Mapping Mountains across Geographies and Cultures: India and the US

Mountains and their legacies reveal much about land-human relationships, and mountains connect us across the world. Historically, many events and dreams propelled humanity in search of new vistas and new lands beyond those mountains, as we moved towards the future. How many histories of mountains—as geological formations, as the anchor for our cultural imaginaries—are archived in and through our bodies? What memories, what dreams, what stories? And as we excavate how the body remembers the mountain what can that reveal to us?

Through the Khyber Pass in the Great Himalayas, the historic gateway to the Indian Subcontinent, Persians, Greeks, Mughals, Afghans, and the British came to India. The encounters have informed a rich, complex, and diverse cultural landscape. Other pathways across inland mountains have resulted in cultural exchanges like those sedimented alongside the Palakkad Gap in the Western Ghats.

In the US, Mt. Rainier, an active volcano that last erupted 1000 years ago, is the most glaciated mountain in the US, with 25 major glaciers. Prior to European contact, the Native Americans lived in the region around the mountain. Native American names for Mt. Rainier include such as the Lushootseed which means "sky wiper" or "one who touches the sky" in English. 

Over time, the Spanish, English, and eventually Americans from the East Coast came to Mt. Rainier. All these journeys across the various mountain ranges have been long and at times so distant that we can become almost lost in our efforts to recollect and remember our histories and remember our mountains. 

From Mount Kailash for the Tibetans, Nepalese, and Assamese; the Chithali Mala for the people of Khasak (in O.V.Vijayan’s Khasakkinte Ithihasam); the Malleshwaram Peak for the tribes of Attappady to the Mount Rainier for the Native Americans and their mountain stories, these huge geological formations, have provided the spiritual and cultural anchor for the people who live by them.

The mountains can be remembered as we tune into their geologies, histories, and cultural and religious stories. Mountains act as potent symbols that manifest across borders. They connect diverse communities and belief systems. For example, Mount Kailash is considered the center of the world in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. 

From near to far, the mountains continue to be remembered as we tune into their cultural and religious stories that exist beyond their geographical extends. Mountains act as potent symbols that manifest across borders. They connect diverse communities and belief systems. For example, Mount Kailash is considered the center of the world in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism.

Importantly, mountains are also recalled through performance traditions, such as, for example, Kutiyattam’s Kailasodharanam or Govardhanodharanam and Poothan Thira’s allegiance to Anagan Mala.

Performance brings the mountain directly into the provisional community space that opens up as the story of the respective mountain unfolds and is lived through. These experiences also affirm and at the same time can rewire our ongoing relationships with mountains near and far.

Mountain to mountain, story to story, bodies to bodies, body to body: we remember the mountain and map its formations across geographies and geologies; diverse cultures; time and space. The BRM Project seeks new and innovative ways for mapping a cultural imaginary of the mountain that enables us to continue to look at how the mountains can live in us and through us as we honor our earth-land relations.