More...

Ladakh History and Society

This short geographical and historical outline is intended to provide a general orientation for the region of Ladakh and to situate its iconographical and art-historical contents with their religious and historical contexts.

km, but after India’s extended border disputes with Pakistan and China during the years 1949-62 only 59,000 kms.  remain. The border between the province of Kashmir and Pakistan remains unresolved to this day, and massive military forces are positioned on both sides of the provisional line of Control. Ladakh, too, has served as an area for the build-up of Indian military forces. As a politically sensitive area Ladakh could not be entered until 1974; since then it has been opened for tourism and had been able to end its previous isolation during the winter months, due to the construction of an airport in Leh. Ladakh is a land of extreme climatic and geographical contrasts. Its alpine landscape with broad, high plateaus, interrupted by deep-cut, often ravine-like valleys, is bordered both to the north and to the south by the earth’s two highest mountain chains, the Himalaya and the Karakoram, with peaks up to 8000 m high. They create barriers on which moisture-carrying air-currents rain down, with the result that the climate in Ladakh’s interior is an arid zone, more like a mountainous desert. This landscape exercises its fascination through its unusually dry, clear air, its harshness, its wealth of forms and shapes and its intense stony-gray and ochre colours. Green oases are only to be found in the river valleys, where alluvial land can be cultivated with the help of artificial irrigation and where trees and bushes can thrive in the deeper parts of the valleys. At elevations above 5000 m, however, we find grassy, step-like surfaces that permit a form of alpine pasture economy and nomadic animal husbandry. Ladakh is drained by the young Indus River, which connects a series of other rivers and streams arising in the glacier regions as it emerges from Tibet. The Indus Valley is the region’s widest and most fertile valley; its habitable areas are home to its largest settlements (the capital city of Leh, 3500 meter) and its most important monasteries.

The region’s climate is as extreme as the landscape. Great differences in temperature between day and night (up to 30oC) give rise to strong countervailing and down-winds that frequently develop into storms. These winds have carved and worded upon the arid and unprotected mountain landscape since time immemorial and shape it into astonishing and fascinating forms. The valleys are free from night-time frost only in July and August; until recently Ladakh was entirely cut off from the rest of the world during the eight months long wither, because the

to these extreme and difficult  environmental and life conditions, resting on a resilient economy based on farming and grazing and extended barter of goods and services.  The technical and social problem of survival was regarded as capable of being mastered through artificial irrigation, socially anchored community services and rules concerning mutual assistance. Because the brief summer period demands everyone’s participation during sowing and harvest, children, as well as monks and runs from the monasteries all lend a hand. The main staple food is barley, followed by wheat; here only fast-growing varieties can bring a yield. Apricots and apples as well as vegetables thrive in the deeper valleys. Some of the village families move to pastures higher up in the mountains with their domestic animals, sheep, goats, yaks, and dzo (a cross between yaks and domestic cattle), and produce the all-important butter and other milk products there. Material for heating during the winter is obtained by clothing dung and dry, spindly wood from bushes; wool-production is important for domestic clothing needs and for export. Until recently transport of local products was possible only on foot or on the back of animals. This is still the case in more remote areas. The Ladakhis of remote areas still make journeys lasting days or weeks to come to a market or to a monastery celebration. The passes up to 2000m highs are to be crossed just to get from one valley to another. In spite of these geographical hardships Ladakh had seven major trade and caravan routes, representing the shortest routes from India to Central Asia, and from the Middle East to China and Tibet which passed through here. The caravans could spend the winter in the capital city of Leh, and an important market and trade center arose there. Ladakh’s isolation from the rest of the world was overcome here, and cultural contacts were made possible by economic exchange. Tea, salt, wood, metal, silk and jewelry could be obtained in exchange for domestic surplus products. Religious teachers also came on these roads and brought foreign culture with them. It is from the reports of pilgrims and travelers that we derive our earliest knowledge of Ladakh, its

(Great Victor), and in fact Ladakh enjoyed a period of cultural flowering under their rule. However, the country was repeatedly the victim of Tibetan and Kashmiri invaders and was forced to defend itself against several attacks of the Mongols. At the end of the 17th century the Islamic Kashmir provided Ladakh with military assistance against Tibet and received tribute in payment. In 1846 the kingdom finally lost its independence altogether; it was conquered and annexed by the Kashmiri Maharaja of the Dogra Dynasty and was thereby subsumed under Indian sovereignty. The king and the nobility were stripped of power and the residence of the royal family was removed to Stock. In 1947, when the Indian – British Raj was divided into Pakistan & India, the Maharaja of primarily Islamic Kashmir was unsure which of the two states he should join with. He appealed to India for assistance against invading Pakistani troops, which succeeded in repulsing the Pakistan’s attempted annexation but which has since then claimed full sovereignty over Kashmir, just as Pakistan does. Thus the succeeding conflicts were pre-programmed. The conflicts were pre-programmed. The conflicting parties repeatedly evaded the demand for a referendum. A truce-line (Line of Control) was drawn through United Nations mediation; since then military forces of both countries stand facing each other across the Line. Ladakh, too, has been a victim of the unstable political situation in the region due to the ever-recurring fighting and border conflicts with China as well. Pakistan ceded a portion of the Ladakhi province of Baltistan, which it had occupied, to China. China, furthermore, annexed Aksai-Chin, the north-eastern part of Ladakh bordering on Tibet, after military clashes with India, with the result that the old kingdom of Ladakh is divided into four parts today, and has lost almost 38,000 square km of land.

