A Textual Study Identifying Mount Kailash (Gang Rinpoche) as the Prototype of the Sacred-Mountain Character in Naxi Dongba Script
This article argues that the distinctive, non-standard structure of the 'sacred mountain' (Jiunashiluo) character in Naxi Dongba script -- a peak set on a three-tiered platform with a central vertical groove -- is not modeled on any snow peak of the Yunnan-Sichuan-Tibet border region, nor on a purely mythological Mount Sumeru, as earlier scholars proposed, but directly depicts Mount Kailash in Ngari, Tibet. Marshaling the mountain's actual topography (its swastika-like rock groove and tiered strata), Dongba scripture accounts of the sacred mountain's construction from precious materials, Tibetan and Sanskrit etymologies of its two Naxi names, the shared Milarepa-versus-Bön-sorcerer legend told of both Kailash and the Naxi sacred mountain, and Chinese, Buddhist, and Hindu Kunlun/Sumeru lore, the author concludes the character's Buddhist-Bön hybrid form reflects Zhang Zhung civilization's historical eastward transmission into Naxi culture.
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