Climbing Sri Pada, a Pilgrimage up Sri Lanka’s Holy Mountain
June 18, 2011
Genevieve Howard
The pilgrimage up the Sri Lankan holy mountain of Sri Pada is about three hours of walking up 5,200 ancient stone steps. Begin at 2am to see the dawn.
Climbing the sacred mountain of Sri Pada is, for Sri Lankans, a holy pilgrimage, a rite into the blessed state of Nirvana, the attainment of pure karma. It is a step into the promise of heaven.
The sacred pilgrimage of Sri Pada is a rite of passage all Sri Lankans complete at least once in their lives.
Sri Pada, or Adam’s Peak, stands at 2,200m above sea level. It is sacred to Christians, Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus by virtue of a metre-long footprint embedded in the rock at the very top of the mountain.
Christians take the footprint to be that of St Thomas, whom legend says walked from Jerusalem to Sri Lanka to preach the gospel after the death of Jesus.
Muslims believe the embedded footprint to be that of Adam, in his first step on Earth as he was thrown out of Paradise.
Hindus think it the footprint of Lord Shiva. Buddhists take it as the print of the Buddha himself.
Many people also believe the top of Sri Pada is simply the place where butterflies come to die.
The seven-kilometer walking pilgrimage begins in the small village of Dalhousie, several hours’ journey from Kandy. We began our journey at 2am, shrouded in mist and starlight, walking the stone road as it ascended. I hoped to reach the top by dawn.
I remember thinking that this was insane. I was totally insane. It was dark and cold and lonely and we were walking in air so thick with night it permeated our souls with its heaviness. I remember thinking it was not possible for something so unlikely as climbing a mountain in the middle of the night to be so special or so sacred.
I was so cold as I walked I was breathing smoke. The darkness pulled on my senses, the surrounding forests echoing unfamiliar, far off sounds.
The pilgrims of Sri Pada
When the stone road ended, I pulled myself up the 5,200 stone steps the mountain placed before me. I caught glimpses of temples, shrines and statues in the darkness on either side of me. I smelled the offering of incense. Behind me, outlined in the night, were the towering masses of the dagobas, white in their starkness, at the foot of the mountain.
Occasionally I would pass mothers making the journey with their children, carrying the younger ones in their arms.
Groups of teenage boys would pass me. They laughed into the darkness and told jokes to spur each other on. I saw orange- and brown-clad Buddhist monks murmuring mantras, Christian nuns in white clutching their rosaries.
Sometimes I would stop at one of the teahouses lining the route, to warm my hands with steaming aluminum cups of Sri Lankan tea. Here I would talk to the older women on the mountain, animated at making the journey for the fourth, fifth time. They were grey-haired and cataract-eyed. They walked barefoot.
Climbing the mountain that night was an 80-year-old man, assisted in his last pilgrimage up Sri Pada by his three grandchildren.
I realized that, in my uncertain journey up their mountain, these people put me to shame.
Dawn from Sri Pada
When my lungs were bursting from exposure to the cold air, I saw the top. It was a mass of people surrounding a rock.
At dawn, Hindu priests of orange and yellow gave out garlands of marigolds, chanting the sacred prayers of passage while Buddhist monks intoned mantras. Through the throngs, I saw the holy footprint. It was covered in a silk shroud.
A few minutes later we filed past it, guided by metal railings and anxious priests protecting the relic. I had bought a flower as an offering. The people before me were reverent in their silence. I was upset we could not see the footprint itself. It seemed a let down after having come so far.
The time of the sighting was apt. It was still eerily dark and the world carried a haze of dawning light through the air.
The crowd sighed when the sun rose.
When I looked down, I could see the route that brought me to the top of a sacred peak I had not heard of until my arrival in Sri Lanka three weeks before. The stone steps curved into the dark green trees. The clouds, weighted in dawn, brushed below me.
I could smell the incense of the priests, hear the chatter of Singhalese, the prayers of the devout.
I had climbed a mountain to watch the sun rise on one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
Source: http://www.suite101.com/content/climbing-sri-pada-a-pilgrimage-up-sri-lankas-holy-mountain-a338680
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