Another new problem facing Ladakh, ensuing from the political and military conflict between India and Pakistan, is the deepened alienation and even confrontation between Moslems and Buddhists, although these religions had coexisted amicably since long. Islam had come to Ladakh from Kashmir and had taken root only in western Ladakh, primarily in the province of Kargil. One might say that there is a religious border between Islam and Buddhism around 200 km to the east of Leh. In the capital itself about one-third of the inhabitants are Moslem, and marriages between Ladakhi women and Moslem men are take place quite often. But the trend towards fundamentalism has left its traces; within Ladakh there is now less mutual religious tolerance. With its Buddhist majority, Ladakh accuses the government in Srinagar of insufficiently respecting its cultural independence and integrity, and feels itself tyrannized and economically exploited by the Kashmiri Moslems. Ironically, the numerous stores in Leh offering Buddhist souvenirs are run by Moslem merchants from Kashmir. They earn their living by made in Srinagar by Muslim craftsmen.

the Chinese in Tibet and many of the monastery communities there were broken up and scattered, many monks and nuns fled not only to India, as did the Dalai Lama, but also to Ladakh, which offered them new homes in its numerous monasteries. The only difference in religious and social practice and policy was that, in contrast to Tibet, religious and temporal powers were always kept separate here.

The four great religious schools of Tibetan Buddhism are still represented in Ladakh, that offer their teachings in harmonious co-existence with each other: The” unreformed “Red Hat School of the Nyingmapa (”The Ancient Ones, “with their monastery of Traktok), founded in the 8th century by the great teacher Padmasambhava, the ”half-reformed “Red Hat Order of the Kargyupa (”Lineage of Oral Instruction“) for example, in the monasteries of Lamayuru, Phiyang, Wanla, Hemis, Bardan, and Sani. The Sakyapa School (Matho Monastery) and the Yellow Hat Gelugpa Order (the monasteries of Spituk, Tikse, Likir, Rangdun, etc.) that arose as the ”School of the Virtuous “in the wake of a Reformation carried out by Tsongkhapa in the 14th Century. Together with the Kargyupa it is the most important and most widespread order having its spiritual head is the Dalai Lama.

During and after the reign of the emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century B.C. in India Buddhism was spread with missionary zeal, and was brought to Ladakh, Tibet and China by way of Kashmir. Ancient reports describe Kashmir as the center for the spread of Buddhism. According to Chinese sources 5000 monks were settled there at that time. Buddhism spread continually over the following centuries. In 78 C.E. 500 Kashmiri arhats were sent to Tibet. Scholars such as Sambhota, who was raised in Kashmir, translated religious texts and introduced and adapted the Kashmiri alphabet to the Tibetan language, which up until this time had been a purely spoken language. Fa-Hien, a Chinese on a pilgrimage to India wrote in 399 C.E. that Buddhism was flourishing in Ladakh at this time. At the beginning of the 7th century C.E. (according to Chinese dating) the first king of Ladakh made Buddhism the state religion. In the 9th century, King Langdarma of Tibet, a follower of the Bon religion, repressed Buddhism, persecuted monks and destroyed their monasteries. It was only in the 10th century that Buddhism could be re-established in Tibet; the reintroduction took place from Ladakh. The great scholar of this era was Rinchen Zangpo, who translated many Sanskrit texts into Tibetan and is reputed to have founded a total of 108 monasteries and temples. He brought painters and craftsmen from Kashmir to decorate them. They, in turn had a deep and lasting influence on the style of Tibetan religious art.

