A line of heaven in the Falman Gorge.
Paleontological fossils.
Traditional costumes of Ba Qing Benta Township.
Menmo Falls.
Icicles inside the cave.
Entrance to the Door Mo Cave.
Through the Zarongga Gorge, the two mountains are more than ten miles apart, a gorge, a water, a road and a line of sky; Turning over the Machinla Pass, a single pile of gravel covered with snow, the ancient road is thousands of miles, and there is no trace of pedestrians; Pass Baqing Benta Township, fold to the east Leng Mula, cross the mountain and enter the ditch and see the strange peaks and rocks, strange rocks.
Menmo Cave is located at the top of the mountain, with an altitude of 4,974 meters, and has the reputation of being the highest karst cave in the world. It is within reach, but it is not easy to climb, and the last few hundred meters of gravel road is especially dangerous. The karst cave is a shaft type, and the bottom of the cave is deep and secluded, reaching the depths of the earth's core; The entrance of the cave is open, and the ice curtains hang down to the sky, looking at the top of the earth through the entrance of the cave on the top of the mountain, as if we, the "cave people on the top of the mountain", can also understand the past and the present through the eyes of Mo, and instantly forget the churning of the heart of the mountain just now.
Menmo, located in Benta Township, Baqing County, Nagqu City, although not widely known, is the most unique geographical indication on the fertile grassland of thousands of miles. At the end of last year, Baqing County's "Qinghai-Tibet Geocentric Valley Menmo Cave Cultural Tourism Scenic Spot" successfully created a national 3A-level tourist attraction. According to its scenic area planning, Menmo is the world's highest karst peak forest canyon scenic spot, and it is also the place where the ancient Tangbo Road is located.
This is the encounter between the Fenglin Gorge and the ancient road station, and the "Eye of Menmo" at the high place has witnessed the uplift of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and witnessed the historical movement of exchanges and blending of various ethnic groups.
The legend of Menmo Gesar
"Menmo" is also translated as Mai Mao, Mai Mao, Mai Mo, Mei Mo, etc. The local area is known as the "Menmo Cave". In fact, Menmo is used as a local collective name in the local area, not only limited to karst caves, but also includes Menmorakon, Menmo River, Menmo Mountain, Menmoragan and so on.
Sangdan Jigme, a native of Benta and one of the authors of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Environment and Landscape Culture: Baqing County Benta Volume, said: "There are generally two theories about 'Menmo'. The first interpretation refers to 'fairy', and the second holds that the title has no particular meaning. ”
Walking in Menmo, karst caves, peak clusters, lonely peaks, piercing holes, stone forests, canyons, caves, travertine accumulation, hot springs...... Nature has created a strange landscape with ghostly axes, like a kaleidoscope that has opened the karst landform, and the strange stones with thousands of forms and lifelike shapes, such as palms, such as golden turtles, such as lotus flowers, such as wolves and bears...... It's like stepping into an ancient "strange world".
Climb the stairs and see a "stone man", wearing a crown and leading the neck, and looking at the door. Is this the Menmo Fairy? Is it the Spajam in Zhangzhung culture? Is it the princess Jum in Gesar's epic? Looking at the world, my mind came to mind, and I listened to the various ruins and legends of Menmo, and it turned out that the shepherds had already given meaning to these geographical landscapes through oral narratives.
The local population has a word of mouth -
The stone piles in the Menmo Cave are the horse-tied piles before Gesar's expedition, and there is also a horseshoe print on the rock slab in the cave. There are also stones like jewelry, which were left by Zhum when he looked forward to Gesar's return from the expedition and felt deeply lonely and groomed;
The legend of Maimosenga Canyon is the residence of the Demon King Songbuk Cireba, and the cave near the canyon is his lair. This demon was eliminated by Gesar's uncle Chao Tong, and the hole in the rock wall was left by Chao Tong when he subdued the demon.
