On Day 1 of the Sharadiya Navaratri, we invoke and worship Maa Shailaputri, “Daughter of the Mountain”. We find the earthly manifestations of her grace in icons like Anshu Jamsenpa, an Indian mountaineer who scaled Mount Everest within a record time of just five days.

By Sreejit Datta, Assistant Professor, Director of Civilisational Studies Practice & Resident Mentor at Rashtram.

On Prathama, i.e. Day 1 of the Sharadiya Navaratri, we invoke and worship Maa Shailaputri, “Daughter of the Mountain”. Goddess Sailaputri’s grace and powers are bestowed on those that Maa Sailaputri blesses, and we find the earthly manifestations of such divine grace and powers in the many men and women who have been born at various places and at different eras of our great Indic civilisation.  

One such example is to be found in the heroic achievements of Smt Anshu Jamsenpa, an Indian mountaineer who is only the second woman to scale the highest peak on earth, Mount Everest, in a  single season, that too within a record time of just five days (take a look at Anshu Jamsenpa’s biography here). Born in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, Jamsenpa is a mother of two. Having obtained blessings from His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama before starting her expedition, Jamsenpa became the first Indian woman to scale Mount Everest five times, and the first woman in the world to scale the highest peak twice in five days. In 2011, the CNN-IBN Young Indian Leader Award was conferred upon her. Jamsenpa is also the recipient of the prestigious Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award for the year 2017, which she received from the hands of Rashtrapati Ram Nath Kovind. Anshu Jamsenpa has proven that she is truly a “Daughter of the Mountain”, in every sense of the term!   

At the Rashtram Leadership Programme, we uphold phenomenal figures like Anshu Jamsenpa as exemplars of courage and steadfast determination.