strategically important locations and elevated high above the valleys. This did not save them from being sacked and destroyed, however; primarily from the surrounding Moslem areas. Since only a few monasteries have remained unchanged since the early phase, the large and impressive structures mentioned above are for the most part what remains for us today. Smaller monasteries often consist of only one room, in larger ones on the other hand many buildings cluster around a central courtyard, in which ceremonies are celebrated and cham-dances are presented. The audience sits in a gallery that is built around the courtyard. The "dukhang" or assembly hall, is an important building, in which three areas are separated by eight or sixteen wooden pillars, and on whose interior walls scenes from the life of the Buddha, of the saints and of the prayers and ceremonies of the monks take place, and the altar of the protector-deity is here, as well. The strict monastery hierarchy is immediately apparent through the different heights of the thrones for the Dalai Lama, for example, and for the abbots and monks. In front of the monks seats are small lacquer tables for the ritual objects of Tibetan Buddhism: Diamond-scepter (vajra) and bell (as symbold of the male and female principles), hand-drums, teacups for the traditional butter tea and eating bowl. The Lhakang is the center of the monastery and is the most richly decorated area, with beautifully painted interior rooms expressing reverence to the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and protector-deities. The latter were originally harmful spirits and demons of ancient popular beliefs who according to tradition were subsequently subdued by saints and integrated as protectors of Vajrayana Buddhism. In the course of time several Lhakangs could be constructed, witness to changes in religious focus and interpretation of the teachings. For the most part the monks themselves settle below the monastery in dwellings, mostly built of adobe, that belong to them and are inherited from one generation to another within their families. Today, some of these dwellings have glass windows and electricity, and reflect the social status of the family through their size and equipment and furnishings. They often stick like honeycombs on the steep cliff faces and can only be reached by ladders. Until recently about one-fourth of the male population of Ladakh lived in monasteries; at present the tendency is declining. Monasticism is deeply bound up with the structure of the society as a whole. In most cases a family’s youngest son is raised there. The family continues to provide for his material needs. He lives together with a teacher for whom he performs small services and who is responsible for his religious and personal care. A monk takes his place in the hierarchy according to his level of education and training, with corresponding talks and duties. He is regarded as fully ordained only after he has taken the entire 225 vows. Such monks and lamas are no longer involved in worldly activities at all, but rather dedicate themselves exclusively to religion.

The monasteries, visually and culturally dominating Ladakh to an extraordinary extent, as nowhere else on earth, seem to express the way nature is experienced here in religious form. They stand on exposed place; on steep slopes, part of the mountain range itself, points of crystallization where stone, light and stillness come together. They guard treasures of many and various kinds; the treasure of wisdom, expressing itself in the practice of meditation and right world – view, the treasures of exact knowledge and mastery of the rituals for the benefit of human, and all beings through strengthening the good an driving back evil. Reincarnations of saints are revered in the persons of the abbots of the monasteries. The treasure of education is manifest in the libraries and in the effort to open up wisdom and knowledge to young people, and finally, the art treasures are what make all this aspiration visible as objects to the eye. Trained monks and other artists, enlightened through meditation and drawing on the store of religious faith and experience, have created wonderful paintings and sculptures that decorate the walls of the prayer-rooms and temples. Both the mind and the spirit can immerse themselves in contemplation of these mandalas and representations of the lives of the lives of the Buddha, the Bodhisattvas and the saints; fixed as they are in religious memory, utterly exact in their conception, style and structure. Meditation deities in all their aspects serve as aids on the inner path. The resplendent colors and richness of design of the frescoes, roll-paintings (thangkas) and statues contrast with the magnificent bareness of the monasteries architecture and the desert-like mountain landscape surrounding them.

The combination of magnificent natural vistas and interest in a unique art – historical experience has drawn a growing stream of tourists to Ladakh since it was allowed to open its borders in 1974. At the same time the Ladakhis gained the opportunity to travel themselves, exposing themselves to the western world outside and thereby to the confrontation with its life-style norms. A moderate modernization followed first reaching the cities of Leh and Kargil, but which is gradually reaching the more remote valleys as well.

Efforts at development on the part of the Indian motherland bring electric power, radio, television and western clothing. State schools with Indian teachers and a university are replacing monastic education, bringing the desire for novelty, but unfortunately also skepticism towards Ladakh’s own, traditional culture with them this traditional culture is caught up in a process of change; the first of coming fundamental changes in the society and the traditional system are already beginning to show. The monasteries are not spared this process, either. The close connection with the village populations is beginning to loosen, the number of monks and nuns is declining because of other career possibilities, in the state administration or in tourism are now available to those who would have chosen a monastic life in the past. On the other hand, western travelers who are interested in Buddhism often come for a stay in the monasteries. Lamas and abbots also travel to the outside world for longer period of time to give teachings in the new Buddhist centers abroad. In this way, Ladakh is once again becoming a starting-point for the spread of Buddhism, as it was already several times in its religious part; but now it reaches the entire world. Tourism, sparked by interest in the art treasures of Tibetan Buddhism also generates urgently needed funds for preserving them. But it is also a burden for the monasteries and its initial effects are destructive: Theft of ritual and art objects that are then sold to tourists is an unfortunate fact. In addition, the precious frescoes are getting degraded from the moisture that results due to large number of visitors. Preservation and restoration are urgently necessary to protect these unique culture.