Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com
AHMEDABAD, INDIA, December 16, 2009: One of the most popular travel guides to the Kailash Mansarovar is available in Gujarati now. The Gujarati version of ‘Kailash Mansarovar’, the book authored by Swami Pranavanand, was launched by popular Ram kathakar Morari Bapu on Tuesday. More than half of the pilgrims going to Kailash, every year, are from Gujarat and they treat this book like a lonely planet guide.
Pranavanand, originally from Uttar Pradesh, was a geologist in the US, before he renounced the world. The book’s first edition was published in 1943 in English and Hindi, with a foreword by former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Pranavanand was so impressed with the Kailash after his first trip in 1928 that for most part of the years between 1938 and 1950, he lived there discovering and documenting its every feature. Pranavanand became the first to measure the depth of Mansarovar lake, considered the highest body of fresh water in the world.