Glacière Cave of Amarnath. (Miss Mary Coxe of Philadelphia showed me
a copy of a letter of Dr. Wilhelmine Eger describing a visit to this
cave.)--It lies three days' journey from Pailgam in Kashmere, on the
borders of Little Tibet. The altitude is evidently high as one crosses
snow fields to get to it. A small path zigzagging up a grassy slope
leads to the cave and is a stiff climb from the valley. The cave opens
on the side of a mountain and has a large, almost square mouth at
least as big as the floor area within. The floor of the cave is the
continuation of the grass slope and slants upwards and backwards to the
back wall, the only case of the kind so far reported. This cave is most
curiously connected with religion. Dr. Eger says that there are two
small blocks of ice in it which never melt. From time immemorial these
blocks of ice have been sacred to the Hindoos who worship them--as
re-incarnations--under the names of Shiva and Ganesh. Dr. Eger saw
offerings of rice and flowers on them. Thousands of pilgrims come every
year at the end of July or beginning of August from all parts of India.
Thousands of miles have been traversed and hundreds of lives laid down
through this journey. Every year people die either before reaching
the cave or after. The trip from Pailgam in Kashmere takes three days
up and two days down, if one returns by a shorter route where the way
is unsafe because of avalanches. So many have perished there that the
pass is called "The Way of Death." This must be taken by one class of
pilgrims, _Sardhas_ or Holy Men, to complete the sacred circuit, but
the Hindoos say any one dying on the pass will go straight to heaven.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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