For the past few days, I have been looking once more at Indo-Europeans in Central Asia – and even proximate to China. It is quite remarkable what there is out there, even if much of it has been forgotten or elsewise obscurated via the ravages of time.

Now, these days the Qilian Shan refer to a particular sector of the northern fringe of Tibet in what is central China. However, it is speculated that the more archaic Qilian Shan may instead have meant a much more westerly mountain-chain – the mighty Tian Shan which form the border between China and Central Asia proper. And which, interestingly, also form the site for Dzungaria – the area which is correlate with the entrance to Hyperborea in a certain archaic Classical work I have written much more upon elsewhere.

Why does this matter? Because the Qilian Shan are supposed to be correlate with the archaic homeland of the Yuezhi – an Indo-European people of the Steppes who found themselves moving first to the east into modern China … and then, some of them at least, flowing back to the west to become the nascent Kushan Empire.

So, on one level – if the Qilian Shan are indeed the Tian Shan, then it makes significant sense that that is where Chinese chroniclers should have said that the Yuezhi had come in from. Because, indeed, that would have been how they had gotten to China in the first instance.

Yet on another level – I suspect something else may also have been intended via the sentiment.

A foundational truth of the Indo-European is that we are, as I have often written, “Sons of the Sun” – or of the Heavens.

Now, interestingly, the divine pairing that is involved in this situation – we do not merely see a Sky Father, but we also tend to see a Mother Goddess, that is likewise … in a word … “Celestial”.

Consider the Scythian situation – they declared proudly that they were Sons of not only Papaios [the Sky Father], but also of Tabiti … and would bow to no other ruler. Tabiti is quite correlate with our Vedic Aditi. Aditi, the ‘Un-Divided’, to literally render Her Name in modern English – The Infinite.

Unsurprisingly, we find Aditi / Tabiti as quite the Solar Goddess whilst also simultaneously being the Earth and the Air. And also presiding over the Ancestors, likewise.

We similarly find that the relevant Indo-European Goddess is the most potent (indeed, literally omni-potent) presider over That Which Is Holy, the renderer of things to be Holy, and the imparter of the wisdom and the weaponry which may justly do so.

We look up to the Sky – we gaze off into Infinity, whether it is night or it is day. By Night, seeing the infinite blackness pinpointed by the Wealth of Stars, and the River of Suns across the Galactic Arm. By Day, the Infinity which is also represented by the Eye of the Gods, shining brightly there as another immanentizer of the Infinite set up ‘midst the beautiful Blue. A blue horizon veiling the border of our known universe – for the Sky, you see, is also Sea in archaic Indo-European cosmosis.

So, in terms of where it is which this Divine Pair should happen to live – it should come as absolutely no surprise, that it is a prominently tall Mountain, up there ‘midst the Roof of the World. Quite literally, the dwelling-point of The Highest , the Absolute, within our plane.

That Which Is Holy?

The Caelestial Realm.

Kailash, it would appear …

Now how about that.

ईशानादस्य भुवनस्य , जगताम् पतये , रुद्र;
श्री महाराज्ञी , श्रीमत् सिंहासनेश्वरी , भुवनेश्वरी, देवी दुर्गा

I should mention, as a brief addendum, that the occasionally encountered meaning for Kailash is supposed to be a term for ‘Crystal’ – however, I have as-yet been unable to source a convincing etymology for Kailash couched in these terms, and appears barely even mentioned as a folk-etymology. Although more rigorous and academic etymology or linguistic attempts at its meaning are similarly scant upon the ground. Instead, and there is something appropriate about this in a certain sense, it is “just there”. Alone and unvarnished.

Yet upon inadvertently noticing that Proto-Balto-Slavic *Kailas in the course of endeavouring to trace Latin Caelum in relation to this hypothetical Proto-Tocharian *Kaelum (and it should be noted that there are .. somewhat hazy etymology and meaning-fields for Tocharian A Klyom and Tocharian B Klyomo depending upon which source one chooses to use) – well, it all suddenly made Sense.

There are an array of further points which I intend to make pertaining to the theology of all of this, at some point in the not-too-distant future.

But for now? I am simply content to marvel … at the Infinite – and at the Mountain(s), whether the Goddess therein/thereof or the Dweller(s) thereupon.

Jai Mata Di !
Jai Mahadev !

And no wonder we think of the Himalayas as the “Land of the Gods” !

❤