The field of liberation at the foot of the pass
Muktinath appears in Hindu texts as Saligrama, the place of the shaligram stones, and the Vishnu Purana's Gandaki Mahatmya praises the river and its sacred stones. Tamil Vaishnava poets, the Alvars, sang of Vishnu here as early as the 7th–9th centuries; Periyalvar called him the Lord of Saligramam, and Thirumangai Alvar, who could not reach the shrine, composed ten verses from afar. This is why so many pilgrims from Tamil Nadu and the rest of South India make the long journey to a temple near the Tibetan border.
For Tibetan Buddhists the site has a different story. Guru Rinpoche, Padmasambhava, is believed to have stopped here on his way to Tibet in the 8th century and meditated. Buddhists honour the image in the main shrine as Avalokiteshvara, and the area is venerated as an abode of Taras and dakinis, the female 'sky dancers'. Before he left, it is said, he made a statue in his own likeness, now kept in the Mharme Lhakhang, the temple of the flame.
Today the shrine is tended by Buddhist nuns, who are regarded locally as dakinis themselves, while Hindu priests and pilgrims perform their own rites. In spring and autumn the lanes of Ranipauwa fill with Nepali and Indian pilgrims, many of them older people who have saved for years for this journey. Each August or September, the Baragaun communities hold the Yartung festival here, with horse races on the meadows. The two faiths and the village festival share the same ground without fuss.
