‘Mountains Everywhere Are Mountains’: Revisiting the Earliest Phase of Nicholas Roerich’s Central Asian Expedition

The unfortunate demise of Nirmal Purja and his team during an expedition to Broad Peak in July this year saw expressions of collective grief from mountaineering enthusiasts across the world. The tragedy has once again brought to our attention the lasting perils of journeys undertaken into the demanding terrains of the Himalayan region. More than a hundred years ago, Nicholas Roerich was in Sikkim when news of the ill-fated third British Everest expedition reached him. This was shortly before the Roerichs themselves would embark upon their Central Asian expedition, which began in 1925, from Darjeeling, and culminated at the same place, in May 1928. Covering a wide swathe of territory encircling Central Asia, the expedition moved from Darjeeling through the monasteries of Sikkim, Benares, Sarnath, Northern Punjab, Rawalpindi, Kashmir, Ladakh, further into Karakorum, Khotan, Yarkand, Kashgar, Altai, and into Tibetan Nagchu. On the way, the expedition passed through 35 mountain passes, ranging from a height of 14,000 to 21,000 feet, including the Zoji La, Khardung La and Karakorum Passes.

Aimed as a journey for fruitful artistic work, and a study into the ancient monuments, religions and cultures of the Central Asian peoples, the expedition caravan comprised of Nicholas, his wife Helena and their elder son, George, along with their employed servants. They were joined by others for short passages at many places, including the scholar Lama Lobzang Mingyur Dorje in Sikkim, whom Roerich described as a "well-known scholar of Tibetan literature and teacher of most of the European Tibetologists."

Roerich notes that their caravan got through all the passes comfortably, except for the Thang La Pass, located in the Tanggula mountain range, a region which currently serves as the border between the Tibet Autonomous Region and the Qinghai province of China. During the crossing of this pass, there was tension in their ranks over the uncertainty of the response of the Tibetans to their negotiations. To facilitate such crossings, throughout the expedition, they carried “the American banner attached to a Mongolian spear”, with Roerich explaining this visual American presence as a useful tool for negotiating their passage through the various regions they passed through, that were increasingly becoming familiar with and recognized the Americans.

Image no. 1
The Roerichs: Nicholas, his wife Helena, and their sons George and Svetoslav
(from left to right)

Source: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In his work Heart of Asia, Roerich writes: “It is true, mountains everywhere are mountains, water everywhere is water, sky everywhere is sky, and men everywhere are men. But nevertheless, if seated before the Alps, you attempt to picture the Himalayas, something inexplicable but convincing will be lacking.” Reading a traveler’s account makes these expeditions sound so much more human, and much like present day Ladakh travel advisories asking travelers to acclimatize before climbing difficult heights in order to avoid Acute Mountain Sickness, Roerich, too, advises travelers to lay off heavy meaty meals, brandy and smoke while undertaking such journeys.

Narrating how the physical demands on both men and animals were exacting at high altitude passes, Nicholas records how many members of the caravan had serious attacks of mountain sickness, with George even suffering from a heart attack and nearly falling off his horse. Both men and the caravan animals suffered from bleedings, nausea and mountain-blindness, for days, with their caravan often getting caught in snowstorms. Roerich records having witnessed on the road through Khardung and Karakorum, visuals of abandoned sick animals and skulls of horses, donkeys, mules, yaks, camels and dogs. The caravan, too, suffered from such casualties, in addition to losing five men to heart failure and inflammation of the lungs.

Image no. 2
Nicholas Roerich’s painting Himalayas, Sikkim, 1928-29

Source: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Roerich, in his account, consistently records the kindnesses of strangers. He mentions that the Ladakhi lamas, like the ones in Sikkim, were kind, tolerant of other faiths and hospitable to travelers. On the day of their departure from Leh, he records how the local women anointed the foreheads of all the people and the animals of the caravan with yak’s milk, wishing them a happy journey. While on higher altitudes, during frosty mornings, the Ladakhi men often offered to rub their hands and feet, in order to prevent their limbs from freezing. Roerich skillfully contrasts the beauty and the terror of these icy heights in his writing. He notes:

“And at the same time one feels the astounding silence of the desert! People stop their disputes, all differences disappear, and all, without exception, sense the beauty of these no-man’s heights.”

He narrates encountering touching caravan traditions, including bales of goods left behind unguarded by people to be collected later on, safely lying on the sides, and of strangers sitting and sharing stories around campfires at night, including Ladakhis, Kashmiris, Afghans, Tibetans, Baltis, Dards, Mongols and Chinese people.

Roerich’s writing is not the typical ‘white man’s’ account of the ‘mystical Orient’, rather he time and again argues for the in situ preservation of local tangible heritage, and criticizes the European practice of removing and relocating these historical pieces en masse to museums abroad, in the name of preservation. Along the journey, Roerich also noticed and critiqued the strangeness of the superimposed European names on the maps for the Asian mountain ridges, such as those of Marco-Polo, Humboldt, Ritter, Alexander III and Prejevalski, on Asian landscapes, which had no meaning for the local population, as they had their own respective Chinese, Mongolian and Tibetan names for these ridges.

Image no. 3
The building that housed the Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute during
its operational years between the 1930s and 1940s

Source: Author

This commentary, only introduces the early phase of the Central Asian expedition, the successful completion of which translated into the establishment of the Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute in Naggar, Kullu, in 1928. Spearheaded by George Roerich, the Institute sought to bring together Tibetan lamas, Indian scholars and Western scientists, in order to combine ancient knowledge of natural sciences with the latest scientific discoveries. Lobzang Mingyur Dorje, who had earlier acted as an interpreter for the Roerichs in Sikkim, also joined the Institute in 1931, having been elected a "Correspondent Member of the Society of the Roerich Museum" in 1928. For the next several years, he worked closely on numerous projects with George Roerich, including those on the Tibetan medical tradition and a Tibetan English dictionary. At a time, which is now acknowledged as being notorious for the conscious exclusion of indigenous voices in the accounts of foreign scholars, the Roerichs in their announcement letters clearly listed Lama Lobzang Mingyur Dorje along with George Roerich as a collaborator. The latter also credited him in the preface of his work Trails to Innermost Asia as follows: “To Lama Lobzang Mingyur Dorje, my teacher and friend, for his untiring help in my Tibetan studies.”  
The Institute conducted detailed surveys and collected samples of the flora and fauna of the Himalayan region during the initial operating years, but by the late 1930s the Institute had to cut down and eventually end operations due to financial difficulties. While currently the Institute building houses a memorial research library, a few botanical and zoological collections, and exhibitions on the activities of the Roerich family, there has been a growing interest shown by experts from the International Roerich Memorial Trust and the International Centre of the Roerichs, Moscow, in once again reviving the Institute’s scholarly activities.

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About the Author: Nataliya Singh is a PhD Research Scholar at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.