Nagqu City is the hometown of Gesar rap artists and an important area for the inheritance and development of Gesar culture, and the relics and stories and legends about Gesar are all over the mountains and rivers of northern Tibet. According to Lobu Tashi, a native of Baqing Penta and a cultural expert in Nagqu City, there are mainly Chaotong Demon Subjugation, Gesarzhum Life and the Legend of Menmo Fairies in the Menmo Scenic Area, which reflects the local herdsmen's yearning for a better life, and these folk oral narratives give the unique geographical landscape a profound humanistic connotation.
After in-depth excavation, in 2023, the "Legend of Menmo Mountain" declared by the Culture and Tourism Bureau of Baqing County, Nagqu City, will be included in the sixth batch of autonomous region-level intangible cultural heritage representative projects in the Tibet Autonomous Region.
The thousand-year-old history of the post road
Walking in Menmo, the mountains are rocky mountains, towering river banks, clear water flows, and canyons are secluded. What's more peculiar is that a rock mass on the eastern side of Menmo Mountain is craggy, the water gushes continuously on the top of the mountain, the flying stream goes straight down 100 meters, the shape is like a waterfall, and the water splashes nearby, such as smoke and fog. The waterfall falls to the ground into a river, the shrubs on both sides are all over the place, the fish in the river swim and swim, measure it by hand, there is still a certain temperature. In an instant, the fish are coming, and you can experience the fun of "fish therapy".
Such an important landmark geographical landscape is rare to see in the vast grasslands of northern Tibet, and it is easy to attract the attention of pedestrians. There are three historical documents in the Tang Dynasty that record this place:
"New Tang Dynasty Book Geographical Chronicles" records: and through the Dasu Water Bridge, 320 miles to the Humangyi, the Tang envoy into Tibet, the princess every envoy to work here. Passing through the Falman Gorge for more than ten miles again, the two mountains are each other, there is a small bridge on it, the water of the three waterfalls is poured like a laxative, and the bottom is like smoke.
"The Book of Yuan Turtle, Foreign Ministers' Department, Tufeng Third, Tubo Article" records: There is Humang Mountain, which goes to Chang'an for more than 6,000 miles, and its country is guarded against because of danger. Eight miles to the west of Shanxi, like the Three Gorges, the sound of the water flow is like thunder, and people do not hear each other. Its mountain is far away and looks at it, the color is yellow and white, there is no grass and trees, there are stone walls on both banks, a waterfall flies down from the top of the mountain, can be more than 100 feet, the stone of a county is like floating powder.
"New Tang Dynasty Book: Under the Western Regions" records: Subi, the Qiang tribe in the west, was annexed by Tubo, called Sun Bo, and was the largest in all departments. It is connected to Domi in the east, and is in the west from the Falcon Mangkip, with 30,000 households.
Menmo is similar to the ancient sound of Humang and the landscape is similar. "The Tangbo Ancient Road passed through Menmo, witnessing the joy of cultural and economic exchanges between the people of all ethnic groups in the Central Plains and the people of all ethnic groups on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau." Laba Zhuoma, director of the Baqing County Bureau of Culture and Tourism, introduced that the "Hu Mang Station" recorded in the literature is located in Benta Township, the "Hu Mang Gorge" is a first-line sky canyon, and the "Hu Mang Mountain" is Menmo Mountain.
There are many routes between Tang and Tubo, such as Qinghai Road, Yushu Road, Khotan Road, etc., in the north, and Sichuan Road, Nanzhao Road, etc., in the south. In a narrow sense, it is believed that the Tangbo Post Road refers to an ancient passage through present-day Shaanxi, Qinghai, Tibet and other provinces and regions.
According to the statistics of relevant data, from the first time that Tubo sent envoys to Tang in the eighth year of Zhenguan of the Tang Dynasty (634 AD) to the collapse of the Tubo Dynasty in the middle of the 9th century, the two sides exchanged envoys more than 290 times in 209 years. The exchange of envoys includes tribute, alliances, alliances, reconciliations, reconciliations, funerals, sacrifices, gifts, requests, appointments, condolences, and peace.
