Why Velliangiri Mountains are Sacred

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Why Velliangiri Mountains are Sacred

Why would a mountain become sacred? After all, it’s just a mound of earth. If it’s a small mound, we call it a grave. If it’s a large mound, we call it a mound. Why would a mountain become sacred? Is it just because it is hard on our knees that we are overwhelmed by a mountain? Is it because of the difficulty of getting there, to the top, which makes it very large in human consciousness? In a way, that’s true. If you could simply run up the mountain without an effort, you wouldn’t have thought much of the mountains, because it extracts life to get to the top. People begin to think mountains are great.

I am calling this mountain sacred not because it’s hard to climb. I am not of that kind who makes everything that is hard in life sacred. I am not that kind. For me, eating a banana is very sacred. Do you have difficulty? Do you have difficulty eating a banana? It’s very sacred. If you remain hungry for three days and then eat a banana, you would know how sacred it is. To perceive anything, to know the significance of even something as simple as eating a banana, you need preparation, three days of fasting.

To perceive the sanctity of these mountains, also, you need preparation. Otherwise, you wouldn’t understand, but why would a mountain become sacred? It’s just a mound of earth. If you know a few geological facts, you know how it all happened, a long time ago, but you know how it happened.

For me, this is very sacred, because my guru walked upon it. He even chose to shed his physical self upon it, and, when he wanted to say something to me, he did not sit down like this and talk to me. He could have told me, but everything that he wanted to tell me, he put it upon the peak of this mountain, so it’s very sacred to me. Right from my infancy, he drove me from within these mountains.

For him, these mountains became sacred, and, for many in this tradition of this clan, these mountains become sacred, because, long time ago, there was a young maiden in South India, southernmost tip of India, the southernmost point of the Indian subcontinent or the peninsula. She aspired to hold Shiva’s hand, not his feet. She was a proud woman. Not his feet. She wanted to hold his hand as a wife. She said, if at all, if I marry, it’s only him. If you have big desires, you also have to make yourself capable. Otherwise, desires can be very frustrating, so she started working towards making herself capable, to be suitable to draw that man, and her devotion crossed all boundaries. Her hostilities crossed all levels of sanity, and she remained absolutely focused upon him, not desiring him in the evenings when she has nothing to do; every moment, just on it.

It stirred up Shiva’s compassion and love, so he started making his journey to South India, but all the other gods conspired. They did not want him to have a South Indian wife. They played many tricks to stop him, and she set up this deadline. “If I’m not married to him by sunrise on this day, I’m going to leave my body.” She had become an accomplished yogi by then, that she could leave her body if she wished. Shiva came to know of this and was hurrying down. Then the other gods start, “If he gets married here, he may not go back up there. He may start living in South India,” so they conspired to create a false sense of sunlight, and light came up. Shiva thought, “Oh, the sun came up, and I could not meet the deadline.” He was close, and he thought, “It’s over,” and he turned back, so she left her body standing. Even today, she stands there as Kanyakumari. There is a shrine at the very tip of this country, at the very tip of this land mass, where it is known as Kanyakumari, or it is the maiden’s shrine.

He turned back, and he felt very disappointed with himself that he could not meet up to her devotion, so a little despondent, frustrated with himself that he didn’t make it in time, he started walking back, and he needed a place to sit and work out his despondency, so he climbed up this mountain, and, at the peak of this mountain, he sat. We don’t know how long, but, because wherever Shiva stepped and spent a little bit of time, people call that place a kailash, so they call this the Kailash of the South.

In its height, in its color, probably in its magnitude, it may not be comparable to the kailash in the Himalayas, but in its potency and its beauty and in its sacredness, it is not any less.