The Abode of Snow- Observations on a Tour from Chinese Tibet the Indian Caucasus, Through the Upper Valleys of the Himalayas (An Old and Rare Book)

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Preface IN the sixth chapter of this work, I have fully explained how the phrase "Abode of Snow" is a literal translation of the Sanscrit compound "Himá laya," and therefore forms an appropriate title for a work treating of those giant mountains. The Abode of Snow par excellence is not in the Himálaya, or even in the Arctic region, but (setting Saturn aside) in the Antarctic region. Owing to the greater preponde rance of ocean in the southern hemisphere, the great est accumulation of ice is round the South Pole; and hence the not improbable theory that, when the ac cumulation has reached a certain point, the balance of the earth must be suddenly destroyed, and this orb shall almost instantaneously turn transversely to its axis, moving the great oceans, and so producing one of those cyclical catastrophes which, there is some reason to believe, have before now interfered with the development and the civilisation of the human race.

How near such a catastrophe may be, and whether, when it occurs, a few just men (and, it is to be hoped, women also) will certainly be left in the upper valleys of the Himalaya, I am unable to say; but it is well to know that there is an elevated and habitable region of the earth which is likely to be left undepopulated even by such an event as that just alluded to. Whether humanity will lose or gain by having to begin again from the simple starting-point of "Om mani padme haun" (vide p. 257) is also a subject on which I feel a little uncertain; but we may at least hope that the jewel in the lotus will not be lost; that what has accrued to it from the efforts and the agony of so many thousand years, of so many hundreds of human generations, may pass over to the inhabitants of a newly-formed earth. And when we come to con sider what the grand valuable results of this our awful striving, our dread history, have been, most of what we are given to boast of will have to be relinquished as worthless, and we may, even as Christians, be glad to take refuge in the comprehensive Lama prayer, "O God, consider the jewel in the lotus. They will be done." For, however appalling may have been the amount of human crime and woe, however pitiable our mistakes and ineffectual our struggles, there has ever been a jewel in the rank lotus of human life-something beautiful in it which is not of it, yet is mysteriously connected with, and hidden within, it. Viewed in this light the Lama prayer has a touching significance, and is not without a great lesson for us all.

**Contents and Sample Pages**