one yul-lha. The greatest among all of the Khumbu mountain gods is Khumbu Yul-Lha (lit. 'Country God of Khumbu', contracted to 'Khumbila'), who resides on the eponymous mountain directly above the villages of Khumjung and Khunde. In the old beyul myth, Padmasambhava supposedly subdued and appointed Khumbila to serve as the tutelary deity of the entire beyul. He is often depicted in Sherpa visual art as an anthropomorphised warrior king with white hair, wearing a white scarf, and riding a red or brown horse.

    In a militaristic and monarchical hierarchy, he reigns as the supreme commander of all the numerous gods and spirits that inhabit the mountains and other sacred geographical features of the Khumbu, many of which are construed as his relatives or ministers in his court. For instance, Tamosermu, Khumbila's wife, resides on Thamserku (6,623m), a peak most prominently seen from Namche; Taboche, dwelling on a mountain of the same name (6,495m) serves as Khumbila's minister; and Si Chu, Khumbila's gamekeeper or herdsman resides on Ama Dablam (6,812m), in my opinion the most beautiful mountain in Khumbu. It is important to note that these four mountains sit on the four cardinal directions around the Sherpa villages of Pangboche (where Khumbu's oldest temple was founded) and Tengboche (the site of the first celibate Sherpa monastery) which territorially demarcate Khumbila's area of influence. This schema is somewhat typical of many similar sacred Buddhist peaks throughout the Himalaya, that are held to be sacred only to the people that live around them.

Khumbila rises over the villages of Khumjung (right) and Khunde (left).

    Though the lowest and least prominent of these four mountains, Khumbila's importance as a sacred mountain and territorial deity is owed to its close proximity to the key centers of human habitation in the Khumbu region. He is worshipped with particular intimacy by the Sherpas of Namche Bazaar, Khumjung, Khunde and Thame, who see him not merely as a village protector, but also as a personal or family deity. Postcard size images of Khumbila adorn almost all Sherpa household shrines, and statues and murals of him can also be found in the village temples and monasteries. Khumbila presides over mundane affairs, such as community wellbeing and security, wish fulfilment, success, prosperity, as well as the prevention of natural disasters. As such, he is vicariously regarded as a warrior deity, a birth deity as well as a cattle deity who wields almost unlimited power over everyday life in the Khumbu. In return for protection and prosperity, the Khumbu Sherpa bind Khumbila in a relationship through the regular performances of libation offerings called serkem, the burning of aromatic incenses usually made of juniper, and the performance of pujas or worship ceremonies. In doing so, they enact a moral framework whereby the beyul code of conduct is upheld in order to placate the yul-lha and to ensure communal and personal success and prosperity.

Khumbila as seen from Khumjung.

    Although many Sherpa make a living by participating in mountaineering expeditions, climbing numerous peaks that are theoretically the abodes of various other deities, they would never dream of attempting Khumbila, which they regard as too sacred to be desecrated by climbers. The hubris of stepping upon the head of their country god would surely enrage their protector and put their communities in jeopardy. Some Sherpas believe that if Khumbila were to be transgressed in any way at all, he would send avalanches down its slopes to decimate his offenders, destroy their crops, or set yetis (abominable snowmen) loose on the villagers to kill their yaks. Indeed, in a peculiar juxtaposition to the Balinese kaja-kelod system centered around Mount Agung, Sherpa houses especially in Khumjung, Khunde and Thame are oriented away from Khumbila so that they do not disturb the deity. Pristineness is a source of the sacred for the Sherpa. There are apocryphal reports of a Western attempt on Khumbila in or prior to the 1980s, and unsurprisingly, the story goes that all the climbers perished in an avalanche. The Nepalese government has mostly acquiesced to the Sherpas' cultural sensibilities: they do not offer climbing permits for Khumbila and the mountain is designated as completely off-limits. To this day, Mount Khumbila remains unclimbed, the forbidden preserve of the tutelary god of the Khumbu Sherpas. 

Another view of Khumbila from Tengboche.