Adam's Peak
Truly this is a most marvelous mountain, and its effect upon me I find hard to put into words. Today I watched it standing solitary and royal. At its feet waved a sea of green forest, around its summit were gathered black clouds charged with lightning. Even as I write, its unmoved face is mocking the fire of heaven” — from the novel Dead Man’s Rock byQ(1887).
Adam's Peak is the single most important geographic entity in Sri Lanka. Apart from being Sri Lanka's second highest and most dramatic mountain,' it is considered sacred by adherents to the island's four major religions, .? the summit being a focal point of an annual pilgrimage. In addition, Adam's Peak has been the destination of many a notable wanderer since early history, including, it’s believed, Alexander the Great. So, as the pilgrimage and climbing season is here, why not has a truly unique experience? Provided you are reasonably fit, of course. Being only 2243m high-,Adam's,Peak is not very tall as mountains go. Yet as you approach it from certain angles it appears much higher. Such is its imposing location and angular shape that devotees of a proto-religion invested it with sacred power, perhaps because of the foot-like indentation at the summit. These early islanders made it the residence of Saman, one of the four guardian deities of the island, and called it Samanala Kande (Saman's Mountain). So it is that the clouds of magnificent yellow butterflies that annually appear; and seem to converge in every direction upon the holy mountain, are called samanalayo.It seems the mountain became place- of 2 pilgrimages for people of many faiths in the 11th century. Buddhists began to refer to the mountain as Sri Pada (Sacred Footprint), maintain that Gautama Buddha himself visited it left his footprint on the pinnacle boulder. Hindus called the peak Shivan Adi Patham (Creative dance of Shiva), as they felt that the footprint symbolized Lord Shiva's dance. Meanwhile Muslims evolve a belief that the depression marks Adam’s expiation of his disobedience by standing there for an age on one root Sometime later, Roman Catholics asserted that the footprint is that of St Thomas, the early Christian apostle who supposed preached in south India.
The pilgrimage season begins :in December, peaks in March, and continues until the Vesak festival in May. At other times, the mountain is bleak and rains make the trail treacherous. Tens of thousands of pilgrims - the very old and the very young included - make the journey each year. Most of them climb at night up an illuminated staircase. Refreshments stalls and resting-places make the climb easier.
While ascending Adam's Peak, pilgrims follow a number of unique; traditions. For instance, it is customary for a first time climber to wear a turban of white cloth. On both main routes, the indika tupana (place of the needle) demands that devote stop and fling a threaded needle into a shrub by the side of the path, marking a spot where the Buddha is said to have paused to mend a tear in his robe.
An early account of an ascent of Adam's Peak given by Ibn Batuta, an adventurous Moor from Tangier, who visited the island in the 14th century: 'This mountain of Serendib is one of the largest in the world: we saw it from the open sea, when we were distant from it upwards of nine days. While we were making .the ascent, we saw the clouds passing between the foot and us. There are upon this mountain many trees of kinds that do not cast their leaves, flowers of diverse colours and a red rose as large as the palm of the hand (rhododendron), There are two roads on the mountain leading to the- Foot of Adam. The one is known by the name of the Father's Path and the other by the name of the Mother's Path. The Mother's Path is an easy one, and by it the pilgrims return; but anyone who took it for the ascent would be regarded as if he had not made the pilgrimage at all. The Father's Path is rough, and difficult of ascent."Ratnapura is the starting point for. the Father's Path, the arduous route that is 25kms by foot (or 14 by vehicle and 11 by foot) through The Carney Estate. The more leisurely Mother's Path - which begins at a higher elevation and is only around seven kilometers In length is reached from Maskeliya via the Dalhousie Estate.
There are many descriptions of the father's Path, but none as attractive as that in the novel Dead Man's Rock by 'Q' (Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch), which concerns the quest for the legendary Great Ruby of Ceylon. This quest brings the hero of the tale to Ratnapura and thence to Adam's Peak: "It was after we left Ratnapoora that I first realized the true wonders of this land. Our road rose almost continuously by narrow tracks, which in some places, owing to the late heavy rains, were almost impassable. We plunged into a tangled forest, so dense as almost to blot out the light of day. Where the sun's rays penetrated, myriads of brilliant insects flashed like jewels; yellow butterflies, beetles with wings of ruby-red or gold, and dragonflies that picked out the undergrowth with fire. In 1849, the time in which this part of the story is set, the journey to Adam's Peak was a hazardous affair, and the ascent of the mountain by Europeans still relatively uncommon. In fact, the first European to climb Adam's Peak was a Lieutenant Malcolm of the1st Ceylon Regiment, who reached the summit on April 27,1827.
It was Ibn Batuta, however, who first described the climbing chains, which are attributed to Alexander the Great: "At the foot of the mountain there was. a minaret named after Alexander, and a fountain of water. The ancients have cut something like steps, upon which one may ascend, and have fixed in iron pins, to which chains are appended, and upon these those who ascend take hold. Of these chains there are ten in number, the last of which is termed the chain of witness, so named because a person who reaches it and looks down at the abyss below is seized by hallucinations and for fear of falling will recite, 'I bear witness that there is go God but God, and that Mohammed ; is his prophet"' Pilgrims reach the summit by dawn, where a bell clangs unceasingly, as it is reverently tolled by all to signify a pilgrimage completed. They then visit and reverence the footprint, of which Ibn Batuta writes: "The impression of the noble Foot, that of our noble father Adam, is observed in a black and lofty rock, in an open space. The Foot is sunk in the stone, in such wise that its site is quite depressed; its length is eleven spans”.The sunrise produces the famous spectacle of the shadow of the peak. The north-east winds that blow in the pilgrimage season pile up a layer of misty cloud a thousand feet below the summit. Over this the sun casts the vast, triangular shadow of the summit pyramid. At first the point of this shadow lies upon the distant horizon, then as the sun waxes, races backward, foreshortening the shadow until it is swallowed altogether in the rock of the peak itself. Truly this is a most marvelous mountain.