Kailash Range

Kailash Range, one of the highest and most rugged parts of the Himalayas, located in the southwestern part of the Tibet Autonomous Region, southwestern China. The range has a roughly northwest-southeast axis and lies to the north of a trough drained in the west by the Langqên (Xiangquan) River—which is known as the Sutlej River in India—and in the east by the Damqog (Maquan) River, headwater of the Brahmaputra River (in China called the Yarlung [Yaluzangbu] River). In the middle of this depression lies Lake Mapam, one of the highest freshwater lakes in the world, 15,052 feet (4,588 meters) above sea level. To the north of this lake lies Mount Kailash, which reaches an elevation of 21,778 feet (6,638 meters); it is known as Gang Tise to the Tibetans and is the second highest peak in the range after Lunpo Gangri (23,278 feet [7,095 meters]).

Mount Kailash is an important holy site, both to the Hindus, who identify it with the paradise of Shiva (one of the three supreme gods of Hinduism), and to the Tibetan Buddhists, who identify it as Mount Sumeru, cosmic center of the universe. Although religious pilgrimages to both Mount Kailash and Lake Mapam were permitted after the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1951 and guaranteed in the Sino-Indian Treaty of 1954, access was restricted after the subsequent Tibetan rising was suppressed, and the frontier was closed in 1962. Access to the area from the south is through the high Lipulieke (Lipu Lekh) Pass. The Indus River rises on the north flank of the Kailash Range.