Kailash & Guge: Lands of the Tantric Mountain

Kailash & Guge: Lands of the Tantric Mountain is a book about the ancient region in Western Tibet known as Shangshung, and beyond, to parts of Spiti, Kinnaur, Zanskar, Ladakh, Mustang and West Nepal. Although Shangshung no longer constitutes a geographical entity, it lives on in spirit in the shadow of Mount Kailash. Ancient Shangshung later encompassed the Guge Kingdom, which also spread across the Himalaya into north India and the fringes of Nepal. Here the tumultuous waters of the River Sutlej carved a way through the great mountain range. Tenuously linked to Tibet by high passes, the high windswept valleys of the high Himalaya remained culturally attached to the Guge capital of Tsaparang and the monastic centre of Toling until the 17th century.

As well as being a mine of historical and cultural information, this book also includes details of the trekking route around the sacred Kailash Kora and Lake Manasarovar, plus West Nepal and the Limi Valley.