New Delhi, June 15 -- "For nine days and nine nights the snow fell", the 11th century Tibetan siddha Milarepa wrote on his way to Kailash-Mansarovar. The snowflakes were as big as a "flock of wool", floating like birds in the sky. Animals could find no food on the snow-clad slopes of the Himalaya, and even "the jaws of beasts of prey were stiffened together" in the snowstorm. "In such fearsome circumstances this strange fate befell me, Milarepa. There were these three: the snowstorm driving down from on high, the icy blast of mid-winter, and the cotton cloth which, the sage Mila, wore".

Travellers to Kailash today do not need to face such extreme conditions, but for most of history, those who left their homes for pilgrimage or trade in t...