A Pilgrimage to Shiva’s Cave
The Amarnath Yatra, Kashmir, India, 1977
On their first assignment for Outside Magazine, Gordon and Meredith Wiltsie traveled to India’s Great Himalaya Range in Kashmir to join 30,000 Hindu pilgrims on a four-day trek across two 16,000 passes to a massive cave where the god Shiva is believed to have imparted the secret of immortality to his consort, the mountain goddess Parvati (a benevolent side of Kali).
Participants of all ages came from across the subcontinent in a sprawling cross-section of its culture: everyone from middle class families (some carried in sedan chairs) to septuagenarian devotees tottering up with canes, people on crutches and barefoot sadhus clad only in ashes, - all crowded into a caravan swollen further by the thousands of other local, mostly muslim, Kashmiri porters, wranglers and others transporting their tents and gear.
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Villagers circumambulate the Jokhang Temple, one of holiest sites in Lhasa, Tibet, China. - Handmade Mini-Print, including matte, mount and frame, featuring photography by Gordon Wiltsie.
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Uyghur elders chat outsidea mosque in Kashgar, Xinjiang Province, China. - Handmade Mini-Print, including matte, mount and frame, featuring photography by Gordon Wiltsie.