Mother Goddess Mountain Denied Her Name

The mountain we call today "Everest" had a name long before Sir George Everest was a gleam in his father's eye.  Of course it did!  Duh! 

According to Wikipedia, the mountain was called, variously:  Qomolangma Peak (Tibetan), Mount Sagarmāthā (Nepali), Chajamlangma (Limbu), Zhumulangma Peak (Chinese: Zhūmùlǎngmǎ Fēng) or Mount Chomolangma.

The history of how "Mount Everest" was named is a total and absolute insult to the great Mother Goddess.  Anyone with a brain can easily see that in common in all of these names is MA - MOTHER.

Barbara Walker's The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets says:

Chomo-Lung-Ma
"Goddess Mother of the Universe," the real name of the world's highest mountain, which westerners renamed Everest after a man.  This masculine name was bestowed on the Goddess Mother in 1863 by foreign invaders who preferred to attach patriarchal surnames to everything.(1)

Notes:
(1)  Encyc. Brit., "Everest, Sir George."

More about mountains and the Great Mother tomorrow.

Goddess Chomolungma

Challenges of ‘Goddess of the Sky’ May 2 2008 by Sarah Manners, Western Mail Mount Everest, is also called Chomolungma or Qomolangma in Tibetan, which translates as “Mother of the Universe” or “Goddess of the Mother Earth” or Sagarmatha in Nepali, which means “Goddess of the Sky”. It is the highest mountain on Earth, as measured by the height of its summit above sea level at 8,848 metres or 29,029 feet. New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay from Nepal were the first people to conquer Everest. They reached the summit at 11:30am local time on May 29, 1953 via the South Col route. News of the expedition’s success reached London the morning of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. The mountain, part of the Himalayan range in High Asia, is to be found on the border between Sagarmatha, Nepal, and Tibet, China. By the end of the 2007 climbing season there had been 3,679 ascents to the summit by 2,436 individuals. There have been 210 deaths on the mountain, where conditions are so difficult that most corpses have been left where they fell; some are visible from standard climbing routes. Everest climbers are a significant source of tourist revenue for Nepal, whose government also requires all prospective climbers to obtain a permit costing up to US$25,000 per person.

Chomolungma, Goddess Mother of the Earth

From The Seattle Times Froma Harrop / Syndicated columnist The inn at the top of the world Tuesday, January 15, 2008 There was another Hillary in the news last week. It was Edmund Hillary, the mountaineer who in 1953 became the first human to reach the top of Mount Everest — alongside his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay. The New Zealander had died at 88. A climber who attempted Everest in 1924 and lost his life doing so offered the most famous line about the endeavor. Asked by reporters why he wanted to climb Everest, George Mallory answered, "Because it is there." The mountain is sacred to the indigenous people of the Himalayas, but to Mallory the peak was an "it" to be conquered. Hillary had a lot more soul than that, but upon climbing Mount Everest, he did remark, "Well, we knocked the bastard off!" Taking the test is why many of today's "adventurers" make the trek. The climb has become an extreme sport for which the mountain could as well be a giant rock climbing wall with bad weather. For the super fit with money, Everest is now an item on the checklist of life's exploits. Several climbers have posted YouTube video clips of themselves atop Mount Everest, one set to the music of James Blunt's "You're beautiful." Those who treat it merely as an icon to vanquish don't see anything. They don't appreciate anything. They just go up the hill to prove they can do it. You sometimes wonder why these folk — if they want to perform a spectacular feat — don't simply run two marathons back-to-back, instead. Snarky comments aside, one must still note the grit, strength and courage of people who do scale the mountain, which rises to 29,029 feet above sea level. Most intimidating is the high-altitude "death zone," where a lack of oxygen causes hallucinations. More than 200 climbers have died on Everest. The best-selling book and movie "Into Thin Air" recounted a tragic 1996 expedition during which eight members died. But rather than deter others, the story has apparently increased the desire to beat the mountain. Since Hillary's famous climb, more than 2,000 men and women have taken up the challenge, including a 70-year-old, a blind person and a man with one arm. Wealthy people pay guide companies as much as $70,000 to organize expeditions up the celebrated peak. It's amazing to think that Hillary's once astounding feat has been performed by socialites and doctors, and at least one Sherpa has done it 14 times. The lust for Mount Everest has never seemed to be much about Nepal, the country in which it partly resides (sharing it with Tibet) — or the local Sherpa who have a name for the mountain, and it's not Everest. They call it Chomolungma, which means "goddess mother of the Earth." The British named the mountain after Sir George Everest, who had been their surveyor general in the mid-19th century. For the Sherpa guides, the job of carrying stuff up pays a lot more than growing potatoes or herding yaks. Facilitating new bragging rights for wealthy Westerners is a good living in this poor part of the world, even though these Buddhist Tibetans are often treated as beasts of burden. Let it be said for Hillary that he dedicated his post-climb life to helping the Sherpa build schools, hospitals and bridges for the locals. Hillary was a good man, and brave. He also understood that mountains are more than recreational facilities. They are also spiritual places. That's why it's often painful to see the sides of mountains scraped clean of trees to make paths for ski runs and motorized lifts. Everest has not yet suffered the fate of being turned into a mass sports resort, but the goddess probably wouldn't mind if more people left her alone.