Khangchendzonga

Mount Khangchendzonga

The crowning glory of Sikkim is Mt. Khangchendzonga, the third highest mountain in the world. With magnificent snow and ice scenery it is often regarded as the undisputed monarch among the peaks of the world.  But for the Sikkimese Khangchendzonga is much more than a mountain and is revered as the abode of their guardian deity Dzo-nga.

The mountain is imbued with legend, its conglomeration of five peaks are considered the five treasures of the Great Snows, an allusion to the Sikkimese belief that the mountain is the repository of the five holy items essential for life, minerals, grain, salt, weapons and the holy scriptures.

The Lepchas believe that the Mother-Creator, after creating everything on land and in the sky and sea fashioned Kongchen Konghlo, the range and cluster of mountains known to the outside world as Khangchendzonga and placed them as guardians of the tribe and their country.

Even today the mountain god is invoked and prayed to during Pang Lhabsol, a major Sikkimese festival, which also commemorates the blood brotherhood sworn between the Lepchas and the Bhutias at Kabi in the fifteenth century.

So sacrosanct is the mountain that successive mountaineering expeditions have climbed to within metres of the peak but left the summit inviolate in deference to local beliefs. The sacred mountain can be viewed from every corner of Sikkim and remains an intrinsic part of the consciousness of the people.