Ink: From The Eight Mountains, by Paolo Cognetti, translated by Simon Parnell and Erica Segre, Penguin/Vintage
It was an old Nepalese man who told me, afterwards, about the eight mountains. He was carrying a load of hens up the valley below Everest, heading to one of the refuges where they were destined to become chicken curry for tourists: he had a cage on his back which was divided into a dozen separate cells, and the chickens, still alive, were flustered inside them. I had not yet come across a contraption of this kind. I had seen panniers full of chocolate, biscuits, powdered milk, bottles of beer, of whisky and of Coca-Cola, going along the trails of Nepal to cater for the tastes of Westerners, but never a portable henhouse. When I asked the man if I could photograph it he put it down on a low wall, removed from his forehead the band with which he was carrying it and struck a pose, smiling, next to the chickens.
Then while he was getting his breath back we talked for a while. I'd visited the region he came from, which astonished him. He understood that I was not a casual walker, and discovering that I could even string together a few phrases in Nepalese, asked me why I was so interested in the Himalayas. I had a ready answer to that question: I told him that there was a mountain where I had grown up, and to which I was attached, and that it had fostered in me a desire to see the most beautiful mountains in the world.
“Ah,” he said. “I understand. You are doing the tour of the eight mountains.”
“The eight mountains?”
The man picked up a small stick and drew a circle with it on the ground. You could tell he was used to drawing it; he executed it so perfectly. Then, inside the circle he drew a diameter, and then another perpendicular one bisecting the first, and then a third and a fourth through the point of bisection, thus creating a wheel with eight spokes. I thought that if I had drawn that figure myself I would have started with a cross - that it was typical of an Asian to begin with a circle.
“Have you ever seen a drawing like this?“ he asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “In mandalas.”
“That's right,” he said. “We believe that at the centre of the earth there is a tremendously high mountain, Sumeru. Around Sumeru there are eight mountains and eight seas. This is the world for us.”
While he was speaking he drew outside of the wheel a small peak for each spoke, and then a little wave between one peak and the next. Eight mountains and eight seas. Finally, at the centre of the wheel, he drew a crown which I thought might represent the summit of Sumeru. He assessed his work for a moment and shook his head, as if to say that this was a drawing that he had made a thousand times but that of late he had begun to lose his touch a little. Be that as it may, he pointed the stick to the centre and concluded
“Ah,” he said. “I understand. You are doing the tour of the eight mountains.”
“The eight mountains?”
The man picked up a small stick and drew a circle with it on the ground. You could tell he was used to drawing it; he executed it so perfectly. Then, inside the circle he drew a diameter, and then another perpendicular one bisecting the first, and then a third and a fourth through the point of bisection, thus creating a wheel with eight spokes. I thought that if I had drawn that figure myself I would have started with a cross - that it was typical of an Asian to begin with a circle.
“Have you ever seen a drawing like this?“ he asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “In mandalas.”
“That's right,” he said. “We believe that at the centre of the earth there is a tremendously high mountain, Sumeru. Around Sumeru there are eight mountains and eight seas. This is the world for us.”
While he was speaking he drew outside of the wheel a small peak for each spoke, and then a little wave between one peak and the next. Eight mountains and eight seas. Finally, at the centre of the wheel, he drew a crown which I thought might represent the summit of Sumeru. He assessed his work for a moment and shook his head, as if to say that this was a drawing that he had made a thousand times but that of late he had begun to lose his touch a little. Be that as it may, he pointed the stick to the centre and concluded
“We ask: who has learned most, the one who has been to all eight mountains, or the one who has reached the summit of Sumeru?”
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