I've come across a fascinating argument (not yet published so I can't give a reference) that "Kailash" for at least some people sometimes meant the entire rise of what we now know to be the Tibetan plateau, a protuberance on the earth's surface so great as to make it pear-shaped. 
The source of all rivers (check), so big a mountain that you can't see it (the astonishment of travelers north across the Himalaya arriving not at a peak but a vast plain, a sea floor...) Among his illustrations is the one from which I've clipped the above, an 1866 cross section of Asia.
The source of all rivers (check), so big a mountain that you can't see it (the astonishment of travelers north across the Himalaya arriving not at a peak but a vast plain, a sea floor...) Among his illustrations is the one from which I've clipped the above, an 1866 cross section of Asia.