South Asia: Pakistan and the Himalayan States - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 209

There are three geo-ecological zones. The Outer Hi-
malayas have an average elevation of between 3,280 and
6,560 feet (1,000-2,000 m). This lowest region extends
almost unbroken from the Indus River to the Brahmapu-
tra and includes numerous long, flat-bottomed valleys
called duns. These are filled with gravelly alluvium (look
again at Figure 2-1).
In between this zone and the Great Himalayas are
the Middle Himalayas. About 129 miles (206 km) wide
and between 9,840 and 16,400 feet (3,000-5,000 m) in
altitude, this zone comprises the Himalayan foothills.
Ranges run obliquely from the Great Range or stand dis-
connected. Most people live here, concentrated in such
valleys as the Kathmandu V alley of Nepal and the V ale of
Kashmir. This is the region of most critical environmen-
tal and human damage.
The Great Himalaya, the highest zone, is sparsely
populated. However, in recent years people from the Mid-
dle zone have come into the region, placing additional
stress on limited resources. This is also the environment
affected most by tourism. The colonial era brought British
explorers to the Himalaya. Thereafter, the region was
open to commerce with the densely peopled plains of India.
Then imported mass-produced goods were introduced to
mountain communities, and the region was exploited by
foreign power structures for resources such as minerals,
timber, and cheap labor supply . Himalayan peoples soon
became enmeshed in political and economic dependency
relationships outside their control.
Tibetan-influenced Buddhism predominates in the
region of the Himalayas, although Hinduism and Islam
are important in places closer to India. Monasteries,
chortens (structures containing relics of a holy person),
mani walls (walls of stones with prayers carved on them),
prayer flags, and pilgrimage tracks are Buddhism' s im-
press upon the Himalayan landscape. Dwarfed by
Chomolungma, “Mother Goddess of the World'' (Everest),
Kanchenjunga, Dhaulagiri, and other pillars of the gods,
it is little wonder that millions believe in the sanctity of
Himalayan peaks.

this sacred pinnacle flow the four great rivers: the
Sutlej, Indus, Ganges, and Tsang Po (Brahmaputra).
In reality , the sources of these important rivers lie
within a 60-mile (96 km) radius of Mt. Kailas.
The mountain also figures prominently in pil-
grim circulation. Thousands of pilgrims converge on
this site each year to complete the 34-mile (55 km)
circumambulation upward to 18,600 feet (5,580 m).
In 1900, Kawaguchi Ekai, a young, Zen monk from
Japan, walked across Nepal and traversed an
east-west trail across the Tibetan Plateau. As recorded
in Scott Berry' s topic A Stranger in Tibet (1989), the
monk wrote of his first vision of Mt. Kailas and its sa-
cred lakes. “Verily , verily it was a natural mandala.
The hunger and thirst, the perils of dashing stream
and freezing blizzard, the pain of writhing under
heavy burdens, the anxiety of wandering over track-
less wilds, the exhaustions and lacerations, all the
troubles and sufferings I had just come through,
seemed like dust, which was washed away . . . .''
Although the Himalayas were apparently remote
and inaccessible, isolation was not complete. T Traders
plied precipitous routes, transferring goods such as
salt and wool from Tibet and silk from China to ea-
ger merchants in India. Through trade and religious
pilgrimage, connectivity was maintained inside and
outside the region. Although contact with Tibet is
now limited, yak caravans continue to trek remote
areas, linking them with newly built truck routes.
Aside from salt and other raw materials, the caravans
and trucks now carry cans of cooking oil, tanks of
propane, and other products. Pilgrimage continues
to be a means of information and economic inter-
change. But the pilgrims now talk of how much their
lives have changed, perhaps about the new satellite
dish atop the local monastery .

ROADS AND DAMS
Development schemes such as roads and dams are often
based on the interests of outsiders. India has been very
active in the region, understandably in light of its strate-
gic interests regarding Pakistan, China, and Bangladesh.
After a border war between India and China in
1962, India built numerous road networks as high as
17,000 feet (5,100 m). Road construction—especially
dynamiting—destabilized the hills and soil, and the
roads gavlumber companies access

Mount Kailas

Not the highest, but most significant in human
terms, is 22,028 feet (6,608 m) Mt. Kailas. Believed
by both Hindus and Buddhists to be the sacred cen-
ter of the universe, Mt. Kailas is central to religious
conceptions of the world known as mandalas. From

to virgin forests.