Asthapad and its importance to Jain

Mount Kailash, standing at 6,714 meters (22,028 feet) above sea level is revered as the most sacred place on the Earth. Once you enter the Kailash Range, you will be welcomed with so many attractions and shrines holding great religious significance & spiritual value to different religions and believers. One of the holiest shrines of Jain lies in this Kailash Region, Asthapad.

Meaning of Asthapad – Holiest Shrine of Jain & its relation with Mount Kailash

Asthapad, which means the Eight Steps, a mountain at an elevation of 4900 meters where you can get a close-up look of the south face of Mount Kailash, is one of the most important tourist destinations and a location of great religious significance that resembles the birth of Jain Religion.

When Rishabhdeva, the first Tirthankara of the Jain faith, ascended the Asthapad mountain’s eight stairs, he gained Nirvana. According to some, Asthapad refers to eight distinct mountains. Some even claim that Asthapad encompasses the whole Himalayan area.

At the spot where Rishabhdeva gained Nirvana (Salvation), Chakravarti King Bharata, the son of Rishabhdeva, erected a massive palace composed of diamonds and other stones. It takes eight steps to get to this palace, and Asthapad might also refer to those eight stairs.

For this reason, Jains have a strong sense of confidence in Mount Kailash and are very devoted to it. They only have one goal in mind as they go on the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra: to perform the most important pilgrimages of their lives.

Exploration of Asthapad

In the past, people thought it was close to Mount Kailash and Mansarovar. Nevertheless, efforts made through two exploratory excursions as well as satellite monitoring of all the mountain ranges in the region could not provide any conclusive evidence of Ashtapad’s presence there.

However improvements were made recently and Dr. Lata Bothra (an authoritative Indian scholar of Jainology, Antiquity, and Archaeology) has revealed research saying that the Asthapad may be in the Sichuan Province in South West China near the Tibetan border. Also, there are eight peaks that may resemble the name “Asthapad (eight peaks)” and the beliefs of Jain.