From Menmo to Humang, at a glance for thousands of years, an ancient road is interspersed with historical time and space. Princess Wencheng and her entourage walked through the northern Tibetan grassland, and there are still many legends and stories related to Princess Wencheng.
"We will take the opportunity of successfully creating a 3A-level scenic spot to inherit the history of the Tangbo Ancient Road Humangyi, integrate the functions of 'canyon service station + historical and cultural memory', build the service brand of Humang Ancient Station, promote the integration of culture and tourism to the depths, and promote extensive exchanges, comprehensive exchanges and in-depth integration of various ethnic groups with the development of the cultural and tourism industry." Laba Dolma said.
Ragan Folk Memories of Tea Horses
Looking south from the "Eye of Menmo", the plateau is open-minded, and the mountains are all at your feet.
The valleys are connected, connecting the thousands of years of Chinese time, and also communicating the thousands of miles of rivers and mountains in China.
"Menmolagan", which means Menmolao Pass. In the memory of the herdsmen, this place used to be the main road from Baqing to Nagqu, and it was also the tea horse road for caravans in the direction of Qinghai. Sandan Kumi said: "In the past, the old people called the road 'Jiabo Lamuqin', which means 'Han-Tibet Avenue'. "Distant caravans brought tea, silk, porcelain, copperware and other trade materials, and local caravans also passed through the mountains to the southern agricultural areas for salt and grain exchange.
From 1919 to 1920, Li Zhonglian, counselor of the Gansu Overseer Office, Zhu Xiu, Gu Langcang, and Labu Jiangong formed a Gansu delegation to enter Tibet and liaison. Zhu Xiu has a detailed record of this in the "Haizang Chronicle": "Into the ditch on the east Leng Mula, the mountain is steep, the mountains are stacked, more than ten miles to reach its peak, the downhill is steep and particularly dangerous. Out of the ditch the strange peak protrudes, the rocks stand in a forest...... From then on, to the southwest, the east and west mountains are sandwiched, and there is an ice beach in the middle, and the people are torn and sloppy, and they go out of the gorge and go west into the valley. Circling and twisting, ascending the dry ridge of Mamorala (Menmoragan), the snow peaks are inserted into the sky, the cold light shoots people, the wind blows, and the cattle and horses look back. ”
Today, on the way from Benta Township to Yuemen Moragan via Menmo Mountain, there are still many place names that preserve the memory of pack caravan transportation and reflect the prosperity of the tea and horse trade road. For example, "Jiawaqu" means the tea man river, "Jiatuoer" means that the tea is sprinkled, and "Jiamuri" means the tea mountain. In the oral tradition of the local people, there is still a saying that "the tea picked up in the Gatoer place is more delicious".
Caravans come and go, and as they pass through the mountain passes, they drop a stone to pray for safety. Over the years, these stones have become large stone mounds with a height of two or three meters, which have become important road signs for the ancient road. In Donglenmula, Gugla, and Menmoragan, you can see the "Laze" monuments left by caravansera. It seems that the number of people who crossed the mountain pass in history can be estimated by the number of stones in "Laze", and the head of Benta Township, Yixi Cuom, said with a smile: "'Laze' is a flow calculator on the ancient road."
The years are like a song in the long wind, and the past on the high mountain is like a story, that is the height of the mountain pass, and that is the scale of the ancient road. Behind every piece of rubble, there was once a traveler who traveled thousands of miles through mountains and rivers, driven by the power of interaction.
No matter how high the mountain is, there are passes that can be crossed, and no matter how far the road is, it is no longer than the footsteps of the trek. Walking from the ancient road, the "Eye of Menmo" is the eye of the center of the earth, which can be seen to be uplifted and vicissitudes of the sea; It is also the eye of history, which shows that the long river of time is rushing and rolling forward.
Source: China Tibet News Network