Awe is a spontaneous, quick dip into the void. It is the brief, slack-jawed response to overwhelming stimulus whether it be a cool, briney breeze off the ocean, a late day’s reflection of October maples seen on the surface of a still Walden pond, or the sight of the world’s tallest mountain, more than ten times as tall as the Empire State Building and tens of thousands of times greater in volume.

 

When I experience awe(defined in Webster’s as “a profound and humbly fearful reverence inspired by a diety or by something sacred or mysterious”) upon coming within sight of ‘Everest’, I connect directly to the very emotion which led the Tibetans in the 11th century to name this highest mountain in their and everyone’s world, Qomolungma, Goddess Mother of the World/Universe.

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Awe is the glue that connects the mountains to the spiritual realm.

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When I make awe’s visceral connection to this mountain, I realize why the name Everest, an homage to the British second Surveyor General of India(who never saw the mountain himself) is so out of sync with the direct experience of the mountain and a diminution of the meaning the Tibetans attributed to it. The name Everest is emblematic of Britain’s 19th century imperial, scientific and acquisitive nature and its understanding of the geographic significance of the landmark. The contradiction is that the mountain is situated on the border between Nepal and Tibet, a sovereign nation and a territory within another sovereign nation neither of which has ever been part of the British Empire - yet their mountain bears the name a British civil servant. Had either country been a British colony and then gained independence, as India did, there would have been an opportunity to make a name change as has happened to many locations in India. But since neither has been a colony of Britain, there has been no clear moment or venue for such a change.

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The names given to the mountain are an example of the difference between Eastern and Western approaches to life. The Tibetans assessed the mountain in qualitative terms while the British surveyed the mountain using a coldly quantitative scientific technique. The Tibetans standing before the mountain could feel its palpable physical presence and responded reverently, inspired with awe. The British surveyed the mountain from between 70 and 150 miles away(because the borders of both Nepal and Tibet were closed to all foreigners) and over several years calculated its significance using complex trigonometric equations worked to the seventeenth decimal point. To the Tibetans she was a Goddess: to the British a landmark. One perceived and recognized the spiritual significance of the mountain, while the other calculated its geopolitical value.

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It has been said that to name is to own and to dictate use. Many locations in the Himalayas have intrinsic spiritual value and have become destinations for pilgrimages. During the many days, weeks or months it may take to walk to these sites, the pilgrim in the quietude of the mountain trail contemplates the meaning of the site with respect to his life and his world, and he purifies his soul in preparation to encounter it. There is no site in the Himalayas attributed a higher life affirming spiritual status than Goddess Mother of the Universe, but that fact and that identity are obscured by the shroud cover of the homage to a long dead mortal, Mt Everest.

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Today when we hear the term Everest, we immediately conjure up images of hyper-active climbers clad in overstuffed, brilliantly colored orange, red or blue snowsuits and goggles with darkened lenses clambering over rock and snow in pursuit of their personal bests. We don’t consider spiritual issues. Every year about twenty thousand people trek out to directly experience the mountain, fewer than 400 are climbers. Very few of these trekkers considered their their trip to be a spiritual pilgrimage even if they were vaguely aware of the Qomolungma name because the secular naming of the mountain has defined its use as something other than spiritual. On the other hand, trekkers who walk out to a relatively obscure location called Muktinath that is one of the seven holy places for the Hindu nation, know it is a place of spiritual significance and they can not help but be swept up into self examination during the many days walk to the site just by the knowledge of the nature of their objective.

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In 1847 when the British claimed to have discovered(!) the world’s tallest mountain and then ten years later named it after one of their citizens, there was no response from Kathmandu(capital of Nepal) or Lhasa(capital of Tibet) where they probably weren’t even aware it had happened. But now, since the world has shrunk, the borders of both countries have opened and over 500,000 visitors come to Nepal each year and a smaller number to Tibet, this British naming tradition directly affects their world.

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In the 1990’s, the world learned that a huge cache of discarded oxygen bottles left by expeditions over several decades littered the mountain’s South Col summit staging area at 25,000’. People around the world were off ended and indignant by the idea that climbers had been so callous and that their image of the purity of the snow even here had been sullied by refuse. It seems to me that although the name Everest was left on the mountain to lay claim to it, it is also a form of imperial/colonial junk left behind on the pure white naming tradition and characterization of the mountain by the Tibetans and we should be equally offended and indignant about it.

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In Nepal the mountain is called Sagarmatha, The Stick that Churns the Ocean of Existence, a new word consciously constructed from Sanskrit roots in the 1970’s. This mountain is their primary claim to fame; it is simply the most significant thing in Nepal on the international stage. There is a new national spirit evolving in Nepal. Within the last few years the monarchy was dissolved after 293 years of rule. Now a new constitution is being painstakingly crafted. Although this country doesn’t have a very old naming tradition, it seems their national sovereignty guarantees them the right to name and claim the object of greatest national pride that exists within their borders.

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The title of my show at the Hickory Museum of Art in 2006, Everest Not Everest, tries to bring attention to my belief that Everest is not Everest; it is Qomolungma, it is Sagarmatha. To make this change and recognize these names would be to validate Tibetan and Nepali culture. It would represent a keyhole to Eastern thought and tradition in general and specifically to the cultures of Nepal and Tibet. Finally, it would represent a hopeful change to people in other lands who would see that, in this information age, longstanding traditions can be changed.