Muktinath

Listen first. Under the wind and the snap of prayer flags, you will hear running water. It falls in a steady chorus from a long row of carved spouts, onto stone worn smooth by bare feet. The air is thin and cold, and the light up here is hard and clear. You are standing at roughly 3,700 metres, in one of the highest major pilgrimage sites on Earth.

This is Muktinath, in the Mustang District of Nepal. The name comes from Sanskrit, the classical language of Hindu scripture. Mukti means liberation, and nath means lord or master. So this is the place of the lord of liberation. For many Hindu pilgrims, a visit here is believed to help free the soul from the endless cycle of birth and death. Some people travel across the subcontinent for this moment.

Here is the first surprise. This is not only a Hindu site. Tibetan Buddhists hold it just as sacred, and they know it by a different name, Chumig Gyatsa, which means Hundred Waters. The two traditions share the same ground and often the same rituals. You may see a sadhu, a Hindu holy man in saffron cloth, walking beside a Tibetan grandmother turning her prayer beads. Neither looks out of place.

The main shrine is a small pagoda-style temple, with tiered roofs in the Nepali manner. Inside sits Vishnu, the Hindu preserver god, worshipped here as Muktinarayan. In the Sri Vaishnava tradition of South India, a branch of Hindu devotion centred on Vishnu, this temple is counted among the 108 Divya Desams. These are the holiest Vishnu shrines, praised in old Tamil hymns. Buddhists, meanwhile, see the same figure as Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion.

Now look at the wall behind the temple. This is the feature most people remember. Water pours from 108 spouts, set in a semicircle, many of them shaped like the heads of cattle. The number 108 is sacred in both Hinduism and Buddhism. It is the number of beads on a prayer mala. Pilgrims run beneath every single spout, one after another, letting the water fall on their heads. The water comes down from the snows above. It is very cold.

Before the spouts, there are two small pools at the front of the temple. Pilgrims often dip into them as well. You will hear gasps and laughter as people plunge in and climb out shivering. Then they dash along the line of spouts. It is a ritual of purification, but it is also a test of nerve. On a windy afternoon, watching people do this at this altitude is a quiet lesson in faith.

Walk a short way to a small Buddhist shrine nearby, often called the Jwala Mai temple. Here is the second surprise. Inside, behind a curtain or a low grille, a small blue flame burns from the ground. It is fed by natural gas seeping up through the rock. Beside it, water trickles past. Fire, water and earth appear together in one small place. For centuries, pilgrims have treated this as a sign that the site itself is alive.

Legend has it that Padmasambhava, the great teacher who helped carry Buddhism into Tibet, stopped here and meditated. Tibetans call him Guru Rinpoche, the precious teacher. According to Buddhist tradition, the dakinis, female sky spirits, also gathered at this spot. These stories are part of the living faith of the region, rather than documented history. But they help explain why Tibetan traders and pilgrims have climbed up this valley for generations.

You may notice that the temple is often tended by Buddhist nuns, even though the main deity is Hindu. Visitors frequently remark on this. It says a great deal about Mustang, a borderland between the Indian world and the Tibetan plateau. Languages, foods, and gods have moved through these valleys for a very long time. Here, the shared shrine is not a compromise. It is simply how things have always been done.

Look down toward the valley of the Kali Gandaki river. Its bed holds black stones called shaligram. Many contain fossil ammonites, spiral sea creatures from an ancient ocean. Yes, an ocean. These mountains were pushed up from an old sea floor as the Indian plate pressed into Asia. Hindus revere shaligram stones as natural forms of Vishnu. You may see them for sale in the village below. Families keep them in home shrines.

The village just below the temple is Ranipauwa. It sits on the Annapurna Circuit, one of the best-known trekking routes in the Himalaya. Walkers arrive here after crossing the high Thorong La pass, often tired and sunburnt. Pilgrims, by contrast, often come up by jeep along the road from the Jomsom side. So the lanes mix trekking poles and walking sticks, mountain jackets and saffron robes. Small guesthouses and tea shops line the way up.

Look around at the landscape itself. It is high desert, dry and brown, in the rain shadow of the Annapurna range. Barley fields and poplar trees make green patches near the villages. Above them rise bare ridges and white peaks. In the afternoon, a strong wind usually pushes up the valley. It whips the prayer flags and lifts the dust. The mornings are often calmer, and the colours are softer.

Take a moment to notice how people move here. Shoes come off near the shrines. Many visitors walk clockwise around sacred structures, the Buddhist custom. Bells are rung, butter lamps are lit, and small offerings of flowers and coins appear on ledges. If you join in, follow what those around you are doing, slowly and respectfully. Nobody expects perfection. The altitude makes everyone move a little slower anyway.

Before you leave, stand still for a moment. Feel the cold air on your face and the hard ground underfoot. Listen again to the water falling from those 108 spouts, as it has for countless pilgrims before you. Watch the flags turn their colours to the wind. As you walk back down toward the village, you will hear the water fade behind you... and then only the wind will remain.