Hundreds of pilgrims traveling to Mount Kailash were among those affected by devastating floods that struck the Nepal–Tibet border on Aug. 26, 2026. The floods destroyed the border crossing most commonly used to reach what is arguably the most revered holy mountain in the world, which sits in the Tibet autonomous region of China.

Hindus know the peak as the dwelling place of the god Shiva, Tibetan Buddhists as the abode of the deity Demchok, and Jains as the site where Rishabhanatha, their first spiritual teacher, achieved liberation. Today it also draws nonreligious travelers, who come for the harsh beauty of the landscape and the difficulty of the journey itself. Pilgrims and travelers do not climb Kailash. Instead, they walk a path roughly 33 miles around its base, which many believe to provide blessings and purification.

The legend of Kailash goes back thousands of years, to ancient Indian traditions describing a mountain at the center of the universe. But for most of that history, the Kailash of Indian literature was not associated with the peak that pilgrims travel to now.

In 2025, I published a book about Tibetan pilgrimage to Kailash. While researching it, I learned that it took centuries for a mythical mountain to become identified with this particular peak in western Tibet.

Indian religious texts describe a range of snowy mountains to the north called the Himalaya, or “abode of snows.” Beyond them, Indian cosmologies described a cosmic mountain called Meru, believed to stand at the center of the world.

The historian Alex McKay writes that the earliest mentions of a mountain named Kailash – Kailasa in Sanskrit – appear in the Hindu........

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