The name of this mountain range which is located in northern India is derived from the Sanskrit words hima meaning “snow,” and alaya, “abode.” The range has been of very great importance geographically, politically, aesthetically and spiritually, not only to the inhabitants of the Indian sub-continent, but to many visitors to the land. It stretches some 2,400 km from the Indus in the west to the Brahmaputra in the east and has a width varying between 160 and 240 km.

From the point of view of theosophists, the Himalayas have significance as the region in which certain of the Adepts dwell and Helena P. BLAVATSKY emphasizes this in many of her writings (CW XIV:423). Charles W. LEADBEATER in his work, The Masters and the Path, places the dwelling of the Lord MAITREYA in the Himalayas (1927 ed, p.40). Many Hindu sages have lived among these mountains and it is only natural that feelings of awe and veneration are generated at the sight of these towering heights.

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