Tirthapuri

For pilgrims, Tirthapuri is not an optional extra. The full western-Tibet pilgrimage is conventionally three places in sequence — the kora around Kailash, the lake at Manasarovar, and then Tirthapuri — and it is Tirthapuri that closes it. A great many visitors on a fixed tour never get here, which is a real omission rather than a minor one.

The site sits on the Sutlej, one of the four great rivers rising in the Kailash region, north-west of the mountain and on the way toward the Guge ruins at Zanda.

Springs, terraces and a cave

What is physically here is a set of geothermal springs depositing white and ochre terraces above the river, a small monastery, and a cave associated with Padmasambhava and his consort Yeshe Tsogyal. There is a short kora around the site, an hour or so, which takes in the terraces, a rock said to bear their handprints, and a bank of mani stones.

Pilgrims take small amounts of the white deposit as ringsel, and the springs themselves are used for ritual bathing — the heat, after the Dolma La, is part of the appeal and part of the meaning at the same time.

Shared ground

Like Kailash itself, Tirthapuri is not the property of one tradition. It matters to Bon as much as to Buddhists, and Hindu pilgrims on the Kailash–Manasarovar yatra come here too. On a site this small the overlap is more visible than it is on the mountain, where the scale absorbs it.