India, May 23 -- As school students, many of us first encountered Sikkim through geography textbooks and atlases that spoke of the mighty Khangchendzonga. The "mountain massif" stood before our imagination as distant Himalayan peaks wrapped in Lungta prayer flags, clouds and snow. Nearly one-fourth of Sikkim's land is embraced by the Khangchendzonga National Park, but facts alone never fully explained the reverence it commands across the state. For centuries, Khangchendzonga has lived in the folklore of the indigenous communities as a sacred civilisational force - the protector of land, memory and consciousness of Sikkim itself. The great Lama Lhatsun Chenpo interpreted this belief with poetic brilliance, calling the five summits as the F...