For Tibetan Buddhists, Hindus, Jains and Bön practitioners alike, Mount Kailash stands at the apex of the sacred map — a 6,638-metre granite pyramid in western Tibet, west of Lake Manasarovar, long regarded as the abode of Shiva and the axis of the cosmic mandala. Its name derives from the Sanskrit kelāsa, meaning crystal — a reference to the ice-bright summit pilgrims have circumambulated for over a thousand years. Six hundred kilometres east, rising at the head of the Nubri valley in Gorkha district of Nepal, stands Manaslu — at 8,163 metres the world’s eighth-highest peak. Its name is drawn from the Sanskrit Manasa, meaning intellect or soul, and is most often translated as “Mountain of the Spirit.” Locally, in the old Nubri-Tsum dialects, the mountain is known as Kang Pungyen, “the bracelet snow mountain” — a reference to the curving ridge that wraps Punghren Gompa beneath it like a turning prayer wheel.
Among the families of Lho, Samagaun and the wider Nubri, Manaslu is not merely a high mountain — it is the second-holiest mountain a person can walk towards. Where Kailash is the seat of the gods, Manaslu, the elders say, is where the spirit settles to rest. Pilgrims who cannot reach Tibet have walked the Manaslu kora — the circumambulation route around its base — for generations, lighting butter lamps at the chortens of Lho and laying khatas at the meadows of Birendra Tal. To circle Manaslu once, an old Nubri saying goes, washes a lifetime; to circle it three times, washes the lifetimes still to come.
“This year is the year of the horse. It is the year to visit Punghren Gompa, which sits right beneath Manaslu. The horse year is when the mountain opens its blessings — those who walk to the gompa in the horse year leave with merit they do not have to ask for.”
Dawa Dorje, a resident of Lho
Punghren — known on most maps as Pungyen — is a small monastic site tucked under the east face of Manaslu, reached by a steep but rewarding side-trail from Samagaun on what most trekkers spend as an acclimatisation rest day. The lamas there will quietly tell you the same thing Dawa Dorje will: the horse year is special. The next one will not come for another twelve.
For trekkers, the implication is simple. A Manaslu Circuit walked with the Pungyen Gompa side hike is not just one of the great Himalayan loops; for those born into the valley, it is the path that comes closest to the great kora of Kailash. We add a half-day to our acclimatisation in Samagaun for exactly this reason — there is more here than altitude.